I stepped into the DIFF hospitality lounge on day two of the fest ready to set my lineup. I had already sent my list of preferred screenings to the address I was given in my welcome email, but for some reason, no one responded. Neither were any of my selections linked to my account. After a few minutes of exceptional help from a hospitality volunteer, I was ready to go with fifteen screenings booked over the course of the remaining six days of the fest.
If picking and choosing between the selections on offer at the three festivals I’ve covered so far has taught me anything, it’s that I have a clear bias towards documentaries. The first doc I screened at DIFF was devastating. Director Matthieu Rytz’s film Deep Rising – unrelated to the 1998 creature feature of the same name starring Treat Williams – is one part stunningly photographed nature film, one part blaring siren, warning of the danger lurking in the nascent movement to transition society to sustainable energy sources.
Deep Rising isn’t some right-wing fever dream lamenting how electric cars will “turn the friggin’ frogs gay.” Instead, it attacks renewable energy from the left (my favorite kind of attack). The subtitle for the film could be Billionaires Won’t Save the Planet. The film sets the stage for what we stand to lose – the billionaire disruptors are set to foul the last pristine ecosystem left on earth, miles under the ocean; the film makes a compelling case that this operation will have disastrous consequences for the entire planet – with majestic images of the vibrant yet unimaginably delicate creatures of the deep.
Scattered across the ocean floor are black nodules about the size of an orange. They contain rich deposits of the metals that make electronics – including the batteries we’ve been told will help end manmade climate change – run.
In steps our villain.
DeepGreen (recently rebranded as The Metals Company) CEO Gerard Barron is the latest in the Elon Musk mold of morbidly rich assholes who talk about using the power of commerce to change the world.
Basically, as Rytz makes clear in the film, Barron wants his company to be the Standard Oil of the 21st century. Barron’s goal – which he’s already started working on – is to turn these highly valuable nodules into the next oil boom. Unfortunately, vacuuming up these items and destroying the precious, life-sustaining environment where they are found threatens to have the same effect on our world as burning dinosaur squishins.
With narration from the sonorous voice of Jason Momoa (who also served as executive producer on the film) Deep Rising tracks the history of deep-sea mining and how profit became the only concern for those charged with protecting one of Earth’s most precious ecosystems. (Ronald Reagan, of course, helped in the effort.)
I walked out of Deep Rising in an existential crisis. Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes lifted my spirits considerably. The doc focuses on the legendary drummer and civil rights activist, whose incendiary talent behind the drums was matched only by his dedication to social and racial justice. We get a taste of the latter in the opening minutes of the film when we see a clip of Roach dismissing the term jazz. He doesn’t play jazz, Roach tells us, he plays African-American music. That’s a much more fitting name, he explains, as jazz is a uniquely Black art form.
Directors Samuel Pollard and Ben Shapiro – no, not that one – showcase both Roach’s unimaginable talent for trailblazing new musical paths and agitating for meaningful racial justice. The closing rendition of Roach’s famous piece, The Drum Also Waltzes, is worth the price of admission alone.
Those two films were half of day two. (I really need to figure out how to distill a capsule review to only a sentence or two. I can’t help it; I get carried away). Other films I’ve seen that resonated with me include a harrowing portrait of body dysmorphia and eating disorders called Parachute. It stars Courtney Eaton – if you’re into the buzzy Showtime series Yellowjackets, you’ll know her as the teenage version of Lottie – and was directed and cowritten by Brittany Snow of Pitch Perfect fame.
The Eternal Memory is a moving Chilean documentary about the horrors of Alzheimer’s disease. The most crushing moment of the picture comes when Paulina tells Augusto, her partner of 25 years, that he spent all morning not recognizing her. It’s the longest he’s ever been in his Alzheimer’s haze, and she fears the day he will no longer recognizer her at all.
I was also able to see Shane, the classic western from 1953, for the first time. For all but one of the 17 annual DIFF events, one man has programmed a classic film for exhibition. I’m a sucker for repertory screenings, so I made sure to make this one a priority.
I’ll close here, now that I’ve given you a taste – and I’ve only scratched the surface; check out my Letterboxd diary if you don’t believe me – of what I’ve been up to at DIFF. I’ll report back in a few days with a post mortem as the fest’s last day is today.
Cheers!