Honorable Mention: Girl in the Hallway (Valerie Barnhart)
Honorable Mention: The Kite (Martin Smatana)
Official Selections Big Wolf and Little Wolf (Remi Durin) The Bird and the Whale (Carol Freeman) Coaster (Amos Sussigan) Daughter (Daria Kashcheeva) Don’t Feed These Animals (Guilherme Afonso and Miguel Madaíl de Freitas) Flower Found! (Jorn Leeuwerink) Flowing Through Wonder (Joanna Lurie) The Fox and the Bird (Fred Guillaume and Sam Guillaume) Hors Piste (Léo Brunel, Loris Cavalier, Camille Jalabert, and Oscar Malet) The Lonely Orbit (Benjamin Morard and Frederic Siegel) Racing the Sunset (Nikolas Smith) Sister (Siqi Song) Symbiosis (Nadja Andrasev) Two (Emre Okten) Wild Love (Paul Autric, Quentin Camus, Léa Georges, Maryka Laudet, Zoé Sottiaux, Corentin Yvergniaux)
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Documentary Feature Prairie Spirit Award Winner and Honorable Mention: Balkowitsch (Chelsy Ciaverella and Gregory DeSaye)
Official Selections Changing the Game (Michael Barnett) Decoding the Driftless (Jonas Stenstrom) False Confessions (Katrine Philp) Prey (Matt Gallagher) The Pollinators (Peter Nelson) Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street (Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen)
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Documentary Short Winner: R.A.W. Tuba (Darren Durlach and David Larson)
Honorable Mention: 25 Texans in the Land of Lincoln (Ellen Brodsky)
Official Selections Everything You Wanted to Know About Sudden Birth (But Were Afraid to Ask) [Scott Calonico] The Iron Grandmother (Emily Sheskin) The Litas (William Desena) The Traffic Separating Device (Johan Palmgren) Undue Burdens (Andrea Raby)
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Experimental Winner: Blooming (Lingyun Zheng)
Honorable Mention: Chairs (Avner Pinchover)
Official Selections Patron (Emily Haigh and Alon Young) Spring II (Ed Carter)
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Narrative Feature Winner: Hearts and Bones (Ben Lawrence)
Honorable Mention: International Falls (Amber McGinnis)
Honorable Mention: The Planters (Alexandra Kotcheff and Hannah Leder)
Official Selections Alice (Josephine Mackerras) Book Week (Heath Davis) The Garden Left Behind (Flavio Alves) Lost Bayou (Brian C. Miller Richard) Red Rover (Shane Belcourt) Saint Frances (Alex Thompson) The Wretched (Brett Pierce and Drew Pierce)
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Narrative Short Winner: The Neighbors’ Window (Marshall Curry)
Honorable Mention: Brotherhood (Meryam Joobeur)
Official Selections Anna Karenina (Yana Sar) Aziza (Soudade Kaadan) Butterfly (Bonnie Foster) Change (Alec Holland) The Christmas Gift (Bogdan Muresanu) Dead Animals (David Oesch and Remo Rickenbacher) Distinguished Feelings (Keren Marciano) Extra Innings (John Gray) The Field (Sandhya Suri) Floating (Frankie De Leonardis) Green (Suzanne Andrews Correa) The Inuring (James Hughes) Kanari (Erlendur Sveinsson) King Wah (I Think I Love You) [Horatio Baltz] Let Mercy Come (Andrew Serban) Made Public (Foster Wilson) The Minors (Robert Machoian) Norm (Amanda Kaye) Peggy (Justin O’Neal Miller) Sometimes, I Think About Dying (Stefanie Abel Horowitz) Unkept (Michael P. Vidler) Unleashed (Jonathan Levy)
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Student Winner: Progeny (Justin Daering)
Honorable Mention: Florence (Emanuele Daga)
Official Selections Bird of Paradise (Alexander Zorn) Blueberry (Martina Lee) Fraser Syndrome and Me (Kyle Anne Grendys) Ghazaal (Ragini Bhasin) In My Eyes (Vincent Dorazio) Jack and Anna (Ksenia Ivanova) Moonwalk with Me (So Young Shelly Yo) Reverb (Arsal Asal) A Sidewalk Becomes a Street (Chris Lee) Tuesday (Margo E. Sawaya)
The Fargo Film Festival is proud to share the program art for our 20th anniversary season. Fargo-based Punchgut, whose design for the 2009 festival continues to be one of the most popular in FFF history, returns with another wonderful image.
Congratulations to filmmaker Tim Pattinson, whose animated short Domestic Cat won first place in the Fargo Film Festival’s 2019 2-Minute Movie Contest.
