R E S T A U R A N T P O L L B A L L O T P . 4 6 - The Austin Chronicle

SCREENSHonor RollBehind the new stunner of a shortfrom Austin film mainstay Steve MimsBY MARC SAVLOV“I’m so amazed by it. We were able to use all these nice35-millimeter lenses. It’s easy, it’s fun, and that’s the quiet revolutionthat’s happening in terms of film right now. Everybody’susing those things to make their movies.”That’s Austin filmmaker and University of Texas Radio-Television-Film mainstay Steve Mims geeking out over the newCanon EOS 7D, a digital still camera that he used to shootroughly 50% of his short film “Honorarium,” which screens aspart of the Austin Jewish Film Festival (running April 10-16).The enthusiasm is warranted: “Honorarium” is 12½ minutesof crisp, tight, gorgeously black-and-white filmmaking supportedby a flawless, socially relevant story. The fact that Mimsshot half of it over the course of just over two days with a relativelylow-cost Canon 35mm still camera (the other half wascaptured using a Sony EX-1) is something of a revelation, andone we’ll get back to in a moment, but first, what’s the storybehind “Honorarium”?“About a year ago, Reid [Nelson, Mims’ friend and“Honorarium” actor/co-writer/producer] and I were talkingabout making a film,” explains the director. “To me, a shortfilm is where you take an idea that you could never make intoa feature and you exploit it totally within a few minutes. Andso the initial idea for the film started with the experience ofbeing picked up at the airport, or picking someone else up atthe airport that you don’t know. That’s always a mildly uncomfortableexperience, and it’s one that I’ve had before. You don’tknow what to say to them; you can be preoccupied and comeoff as a jerk; it’s just odd. And that was really interesting to usbecause it’s somewhat universal for people, and then we justsort of built the story up from there.”Without giving too much away, “Honorarium” tells the storyof the brief but ominously eventful interaction between PhilipJOHN ANDERSONSteve Mims (l) and Reid Nelson at the UT RTF production facilityHolbrook (played by Nelson), a controversial public speakerarriving from out of town, and his possibly sympathetic driver/minder, Anne Bowers (Ringo Deathstarr bassist Alex Gehring).It’s an intense 12-plus minutes that ultimately has the slightlyoff-kilter tone and feel of some of the best of Rod Serling’soriginal Twilight Zone episodes, excising the supernatural infavor of subtle social commentary.“We were trying to be very realistic,” continues Mims, “andso the story evolved into the idea of having this figure be anacademic speaker. Even from the first shot in the film, youdon’t know what’s wrong with this person, but you can tellthat there’s something off, there’s something not right aboutthis guy. We tried to design it very carefully, like a Hitchcockfilm, where you get that first image in that first moment andthen, piece by piece, you get a little bit more information withoutbeing given everything until you need to know it.“We intentionally wanted people to wonder how severe theoutcome is going to be,” Mims continues. “There are indications,from the music and the way it’s structured, that thiscould turn into a very dark film, even darker than it is.”“The film is very subtle,” adds Nelson. “I think we’ve playedwith the short film for a little bit, in that we didn’t want togo for the huge reveal or a huge gotcha payoff at the end, andthat’s kind of the traditional short story/short film way. It’s afilm that you have to maybe see more than once to have all itssubtleties work on you, I think.”It’s also remarkable in that it’s Reid, Gehring, and actor AlexSole’s first time in front of the camera. All are excellent, evincinga skewed sort of reality that is the film’s hallmark, but Sole,who plays a character we do not meet until the end of the film,is particularly astonishing in one key aspect: He’s 95 years old.“He’s never acted a day in his life,” laughs Mims, “and he’stack-sharp, too. We shot him first, too, when we found outhow old he was.”“He bags groceries up at the H-E-B on Far West, if you canbelieve it,” adds a clearly tickled Nelson. “We had started castingfor this character through the Jewish Community Center,but it wasn’t quite right, and eventually a friend of mine tippedme off to Alex, who agreed to do the part. Steve hadn’t seenhim at that point, and I was like: ‘You’re not going to believewhat we just lucked into! This guy is perfect.’ And he is.”All in all, it’s a stunner of a short, and, getting back to thetech side of things, a first for Mims, who can’t contain hisexcitement about having crafted such a gem partly via the“quiet revolution” of a Canon still camera.