HOT SPRINGS -- Film lovers flooded into the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa Friday night and Saturday for the opening night and first full day of the 26th annual Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.
The festival, which runs through Oct. 15, features nine full days of documentaries, short films and special guest panels at the Arlington. The first 24 hours of the festival were highlighted by an address by the festival's honorary chairman, a documentary highlighting the life of a legendary film executive and a master class featuring a prominent film director explaining his craft.
"This film festival doesn't belong to me. It belongs to you guys," interim Executive Director Jennifer Gerber said to the crowd in her opening address Friday night.
Festival Chairman Kathleen Turner, an actress known for her roles in film classics like Body Heat and Peggy Sue Got Married, said during her opening address that one of the reasons she loves working in film is that it brings people of different backgrounds, and even disagreements, together over shared moments.
"As you sit together, you become greater than yourself alone," she said. "We need that in our world."
Turner told The Sentinel-Record that she likes the submissions in the film festival, and that she plans on attending a number of showings. One that she specifically mentioned was Anthony Bourdain's Wasted! The Story of Food Waste.
"I served on the board of Meals On Wheels in New York City for many years, so it's interesting to me to find what other alternative uses of all the excess food we have," she said.
The documentary Laddie: The Man Behind the Movies, which tells the story of studio head and producer Alan Ladd Jr., followed Friday's opening addresses. The movie was directed by Ladd's daughter, Amanda Ladd-Jones, who said that making the film was an eye-opening experience.
"Most people can relate to that feeling of when you suddenly start to see your parents as people rather than just as parents," Ladd-Jones said. "I found myself meeting with people that had worked with my father, and I'm hearing these stories and seeing this side of him that I never knew."
The documentary explored Ladd's personal life and his role in the creation of classic films including American Graffiti, Young Frankenstein, Star Wars: Episode IV -- A New Hope and Body Heat.
Turner said Body Heat was her first film, and Ladd was "very much responsible for putting me in it."
Ladd-Jones and the film's interviewed subjects described Ladd as a champion of women throughout his career.
Laddie: The Man Behind the Movies featured interviews with actors including Morgan Freeman and Mel Gibson, who expounded on what it was like to work with Ladd. In a panel discussion following the film, Ladd-Jones said that she felt that she was serving as a proxy for these prominent figures.
"I was giving them an opportunity to thank him," she said.
Saturday was highlighted by a master class by Werner Herzog, whose works include Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn and Encounters at the End of the World. Turner told The Sentinel-Record that attending the master class is "an opportunity that is extraordinary."
Herzog, while answering a question from the audience, discussed the future of film, saying that filmmakers need to take advantage of the Internet.
"Production has changed, and it has become much more accessible," Herzog said. "Go out and do it."
Herzog said that he stays curious when picking topics for his movies -- he said that historic topics, literature and oddities of everyday life have evolved into the premises of entire films. He also said that skills and disciplines outside of film, such as reading, holding a conversation and deception, help with the filmmaking process.
Herzog said that filmmakers must be willing to let the nuances of the film's subject matter direct their decisions. As an example, he cited his film Heart of Glass, in which all of the actors were under hypnosis.
"That was not a circus gimmick," he said. "It came out of the story itself."
The festival will close with All The Wild Horses, a film about a 621-mile horse race across the Mongolian steppe, which will be followed by a panel discussion featuring one of the film's jockeys.
"A festival like this, with documentaries that cover such a huge range of material, is quite fascinating, really," Turner said. "The fact that this town has supported it for 26 years is something to be very proud of."
Metro on 10/09/2017