Second place went to Caibai Cai’s Pining, and Ari Fararooy’s A Video received third place.
Forty-five movies representing multiple countries and states screened in the showcase, one of the longest-running events of its kind.
The 2-Minute Movie Contest will return for the festival’s twentieth anniversary in 2020.
The Fargo Film Festival is proud to announce the line-up of selections for the annual 2-Minute Movie Contest. Forty-five movies from around the world, representing student, amateur, and professional filmmakers, will be screened at the Fargo Theatre on Friday, March 22, 2019.
Animation, live action, nonfiction, and experimental approaches are just some of the creative and inspiring techniques explored by emerging talent and veteran storytellers.
The winning movie will also be screened during the closing evening showcase on Saturday, March 23. For those unable to attend the screening, the top three films will be announced on this website that same Saturday morning.
The 2019 2-Minute Movie Contest starts at 9:00 p.m. and admission is two dollars. Those attending the previous session, An Evening with Richard Edlund, do not require a separate ticket or additional admission charge.
1980Yen’s Takoyaki Story (Sawako Kabuki) Absence (Alex Goddard) Alma (Valere Amirault and Lili des Bellons) Baby Baby (Aggelos Papantoniou) The Balking Dead (John Maslowski) Bear’s Leafy Day (Scott Sailer) Blip (John Akre) Bon Apetit (Saman Haghighivand) Bored of America (Nick Biewer and Joe Greening) Brain Wave (Jake Fried) Bringing Schools to Where There Are None (Gianmarco D’Agostino) The Buggyman (Karolina Kraus) Domestic Cat (Tim Pattinson) Enough (Anna Mantzaris) The Girl Who Spoke (Michael Ottone) Gossip Ghouls (Desmond Confoy) Gruesome Filmmaking Accidents (Aaron Crume) Hacked (Summer Ward) HNY 2019 (Vladimir Tomin) Hotline (Kyle Odefey) I Hate Mowing the Lawn (Jason Schumacher) If You Can (Hanna Rybak) Invisible Heel (Ryan Simantel) Janus (Chris Cook and Madeline Malone) La Cathedrale (Benjamin Bardou) Light (Reza Golchin) A Man Sits on a Chair in a Field and Drinks a Cup of Tea (Paul Bailey) Michael! (Kevin Ackley) Mirror Mirror (Jackie Siminerio) No Shit Show (Nathalie Cusson, Joshua Cox, Solomon Burbridge) Penny (Emily McNeill) Perfume King (Ava Papunen) Pining (Caibei Cai) Plushophilia (Mauricio Marces) Profound Deafness: Overcoming the Challenge (Dorothy Fadiman) Stalked (Emma Jayne Farkas) Tying the Knot (Kera McGovern) Ultager Hirde (Kacper Slonina) A Video (Ari Fararooy) Wacipi (John Gigrich) Wanderlust (Emily McNeill) What They Can’t Say (Alexandra Weitzman) You Are Enough (Summer Ward) Yowza-chan Falls in Love with a Cat (Zheng Kang) Zipperman (Edward Linder)
Do you want to see the best of what the Fargo Film Festival has to offer? Enter the Best of the Fest Sweepstakes! One lucky winner will receive two passes valid for all movie screenings on Saturday, March 23.
Nicknamed the “Best of the Fest” day, programming includes award-winning films and exciting special guests. You’ll see Academy Award nominated movies, selections from the Sundance and Cannes film festivals, and FFF winners across all categories/genres. Plus, you and a guest will be invited to go to the exclusive closing night wrap party.
To enter, simply post a picture from any movie you consider one of the best over the next week. Make sure to tag the Fargo Film Festival and use #fffbestofthefest in the post. The winner will be announced on Monday, March 18t. Enter today and win your exclusive pass to some amazing films.
Official Sweepstakes Rules
Eligibility: Best of the Fest (the “Sweepstakes”) is open to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and the District of Columbia.
How to Enter The Sweepstakes begins on March 12, 2019 and ends on March 18, 2019 (the “Sweepstakes Period”). Entries that are submitted before or after the Sweepstakes Period will be disqualified. To enter, participants will post a picture of one of their favorite movies on their social media platforms. For the post to be eligible, they must tag the Fargo Film Festival and use the hashtag #fffbestofthefest. Participants only need to post on one platform, which can be their personal Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. The Fargo Film Festival social media accounts, one of which the participants must tag in the post include: Facebook: @FargoFilmFest Instagram: @fargofilmfest Twitter: @FargoFilmFest
Prize Drawing On March 18, 2019, the Sponsor will select the potential winner in a random drawing from among all eligible entries received. The odds of being selected depend on the number of entries received. The Sponsor will attempt to notify the potential winner via social media on or about March 18, 2019. If the potential winner cannot be contacted within 24 hours after the date of the first attempt to contact him/her, the Sponsor may select an alternate potential winner in his/her place at random from the remaining non-winning, eligible entries.
