Film Festival

I went to the Film Festival on Saturday afternoon and I have to say I enjoyed it. My fiance and went to the 4:30 movie The Last Days of Shishmaref. It was a documentary about a village of about 500 Inupiaq Eskimos that live on an island in Northwest Alaska...brr. Unfortunately for this community, which has been on the island for 4,000 years, their home is sinking into the ocean. Because of global warming, the rising ocean is carrying away 5-10 feet of their island a year. It is estimated that in 15 years the island will disappear. This is very sad. Imagine if you had to leave your home of 4,000 years. The village does not have the resources to move to the Alaskan mainland without the assistance of the government, which they are not getting. It would cost over $100 million to move the village. The people of this community do not want to just move to other parts of the state, they want to remain together, as they always have been.

Before attending the Film Festival, I'm not sure I was looking forward to it that much. I did not want to go downtown to watch a movie that I had no interest in, and waste 12 dollars in the process. I am very glad that my initial feelings about the Festival were wrong. Don't get me wrong, I was having doubts as I stood in line with 500 other people that were at least 20 years older than me. My fiance and I were definitely the youngest ones there, and I was worried that this was not going to be something a person of my age was going to enjoy. I'm sure there could have been plenty of reasons for this audience though. It could have been the movies that were playing at the time.

We had a hard time choosing a movie. We wanted to see something in the afternoon, so we didn't have to be downtown all night. We ended up choosing The Last Days of Shishmaref because my fiance has family in Alaska and we thought we might learn something, and it got us out of town before dark. This film was very enlightening but also depressing.

I actually did not get lost on my way to Tower City, and I always do even though I go there a million times. So I was proud of myself. Also, I snagged the sweetest parking spot in the place, right next to the escalaters. I was also glad parking was free. The only thing that gave me a little anxiety was when the Cavs game let out (Yay for the win!!!). We were standing in line outside the theatre and a hundred million people were all shoving past on the Walkway.

Overall, I really had a good time at the Film Festival. Everyone who attended was eager and excited about these films, and I also got into the spirit of the festival. This is something that I would definitely consider attending in the future. There were other films I wanted to see, but could not because of the times they were being shown. My mother expressed interest in going, so maybe if she offers to pay, we might go check out a film later in the week. I am glad I had the opportunity to attend. I never knew this Film Festival even existed, but I will be looking for its dates in the future.

Thanks for this assignment!