“Documentaries - In Short Order”
May 11, 2006
Missoulian

They came from all over the world - from Italy, China, the United States and elsewhere. But in the end, fully one-quarter of the best of them came from one town: Missoula, Montana.

Such were the results of the first International Documentary Challenge, a competition wherein teams of filmmakers were tasked to create a short-form documentary film within the span of five days.

Five teams from Missoula entered films in the competition. Last week, IDC judges announced the 12 finalists in the competition. Of those finalists, three were from Missoula. No other city in the world landed more finalists and only Los Angeles had as many.

"I think that says alot about our local filmmaking community," says Damon Ristau, whose documentary about local band, the Volumen was named among the 12 finalists. "Missoula has long been a hub for the arts, but because of things like (the University of Montana's) Media Arts Program, High Plains Films, the International Wildlife Film Festival and the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, this town is becoming a hub for film as well."

In all, 74 films were entered into the competition, which was organized by filmmaker Doug Whyte of St. Louis, Missouri in cooperation with the International Documentary Association.

Filmmakers were given five days to shoot and edit a four-to-eight minute documentary. Each filmmaking team was assigned a general category, such as sports or politics; the category was revealed to them the night before the competition was to begin. Filmmakers were also assigned a theme, which this year was "freedom."

Ristau was assigned music as his general category. A few quick calls led him to the Volumen, who happened to be headed out on tour the very next day. Ristau hopped in the band's tour van and began shooting, using a handheld digital video camera. He edited the film on his laptop computer as he went.

"I didn't get much sleep," Ristau says, "I'd party until 3 am with the band, then we'd be on the road again by 8 am. The band would sleep in the van, but I would have to edit."

Local artist and filmmaker Toni Matlock says here team, dubbed the Three Blind Mice, tried to prepare ideas in advance for several of the possible topic areas, but when they were given "sports" they were initially thrown for a loop.

"We had prepared for a lot of possibilities, but we hadn't even considered sports," says Matlock.

Nonetheless, the team of local filmmakers, which included Marianne Zugel, Tonya Easbey and Greg Twigg, set out looking for local subjects. Soon enough, they found themselves interviewing skiers at Snowbowl, as well as local kayakers and ice fishermen.

The resulting film, Riding on Impulse, focuses on what those pursuits mean to the people who practice them.

"I don't get downhill skiing, definitely don't get kayaking, and sure as hell not ice fishing," admits Matlock with a laugh. "But these people we found really resonated with it. We ended up finding these great characters who were really passionate about why these things mattered to them."

Doug Hawes-Davis, Gita Saedi and Ken Furrow, a trio of filmmakers from local documentary company, High Plains Films, also earned a spot in the finals of the competition with their entry, Star Spangled Blues. The film is a first person meditation on family, war and American values, written and narrated by Saedi.

Hawes-Davis says that the group was initially stymied by its assignment to make a first-person film.

"Ken and I both pretty well threw our hands in the air," says Hawes-Davis. "We had no plan whatsoever. Gita, though, thought she could write something that could become the basis of the film, and she really came through with her script."

"When you only have a weekend to do something, you kinda just have to go with it and not second-guess your direction once you're committed," says Saedi. "We came up with a few ideas that first night...and just went with it."

The three locally made films will be screened along with other finalists in an event in Washington, DC, sometime in July, where one film will be awarded a $1000 grand prize. The films are slated for screening in other documentary festivals around the world, including the DOCNZ International Documentary Festival in New Zealand and at a theatrical event presented by the Documentary Organisation of Canada.

That wide exposure made the whirlwind experience of participating in the challenge worth it, says Saedi. And, she notes, living in Missoula made it possible.

"Getting a chance to do something national and international is rare," says Saedi. "I think we're also lucky enough to be part of a subculture that allows the time to commit to a crazy weekend project like this. I feel like if I were in Chicago I would've been too busy with other work to take the time, but here it's more acceptable to do something for yourself."