The 2nd Annual Topanga Film Festival gives the local community a chance to communicate film experience from different cultural views with a large outdoor screen at Topanga’s Community House.
By Austen Tate / Special to The Malibu Times
Last year’s film festival took place at Urs and Sara Baur’s house in Topanga Canyon.
“We told friends to tell friends by putting up flyers locally,” Urs Baur said. “It was inspiring and successful on a smaller scale. Everyone walked away and said, ‘Next year I’ll have a film here.'”
This year, the 2nd annual Topanga Film Festival-with 17 unique, short films ranging from 1 minute to 27 minutes long-took place at the Topanga Community House’s open field, under a full moon Saturday night, hosted by the Baurs, along with festival producer Nicole Einhorn and master of ceremonies Billy Portman.
Lights hung from trees, a large inflatable screen filled the center of the field and audience members gathered under the stars with blankets and chairs.
Urs and Sara Baur have traveled all over the world with their own films and moved to Topanga eight years ago.
“I really like the experience of film festivals,” the Swiss-born Urs said. ” … Putting on a film festival is not like making a film because first you have to inspire people, tell them it is a good idea and then, you get them to think it’s a good idea and you’ve got to keep them on track. It takes a life and momentum of its own.”
Keeping the event truly local, all but one of the judges were Topangans. They included KCRW Music Director Nic Harcourt, architect and filmmaker Jean Michel Crettaz, director/director of photography Randall Einhorn (the one nonTopangan), actor Bill Fagerbakke and actress/writer Kathie Gibboney.
The festival certainly had the feel of community as families came to support the local filmmakers and the community club, which is open to Topanga children for sports activities and concerts for holiday occasions.
One hundred thirty entries had come from all over the world-Germany, India, New Zealand-and the films presented Saturday night varied widely in subject and style. For example, “The Game,” a 1-minute short with words placed on a Scrabble board, directed by Jill Bayer, and “H2OH NO!” a 10-minute short documentary about alleged nuclear chemicals at a lab located 11 miles from Topanga, directed by William Preston Bowling.
Pi Ware and Susan Kraker took home The Coveted Coyote Award, hand crafted by local artist Chuck Bateman, and the $30,000 Panavision Award for video-film rentals for their film “The Act,” a story about a woman’s journey in the stand-up comedian business and the stresses of her life at home.
Topangan Bob Bresnik has been a filmmaker in Topanga for 30 years and had a short titled “The Porch” in last year’s festival. After spending a year in Central and South America, Bresnik had seen the image of Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara everywhere, leaving the “symbol of hope” imprinted in his memory. Later he watched “The Motorcycle Diaries” and it “reminded me of my experience in South America,” Bresnik said. He was inspired to “pull pictures from the Internet, pictures of icons, people who took action and changed the world” to make his film “Icon,” submitted for this year’s festival. Bresnik calls the film a “tone-poem.”
The Topanga film festival also brought films like “Blessing,” directed by Suju Vijayan and produced by husband Mike Blum. The film is a story about a mother and daughter relationship, their issues within their Indian-American family and the small event that brings them to a better understanding of each other. The couple wrote, directed and edited the 14-minute short over the course of a year. Vijayan comes from a background working with for cable and public TV. She said the idea of the film came from the reality “that most of us don’t really know our parents that well, and if we are lucky, we get the opportunity to get to know them a little bit better.”
Reflecting the current strife in the Middle East, “Tel Aviv,” brought Brazilian director Richard Goldgewicht, writer Amy Klein from Rio and New Yorker producer Jeremy Goldscheider together to make a “project for Israel.” The story is about a Jew who gets stranded in Israel and is rescued by Palestinians, Klein said.
“The story comes at a time of strife, but is a message of peace,” Goldscheider added. “The piece is about what we wanted to tell, without any influence.”
Sara and Urs Baur said they were very happy with the turnout this year for the Topanga Film Festival.
“The films [that night reflected], as a whole, the spectrum of what’s possible in filmmaking,” Sara said.