Prizes * 2 tickets to the morning, afternoon, and evening sessions on Saturday, March 23. * 2 invitations to the closing night wrap party at the Radisson * 1 Fargo Film Festival T-shirt
The Fargo Film Festival is proud to announce the regional premiere of “To the Stars,” the latest feature from Northern Lights Films and producers Jeff Schlossman, Karen Schlossman, Bill Wallwork, and Erik Rommesmo.
Directed by Martha Stephens, “To the Stars” premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival in the festival’s challenging feature film competition. Out of more than 14,250 submissions, just 112 films made the cut.
The film stars Kara Hayward, Liana Liberato, Shea Whigham, Tony Hale, and Malin Akerman.
“To the Stars” will screen at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 23 at the Fargo Theatre.
Tickets are now on sale at the Fargo Theatre box office.
Bonafide modern classic “Napoleon Dynamite” celebrates fifteen years of sweet jumps with a victory tour featuring stars Jon Heder and Efren Ramirez. As part of the 2019 Fargo Film Festival, Jade Presents will bring the film to the Fargo Theatre on Thursday, March 21. Heder and Ramirez will participate in an on-stage discussion following the movie.
Ramirez spoke to High Plains Reader film editor Greg Carlson about becoming an accidental icon.
GC: Have you ever been to North Dakota?
ER: No, I never have. I’ve done a couple tours, traveling to promote a series or a feature film or when I DJ or speak at schools, but I’ve never been to North Dakota. I’m excited to spend some time getting to know the town and the people.
GC: You were born in Los Angeles and got into performance when you were pretty young.
ER: I did. It gave my parents the ability to show my brothers and me that we didn’t have to beat each other up at home. We could do other things in life.
GC: Did you take theatre classes?
ER: We went to a private school that had after-school programs in drama and theatre. So, maybe, as I’m thinking about this, my mom and dad just wanted to get rid of us. I grew up with four brothers. Five guys destroying each other and destroying the house. We would drive my mom crazy. So she said, “How about the theatre? You can put your drama on stage.”
I never knew then that it would lead to where I am now. It wasn’t a serious thing, because you’re a kid and you do theatre because there was nothing else to do! I grew up in a rough neighborhood and my parents wanted us to do something different, which was understandable, and very fortunate for us.
For me, it made me who I am now. It was only in college when I started to do auditions for plays in Hollywood and do theatre there. I got an agent and got sent out for commercial auditions and small parts in TV shows. I started to land some jobs and things just started to get bigger and bigger. It became my profession and now it’s my career.
GC: What was the gig that made you say “This is what I want to do for a living”?
ER: I did a movie called “Kazaam.”
GC: With Shaq!
ER: With Shaquille O’Neal. Shaquille O’Neal playing a genie. I remember booking the movie and hearing, “You’ll be working for several weeks.” I thought, “Wow! I’m going to be in a film! Shaquille O’Neal plays for the Lakers and he’s going to be a genie! Alright!”
We had to work with his schedule, which was all over the place. So we were on the film for quite some time. I remember that it wasn’t just the joy of acting, but the joy of being on a set. A film set.
On a commercial you work for a day or two, but when you’re working on a film, you observe directors, producers, the other actors, the writers, the crew, and you see all the challenges of making a feature film. I liked learning what cinema does. I liked filmmaking.
I was studying Stella Adler then and part of the homework was watching two films every week. You move from film noir to films of the 70s to drama to comedy to musicals. I was really fascinated by this. Exploring different characters, I learned to be versatile, so I was fortunate to spend this time studying before that moment of “Napoleon Dynamite.”
GC: Which of those films stood out?
ER: “Taxi Driver,” “Easy Rider,” “Midnight Cowboy,” “On the Waterfront,” “The Godfather.” When you watch movies at home, you turn on the TV, you flip through the channels, and they appear. You may not be taking the time to really study them. But in school, you watch these movies for what they really are and learn how these stories get told.
The films of the 1970s opened up a curious eye for me. I started to see what these actors were doing. What does it mean for me and what can I do? As a young actor on stage, you might do Tennessee Williams, some Shakespeare, and think, “This is possible, I can play Hamlet. Let’s see what happens next.”
GC: If not Hamlet, what is your dream role?
ER: Oh, man. Maybe the life of Emiliano Zapata. Or maybe the life of Salvador Dali.
