Montezuma Alights, Curtain Calls and All

By Britton Jacob-Schram

It’s an odd thing, hearing the achy yet addictive voice of Annette Hanshaw, one of the first female jazz greats, pouring out of a cartoon version of the Hindu religion’s goddess, Sita. It’s almost synesthetic, like crossing senses.

Maybe that’s why those who saw Sita Sings the Blues at this year’s Montezuma International Film Festival went somewhat ga-ga for the animated film. It’s not exactly your average animated flick.

Sita Sings the Blues sets to motion a narrative pairing of the director’s marriage as it dissolves in India with the famous Hindu tale of Prince Rama and his beloved Sita.

“The story behind the film is that the filmmaker, Nina Paley, who lives in New York city, was dumped by her husband and noticed the parallels between her life and the Ramayana, and then she was staying at her friend’s house and found these old Annette Hanshaw records.

© Catherine Keogan

“She made it basically on her own, animating all of it,” said Brett W. Thompson, the Atlanta-chapter president of ASIFA, the only worldwide international animated film association. “I had lunch with her in New York and begged her to let us show it here.

“The recordings are in the public domain, so she thought she was fine. But,” he pauses, “the compositions are not. So, she’s had to pay $500 per song to these big music companies to get festival rights; and to get DVD rights to sell to people, she’s gonna have to pay $10,000 to $15,000 per song. And she’s already gone into debt.”

Though the film’s doing really well around the world, says Thompson, Sita Sings the Blues is truly a labor of love.

It’s also just one example of how truly special the films at Montezuma are every year. For the festival’s director, Eric Panter, especially controversial films — feature-length films like Love Limits, a documentary about a pair of incomprehensible soul mates stricken with cerebral palsy, and short films like Karaoke Show, where a naked German man stop-motion karaoke sings his way through Carole King’s “I Feel the Earth Move” — are the only way to go.

The introductory scene to Love Limits, said Panter, seemed hard for the audience to sit through.

© Catherine Keogan

“I watched the crowd’s reaction… They start off the movie with him and her doing a duet together, and they ‘sing’ for about 10 minutes.

“There was a little bit of nervous laughter,” with people not exactly knowing what to make of it, he said.

“But, I like controversial films, definitely. ‘Cause you know, anything else is just kind of boring. If people aren’t talking about it, either way, good or bad, then it’s non-existent.”

The feature-lengths on this year’s register, he says, were hand-picked from about 500 entries, adding many boldly address injustices throughout Latin America.

© Catherine Keogan

“We saw one about Belize, Opposite Land,” said Megan Bowers, a tourist from Baltimore, Maryland. “It was really good. It was very enlightening to what’s going on.”

The festival showcased films like Opposite Land, whose director, J. Michael Seyfert, was a repeat participant in the festival, and Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad, documenting the civil unrest in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Seat-fillers from this year’s festival turned out to be the hilarious Cuba-Libre (pictured above), which followed the riotous adventures of a group of squatters who head to Madrid’s Cuban Embassy — just in time for Castro to announce free elections.

Cuba-Libre seemed just as big a hit with the Spanish-speaking crowd, as Sex Galaxy, a variation on Mystery Science Theater, which spliced together about a dozen films from the ‘50s and ‘60s (the majority being science-fiction) and dubbing hilarious, sometimes vulgar commentary over them, seemed to have been made into an overnight cult favorite with the sci-fi chic.

The big winner, however, in terms of attendance was most definitely Wiener Takes All, a “dogumentary” covering the insane, obsessive nature of those behind California’s wiener dog races.

© Catherine Keogan

“People seemed to gravitate to that one,” said Panter (at right), in his smooth Georgia drawl, adding the festival — international economic crisis or bust — is an annual festival and will definitely be coming back again next year.

For him, the respite, as limited as it is, is enough of a break from the pace of the States.

“When I go back, I go back to time. There’re watches and clocks,” he says, as Faulkneresque as can be.