Find the common thread: Burlesque, female prisoners, rodeo, goats, guns, prom, Sycamore trees, chicken liberation, poker, and Mayan traditions.
These were the subjects of films in the fifth Hartford International Film Festival held this past weekend. It also marked the first time that I had ventured into Art Cinema, a movie-house on Franklin Avenue. It was built in 1919, has a balcony, cheap candy, and a listing as one of Hartford’s top places for cruising. Though it did show actual art films at one time, it is now, almost exclusively, an adult movie theater. This venue has allowed use of its space for the Hartford International Film Festival before and is the site for festival films that tend toward mature themes. Saturday’s film, Behind the Burly Q played there, and while plenty of skin was on the screen, it would take a wild imagination to associate this with pornography. This film is an historical documentary of burlesque, featuring interviews with many of the performers who are now elderly or deceased. They talked about everything from competition between performers to what compelled women to perform striptease acts during the comedy shows.
This was not the only film featuring women pushing against societal norms. Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo, screened in the Mark Twain Museum Center, showed a series of females from the Oklahoma prison system. As noted in the film, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and Oklahoma has the highest female incarceration rate in the United States. Many of these women will enter the system with the same charges as their boyfriends/husbands, so the film indicates, and spend more time behind bars. Most seemed to be in prison for drug or drug-related charges. Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo shows training for the annual rodeo that features male and female prisoners. Those with demerits are not allowed to participate and those who do risk being stomped or gored by bulls. This film provided an interesting look at how even a gladiator event can help build character.
Other highlights of the festival included Alamar, The Auspix, Artois the Goat, and Sick-Amour.
If you missed the Hartford International Film Festival, you can start marking your calendar now with reminders about it in 2011 or plan to attend Kino Kafe at La Paloma Sabanera for a smaller twice-monthly dose of inexpensive film-viewing.