Ashland Independent Film Festival

The 5th Annual AIFF will be held April 6-10, 2006 at the Varsity Theatre in Ashland, Oregon. The non-profit Ashland Independent Film Festival, begun in the late 90’s by a few Ashland residents who imagined an independent film festival to complement the rich artistic and cultural offerings already established in Southern Oregon, now presents films and educational programs year-round. Short and full length documentaries and feature films, student works, animation and more fill the screens of the festival for over five thousand people. The Future of Food, What The #$*! Do We Know? and The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill each won awards at early screenings in Ashland and went on to national attention and distribution.

Memberships and passes for the 2006 AIFF are available now, individual festival film and party tickets are available to members by mail and the internet in early March and at the AIFF box office at the Varsity Theatre March 20. Tickets go on sale to the general public March 22. For more information on 2006 AIFF events, how to become a member, and the AIFF in general, visit www.ashlandfilm.org or call (541) 488-3823.

2006 Film Highlights

A Thousand Roads is the signature film of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall. It was chosen by the AIFF’s Programming Committee and the 2006 Ashland Independent Film Festival will offer a rare chance to see the film without traveling to Washington, DC.

Directed by award-winning American Indian filmmaker and Klamath Falls native Chris Eyre, A Thousand Roads is a fictional work that follows the lives of four contemporary American Indians: Mohawk stockbroker, “hunting’’ in the steel and glass canyons of Manhattan; a young Inupiat girl, journeying to a new life in Barrow, Alaska; a Navajo gang member, tending sheep alone on the mesas of New Mexico; and a Quechuan healer who journeys across the Sacred Valley of the Incas in an attempt to save a sick child. With epic-sized settings that include the crest of the Andes, the ice floes of Alaska, the mesas of New Mexico and the concrete canyons of Manhattan, A Thousand Roads takes viewers on a memorable Native journey.

Eyre was immediately attracted to the vision behind the script. “It’s a little film with a lot of heart—a prayer to Native people,’’ he said. Eyre’s debut feature film, Smoke Signals, won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award and Filmmaker’s Trophy. A Thousand Roads includes performances by three Native American actors who join with non-actors from each tribal region depicted in the film. Native poet, activist and performer John Trudell narrates their journeys, drawing strength from their tribal past, to transcend the challenges of the day and embrace the promises that await them.

Suzuki Speaks captures the passion, vision and inspiration of world-renowned scientist and environmentalist Dr. David Suzuki as he speaks about the human animal and our place in the Universe. Suzuki Speaks is a fresh perspective—beyond the current paradigms shaped by scientific thought, the media and global economists. Here is a powerful, thought-provoking, and timely catalyst for change. David Suzuki delivers the most important message of his career in an intimate and dramatic presentation. His powerful words, mixed with stunning live action and digital images, create a documentary that you won’t just watch—you’ll experience!

“When I first encountered First Nations people, they told me we are made of the four sacred elements: earth, air, fire and water. As I reflected on that, I realized we’ve framed the environmental problem the wrong way. There’s no environment ‘out there’ for us to interact with. We are the environment, because we are the Earth. For me, that began a whole shift in the way that I looked at the issues that confront us and the way we live on this planet.” – David Suzuki

Trudell follows the life work of Native Ameri-can poet and activist John Trudell. Film-maker Heather Rae has spent more than a decade chronicling his travels, spoken word and politics in a poetic naturally stylized man-ner. The film combines archival, concert and interview footage with abstract imagery mirror-ing the coyote nature of Trudell himself.

The Real Dirt on Farmer John is a character study/docudrama depicting a 55-year span in the life of John Peterson and his rural Illinois family farm seen through family home movies, photographs, film and video. Filmmaker Taggart Siegel has documented John’s struggle to redefine his family farm for over twenty years, witnessing the colorful drama of John’s life. It is a gripping, emotional story of the transformation of the individual and his community: The terrors of nonconformity within an insular, traditional society, its resistance to change and diversity, and the necessity for innovation and risk in response to changing circumstances. Through the power of personal acceptance, and the melding of tradition and activism, John reinvents the family farm as a chemical-free, consumer-involved paean to food and all its rich sensual delight. A rich immersion in the past, detailed in beautifully evocative Super 8 home movies shot during the 1950s by John’s mother, Anna, offers the audience a truly sympathetic understanding of the lost idyll of this way of life. John defies all odds to transform his land into a revolutionary farming community, with the renaissance of the farm created by consumer support for the farmer who raises the food.

At the film’s close, the Peterson family farm is one of the largest Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms in the United States—Angelic Organics today provides more than one thousand families in the Chicago area a weekly delivery of vegetables and herbs. Out of the ruins of single-crop agriculture, John creates an extended farm village where people and art can thrive alongside agriculture. The Real Dirt on Farmer John is a culmination of John’s life as a farmer, writer and activist, and a story that unearths the fate of the American farmer and the impact it has on all of us.

February/March 2006

Politics and the Web of Life
Lesley Adams

Another World Is Possible
Gar Alperovitz

The Cochabamba Water Revolt
Jim Schultz

In the Kingdom of the Half-Blind
Bill Moyers

The Man Who Sold the Iraq War
Amy Goodman interviews James Bamford

The Translucent Revolution
Arjuna Ardagh

Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble
Lester Brown

Is There a Friendlier Option for a Post-peak Future?
Bill McKibben

Awakening The Unique Potential in Each Child
Danella M. Shea

The Education of Jarvis Masters
Anna Smith

The Ashland Independent Film Festival

5th Annual Siskiyou Environmental Film Festival

Daily Life and Stillness
Christine Breese, DD, Ph.D

The Science of Spiritual Marketing
Andrea Adler

Books in Brief
Moksha Mokma

Necessity is the Mother of Invention
Asha Deliverance

Cosmic Calendar
Salina Rain

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