Red Rock Film Festival shows vary from family films to the controversial
By Matt Marxstein
The Red Rock Film Festival will begin at 2 p.m. Nov. 1 with several shorts and will culminate with international college shorts and an underground feature.
It’s not the content of indie feature “Feral” that’s raising eyebrows, it’s how the film was made. The film was directed by Andrew Wonder, who has taken his adventures with urban explorer Steve Duncan. They risk possible arrest and sometimes their lives as they dive into the underground world of abandoned subway stations, city tunnels, bridges, and sewers.
In “Feral,” he takes his actors into some of these locations as the story follows a homeless woman living in the tunnels below New York City.
Also playing in the St. George section of the film festival is Joe Raffa’s “Dark Harbor,” which explores dark secrets left behind from a pregnant woman’s missing father in Maine.
As the festival continues to program films on humanity and social justice, three Native American films will be screened. Sophie and Clement Guerra’s “The Condor & The Eagle” follows four indigenous environmental leaders as they embark on an extraordinary transcontinental adventure to unite the people of North and South America and deepen the meaning of “climate justice.” Paige Sparks’s “Common Ground: The Story of Bears Ears” brings viewers into the small communities of San Juan County where a fierce debate about public land is underway. Greg Balkin and Len Necefer’s “Welcome to Gwichyaa Zhee” contrasts the support for indigenous groups in southern Utah to a way of life and caribou in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Collegiate Shorts competition may be the most diverse competition at the festival with entries from USA, New Zealand, Ukraine, Serbia, and Canada — with Jonah Haber’s family film from Canada called “Midnight Marathon” about what happens when the whole world is hypnotized by an unexplained celestial event while three boys are watching a marathon of a sci-fi TV series.
More family films are also on the schedule, such as Julio Vincent Gambuto’s “Team Marco” about a boy addicted to his electronics and his traditional Italian grandfather’s attempt to get the kid outdoors and learn bocce ball.
“[It is] a great story for young viewers about bridging a generational gap,” said festival previewer Arjan Brentjes.
The films will play at the Dixie Center Auditorium at 1835 Convention Center Dr. in St. George Nov. 1–5 from 2 to 11 p.m. Nov. 1 and noon to 11 p.m. on other days with different screenings at the Cedar Theater at 33 N. Main St. in Cedar City. Tickets are available at the door or online at redrockfilmfestival.com.
