Boston Dispatch. 2.

Is it truly already Day Six? How'd that happen?

The cinetrix had heard the rumors before arriving, but now she can confirm that filmmakers really do love the Independent Film Festival of Boston. Day and night you see first-timers and seasoned vets alike milling about the lobbies, bent in conversation at local bars and restaurants, and happily answering audience questions at Q&As right up until the next screening is scheduled to seat.

Long absent from the silver screen, director Tom Kalin brought Savage Grace to the Coolidge Corner Friday, the night before its Tribeca nod. He spoke candidly and at length about why it'd taken so long after Swoon to get Grace made, its genesis as a gift from producer Christine Vachon of the book on which the true-life tale is based, and how the vagaries of international financing can affect casting.

Robb Moss explained Saturday how he'd moved from autobiographical docs like The Same River Twice to shooting Secrecy with codirector Peter Galison. Moss wryly observed that "It's a really crappy idea" because you couldn't choose a less visual subject than what we are forbidden to see. The result, however, is a riveting and truly enraging look at the modern history of United States governmental secrecy policy, from the 1950s Supreme Court decision that set the precedent for the state secrets privilege clause to the recent Hamdan v. Rumsfeld et al. decision that upended the confidentiality culture shrouding military tribunals in the war on terror.

Following the screening of her debut doc Wild Blue Yonder, Celia Maysles also spoke frankly about a difficult subject, in this case the chilling effect of her uncle Albert's refusal to let her see or use any footage by or of her father, David Maysles, who died when she was seven years old. Now an expert in fair use law, Celia explained how Al's failure to cooperate pushed her to go deeper, unearthing Lois from the Grey Gardens birthday sequence, video of her father from the Larry Rivers foundation, even Olga Silverstein, her father's former therapist, to compile a portrait perhaps as personal as the solo film Blue Yonder that her dad was working on when he died. She noted, too, that had IDFA not accepted her film last fall, she doubted it would have ever screened in her father's hometown.

Nanette Burstein packed the house for Sundance fave American Teen, a film the cinetrix will predict right now will unseat Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and those penguins as the top-grossing doc of all time after it's released this August. Additional screenings of two other crowd-pleasers have been added to Monday night's line-up. Twelve, directed by twelve of Boston's best up-and-coming directors, sold out its World Premiere screening and packed a 900-seat theater. And Crawford, a look at the effect of the First Family's residency on the Texas town, sold out two screenings so far and is going for a third.

Still to come: Sunday and Monday highlights and the audience award winners.

More from Boston here; earlier: Dispatch 1.

Posted by dwhudson at April 28, 2008 10:31 AM