“People thought the Red camera was going to be the nextbig thing, but there have been technical issues with it eversince it came out. People still love it, and I’ve seen several greatfilms shot on a Red, but the deal is that they’ve sort of beenleapfrogged by the Canon EOS 7D, which with a lens is, like,a $1,700 camera. And now Canon’s come out with a digitalRebel 550 that’s $700 that does what the EOS 7D did for usback when we shot “Honorarium” back in October. You get thenice 35-millimeter depth of field and all these different lensesto choose from.“It’s more like when I was a little kid making my own films.Part of what I’ve always enjoyed about it was not having tohave this big, unwieldy machine and a lot of people. Thesechips now in the cameras are so sensitive that you no longerhave to have a big grip truck to capture great lighting. Youknow, it’s a very exciting time to be a filmmaker.” “Honorarium” screens at the Arbor Cinema @ Great Hills as part of theAustin Jewish Film Festival on Tuesday, April 13, noon; Wednesday, April 14,7pm; and Thursday, April 15, noon.SHALOM, Y’ALLPreviewing the Austin Jewish Film FestivalThe eighth annual Austin Jewish Film Festival runs April 10-16. Highlights include a specialYom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) service and screening of Assaf Bernstein’s TheDebt, with a discussion led by Auschwitz survivor Dr. Edith Eger, on Sunday, April 11, 6pm,at the Arbor Cinema @ Great Hills (9828 Great Hills Trail). For complete AJFF schedule andticket information, visit www.austinjff.org.– Kimberley JonesFESTIVAL PICKSHELLO GOODBYED: Graham Guit; with Fanny Ardant, GérardDepardieu, Jean Benguigui, Lior Ashkenazi,Sasson Gabai, Gilles Gaston-DreyfusBut for a too-schmaltzy ending, this Frenchcomedy about a middle-aged couple’s effortsto reconnect both with each other and withtheir cultural identities is an unpredictableand enjoyable lark. The always impressiveArdant plays Gisèle Gaash, a woman whoconverted to Judaism when she married herhusband, Alain (Depardieu), a successfulgynecologist. After the marriage of their son(in a church), Gisèle develops a deep-seatedlonging to move to Israel and convinces herreluctant husband to cast their Parisian livesaside and migrate. “There’s more to being48 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E APRIL 9, 2010 a u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o mJewish than gefilte fish and Yehudi Menuhin,”Alain declares to his disapproving mother.Instead of a land of milk and honey, in Tel Avivthe Gaashes experience diminished job opportunities,the loss of their possessions, and aflirtatious, pot-smoking rabbi. Nevertheless,Gisèle finds inner peace there and wantsAlain to have the circumcision he never wasgiven as a Jewish child. A covenant with Godis one thing, thinks Alain, but a covenant withone’s beloved wife is something else entirely.– Marjorie BaumgartenThursday, April 15, 4:30pm, ArborLEMON TREED: Eran Riklis; with Hiam Abbass,Ali Suliman, Rona Lipaz-Michael,Doron Tavory, Tarik Kopty, Amos LavieSet on the border between Israel and theWest Bank, Lemon Tree offers a tart butnever completely bitter metaphor for theentire Palestinian situation as experiencedby a single resourceful and sympathetic character.Based on actual court cases (Riklisco-scripted the film with Palestinian journalistSuha Arraf), Lemon Tree tells thesimple, elegant, frustrating story of SalmaZidane (Abbass), a 45-year-old Palestinianwidow whose only joy in life is tending to thebountiful lemon grove her father planted 50years ago. Her new neighbors are the IsraeliDefense Minister Israel Navon (Tavory); hiswife, Mira (Lipaz-Michael); and their blackcladsecurity team, who immediately targetSalma’s grove and order it razed. Salma hiresa young lawyer (Suliman) and sues her neighbors.As the lawsuit grinds through the Israelilegal system, Salma and Minister Navonbecome a metaphor for the intractable natureof the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Miracaught somewhere in the middle. Riklis, whohelmed 2004’s equally fine The Syrian Bride,has rendered in microcosm the entire historyof the Middle East: land grabs and lemons,sorrow and citrus. (This free screening willbe preceded by a Havdallah service and concludeswith a talk by Rabbi Alan Freedman.)– Marc SavlovSaturday, April 10, 6:30pm, ArborMary and MaxMARY AND MAXD: Adam Elliot; with the voices of PhilipSeymour Hoffman and Toni ColletteAt the beginning of this charming if melancholicClaymation fiction film, fiftysomethingMax Horovitz (voiced by Hoffman) is self-barricadedin a crummy walk-up in New York, aseverely overweight depressive whose socialanxiety is eventually diagnosed as a symptomof Asperger’s syndrome. Meanwhile, Mary(voiced by Colette) is a thoughtful but worriedchild in Melbourne, Australia, ostracized byclassmates for her “poo”-colored birthmarkand neglected at home by a mother who is“wobbly” with drink. When Mary plucks Max’saddress at random from a phone book, theybecome pen pals, forging a friendship thatspans decades that are fraught with disease,accidental death, thwarted love, professional