Vito, Sponsored by Open Aid Alliance

For the past 25 years, the mission of Open Aid Alliance has been to prevent the transmission of HIV while advocating for and supporting individuals currently living with HIV/AIDS. This year, OAA is sponsoring the film Vito, a film by Jeffrey Schwartz about Vito Russo, gay activist and critic of LGBT representation in the media.

BSDFF: Can you give our readers a summary of what the film, Vito, is about?

OPEN AID ALLIANCE: The film documents the valiant life of Vito Russo, an activist for the LGBT movement and later, he fought for recognition of the AIDS epidemic and acknowledgment from then President, Ronald Reagan.

BSDFF: How did you first hear about the film, and why did this particular film interest Open Aid Alliance?

OAA: The BSDFF approached us about Vito and we thought it was a great way to support the festival and help bring a great film to Missoula. When I think about Vito’s work with ACT UP, the gorilla activist group, and the way they fought for access to AZT and other early AIDS drugs I’m definitely inspired and thankful for people like him.

BSDFF: What are some of the ways Open Aid Alliance continues to promote awareness and prevention of aids, while supporting individuals currently living with HIV/Aids?

OAA: Keeping HIV/AIDS in view is one of our most important goals; maybe it’s a result of the media, but for some reason (HIV/AIDS) seems like forgotten news to a lot of people. It’s too easy to assume that everybody knows everything there is to know about HIV at this point. 50,000 people are newly infected with HIV each year in the United States; this clearly demonstrates the continued need for ongoing prevention and outreach. Open Aid Alliance focuses efforts on our testing program; it’s the only way to know whether you have the virus or not. We can’t make someone be safe, but we can help them be safer.

BSDFF: If—and why—do you think Missoula is a unique place to host a film festival like this, and how do you see this benefiting the local community?

OAA: I think the film festival is an incredible asset to Missoula. We’re so lucky to host an event like this. It’s important because we can become isolated; the film festival brings new people, new ideas and new worlds to us on the screen.

BSDFF: When viewers leave the theater after watching “Vito,” what are ways we can become active with AIDS awareness and support in the Missoula community?

There are so many things I could suggest. Here are a few I think could be most important: We need the community’s support. Federal dollars for HIV prevention are being redirected to areas of high incidence. In a sparsely populated state like Montana the impact is huge. Our funding for youth education and women’s groups has been cut completely. We’re committed to free testing for everyone, but our funding for those tests has been cut. Participate in our events, host a pantry drive and collect toilet paper and household cleaning supplies for our clients, volunteer and help us be more visible in the community and join our Board of Directors. In more general terms, realize that HIV is in Montana and in Missoula. Realize that you may know someone living with HIV but you don’t know it yet.

Vito will show on Sunday, February 19, 10:00 AM, in Wilma 1.

Article by BSDFF Promo Team writer Carl Corder

We Go Together Like… Grunge Music and Ice Cream?

David Markey’s tour documentary 1991: The Year Punk Broke depicts legends of punk and grunge—including Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and the Ramones—at a delicate moment. Sonic Youth had just signed to a major label and were about to reach a national audience after ten years of underground buzz. Nirvana were unknowns on the verge of superstardom, when they would render the term “alternative” music meaningless. In its one hundred grainy, goofy minutes, 1991unwittingly heralded the arrival of grunge in the American mainstream.

Enter: ice cream. Going into their seventeenth year, it’s safe to say that the Big Dipper is a Missoula institution, the prime destination for gourmet frozen treats. But Charlie Beaton started the Big Dipper during the height of the nineties’ alternative-music mania, and they still retain some of the do-it-yourself spirit of that age. I spoke with Beaton about the Big Dipper’s choice to sponsor 1991 at the BSDFF and his not-so-secret punk rock roots.

BSDFF: What were you up to in 1991?

Charlie Beaton: Well, I went to the movie [1991: The Year Punk Broke] at the Crystal Theatre when it came out. I was playing in a band called The Banned and I played in BTO—we actually just started playing again. So from the late eighties all the way through the nineties I was playing in bands and booking shows in Missoula. That’s sort of my era for college is the early nineties. There was a lot of great music at the time, and I went to all those shows—I saw Nirvana play and the Ramones. All those bands who are in the movie, I've seen.

BSDFF: You started The Big Dipper in 1995, the same year that Sonic Youth headlined Lollapalooza. Do you think there’s a connection between your punk background and your ice cream ventures?

CB: Having been in a punk band and setting up concerts, which was all DIY, part of opening Big Dipper was an extension of that—it's an artistic thing, it's creative. We didn't have a lot of money, so we gave away stickers, we gave out fliers. I ran the business the same way I promoted my band.

BSDFF: What inspired you to sponsor this film in particular?

CB: I love documentaries and I love music documentaries particularly, so when we got the opportunity to choose a film to sponsor, this one seemed perfect. And I thought it was cool that I had seen it when it came out. I bet you get a lot of the same people who saw it at the Crystal back then to come and see it. It’s been out of print so a lot of people haven't been able to see it since then.