I have recently been working on a show with Sir Ben Kingsley and Luis Guzman and they are mind-blowing. I feel very lucky because of “Napoleon Dynamite.” You play such an iconic character and some actors go, “I’m never going to work again. That’s it.” But for me, the challenges of auditions and screen tests allow an opportunity to take on stuff that’s completely different.
GC: When did you realize that “Napoleon Dynamite” was going to be special?
ER: I was doing “Italian American Reconciliation” here in Los Angeles and my friends and I decided we were going to visit the mall. Hot Topic had the exclusive rights to sell a bunch of “Napoleon Dynamite” stuff. I just got bombarded. People started shouting, “It’s Pedro!” It became a madhouse! It was insane. I had never experienced anything like that. It just got bigger and bigger.
To this day, it’s surprising and it’s fun. I go to middle schools, high schools, and college campuses and I talk to students about education. Even after all these years, the kids go bananas.
GC: You take the responsibility of Pedro seriously.
ER: You have to take comedy very seriously. And you take the drama with an ounce of comedy. Because if you can’t laugh about it, you’re screwed.
GC: How did you get into DJing? Were you a record collector as a kid?
ER: My older brothers used to be DJs in the LA scene, so I would carry their crates of records when I was a teenager. I quickly moved up from playing with Transformers toys to exploring an interest in girls. Oh, she likes Prince? I like Prince too. She likes Depeche Mode? I like Depeche Mode.
My brothers taught me how to DJ, and I would learn different genres. To this day, I have my records of the Cure, the Smiths, the Cult, Siouxsie and the Banshees. Later, Nine Inch Nails. Old school LL Cool J and Run-DMC. I love to mix genres when the beats match, even though my brothers told me to never mix genres.
GC: What’s your go-to song?
ER: In a bar, it’s always “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” Who doesn’t love Guns N’ Roses? Come on, man! For newer stuff, I might put on Greta Van Fleet. People get pulled into it and I’m like, “Heck yes!” For hip-hop, you can play anything by Public Enemy or Kendrick Lamar. There’s so much great music now, and people are open to the mix of new and old. I really like that.
GC: I saw a picture of you DJing and you were wearing a “Game of Thrones” shirt. Are you House Stark or House Lannister?
ER: There are so many great TV shows on! “Game of Thrones” is awesome. “The Walking Dead” is awesome. I really want to see the third season of “True Detective.” I have a few friends on “Narcos.” When I read a script, I ask “Is this character driven? Is this plot driven?” And the next question I ask is, “Can I play this person?”
Some roles are harder than others. I don’t know if I could do a Neil LaBute play. It’s so dark! Or anything by George Bernard Shaw. How many words did this guy write?
Sometimes I think, “I’m not there yet.” And that’s the honest truth. I may tell the director, “I’m afraid, can you help me with this?” Other times I say, “I’m not going to be Cartel Member Number 4. Don’t offer me that part. Give me something where you can see the character’s life in their eyes.” That’s what is interesting to me.
GC: How has Los Angeles changed since you were a kid?
ER: Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, I saw “Miami Vice,” “Knight Rider,” “CHiPs.” They’re shooting in my neighborhood! How do I get involved? How do I do that?
And now as I listen to you speak, what crosses my mind is “Donnie Darko.” It is one of my favorite films, because Donnie sacrifices his life for another person. And the tone and the setting in the 1980s, and it also has that noir feel to it. And the mystery. I liked the possibility that there was something more out there.
I would have liked to have someone come to me and say, “They are no different from you. They are just another version of you. And you can do it. You just have to find your path.” That’s all I needed.
GC: I love the idea of “Just another version of you.” I learned about it from the Norman Lear documentary.
ER: Your biggest nemesis is yourself. I was lucky landing “Napoleon Dynamite” at the very moment when I was wondering, “Where am I going? What am I doing? Is there going to be a result?” The result was always there. A black belt doesn’t realize he’s a black belt until he starts kicking ass.
GC: What is the best thing about touring with “Napoleon Dynamite”?
ER: That after fifteen years there can be almost sold-out shows and you see kids who are seven to ten years old wearing Vote for Pedro shirts. Parents who were in their twenties and weren’t married then go back with their children now. And the kids and the parents are quoting Napoleon or quoting Pedro. The movie connects how different we are to how similar we are. “Napoleon Dynamite” gives us the permission that it’s OK. We’re all trying our hardest to do something good.
GC: When you visit the Fargo Theatre in March, I will be one of those parents with kids wearing Vote for Pedro shirts.
ER: So cool, so cool. My question to you is, can we walk around Fargo and find William H. Macy as he scrapes his windshield?
Tickets for Napoleon Dynamite: A Conversation with Jon Heder and Efren Ramirez are available now at Jade Presents.