BSDFF: What exciting things are coming up for the Big Dipper?

CB: We’re working with Posh Chocolat on caramel sauces and syrups. We’ve got some cool landscaping projects that people are going to like in the seating area. Also we help sponsor Total Fest, which is in August this year, and we always have live bands play. I'm pretty excited about that.

David Markey’s 1991: The Year Punk Broke is playing Sunday, February 19 at 9:15 at the Wilma, with live music by The Skurfs following the film.

Article by BSDFF Promo Team writer Alice Bolin

Plympton’s Dogma

The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival is thrilled to welcome internationally-renowned independent animator/illustrator Bill Plympton as a 2012 visiting artist. Twice nominated for both Academy awards and the Cannes Palme D'Or, Mr. Plympton has won or been nominated for far too many prizes to count throughout his near five-decade-long career.

A prolific artist, Mr. Plympton is the only person known to have illustrated every frame of a feature-length animation. He says of his 12 hour plus days spent drawing in his New York City studio, "it's very satisfying, my hand never gets tired."

Mr. Plympton became famous for rejecting a million-dollar offer to animate for Disney and remains the genius independent, “making films the way I like to make them without bending to the Hollywood machine.” He's here at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival to show us how being an independent animator can be done.

The UM Media Arts department will sponsor a screening of many of Mr. Plympton's short films including such favorites as How To Kiss, 25 Ways To Quit Smoking, and Santa: The Fascist Years, this Sunday, Feb. 19th at 7:30 pm at the Wilma, and Mr. Plympton promises to unveil what he calls “Plympton's Dogma,” a three step formula for success as an independent animator. He will be drawing at the theater, sharing his secrets of good design and how to sell it. Every audience member will go home with a free signed Plympton sketch to keep!

Alexia Anastasio's award-winning documentary about the life and career of Mr. Plympton, Adventures in Plymptoons, will screen this Monday, Feb. 20th 3:30 pm at the Crystal Theater with Mr. Plympton again in attendance. Adventures in Plymptoons sheds light on Mr. Plympton’s work and its reception via interviews with friends, collaborators, family, and critics. Mr. Plympton will also screen previously unseen clips from his newest feature, Cheatin, and a television pilot, Tiffany. His established films will be available for purchase at both events. Don’t miss this chance to meet a legend in animation!

Visit Mr. Plymptons website to learn more: http://www.plymptoons.com/index_main.html

-Plymptoons, or, the Slightly-Non-Fiction-Ish-Somewhat-Doc-Like-How-To-Films Of Bill Plympton Sunday February 19^th 7:30 pm the Wilma

-Adventures in Plymptoons! Monday February 20^th 3:30 PM at the Crystal Theater 515 S. Higgins Avenue

Article by BSDFF Promo Team writer Cecile Berberat

A Short Doc About BSDFF Opening Night, Sponsored by HBO

Thank you to HBO Documentary Films, generous sponsor of our free opening night screening of Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present!

HBO Documentary Films Sponsors Opening Night.

Documentary by BSDFF Promo Team filmmaker Marshall Granger.

Ear Candy Music Sponsors Sound it Out

John Fullman really likes vinyl. He’s been collecting records since he was 10 years old, and 14 years ago when he opened Ear Candy Music on South Higgins, his favorite hobby became his full-time job. Specializing in both CDs and vinyl, Ear Candy Music is a haven for local enthusiasts who still care about the physical aspects of music collecting that digital mediums have largely displaced. The artwork, the packaging and presentation, and the superior sound quality are the usual values of vinyl-heads, but “there’s also the whole aspect of ‘digging,’” Fullman says. “The hunt for that elusive title, the record that sometimes takes years and years to find.” The idea that a song might take more than a few minutes of Googling to track down may be disconcerting to some, but in a record store like Ear Candy Music, we’re reminded that our favorite albums are more than lumps of data ready for consumption—they’re unique human artifacts.

It makes sense, then, that Ear Candy Music is sponsoring this year’s screening of Jeanie Finlay’s Sound it Out, a portrait of the last surviving record store in her hometown of Teesside, England. The film, screening Sunday. Feb. 19 at the Wilma, is Finlay’s fourth entry in the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. Her 2007 entry, Teenland, was Finlay’s debut screening in a festival setting. “They’ve always supported my work as a filmmaker,” she says. “I like the intimacy of this festival—I met Mike on my lift from the airport on my very first year, and we’ve been friends ever since.”

Part of this year’s Big Sky Mix Tape, Sound it Out is a film about music and what music means to people. It’s also a film about men. It’s also a film about collecting. But, as is so often the case with great documentaries, it’s a bit reductive to qualify it by stating what it’s “about.” “I look at the small things to tell a larger story,” Finlay says.

Sound it Out screens at the Wilma Theatre on Sunday, February 19^th, at 5:15 PM. More information is available at http://www.sounditoutdoc.com. And remember to support your local record store, Ear Candy Music!

Article by BSDFF Promo Team writer Peter Schumacher