The Circuit

by Brandon Harris
At the Atlantis Theatre on Paradise Island, located just off the northern shores of boardering Nassau, Jason Reitman's "Juno" brought the curtain down on the 4th annual Bahamas International Film Festival. Perhaps surprisingly, no one from the surely exhausted "Juno" team will be in attendance, the resort bound fest proving unable to lure anyone from the Fox Searchlight Oscar horse down to present the film as its awards season moment only continues to build.

For the most part, a calm and leisurely atmosphere pervaded at BIFF - screenings occasionally start a bit late or linger into long-winded filmmaker Q&As, filmmakers, jurors and festivalgoers routinely fraternize at the resorts impressive selection of waterparks and beaches in between screenings. Although spirited post screening debates accompanied James Ewert's provocative doc on Jamaican street gangs "Trench Town" and Adrian Belic's "Beyond The Call," which along with Ritchie Mehta's "Amal" took home the audience awards in doc and narrative last night,, for the most part audiences here are cordial and appreciative, even of some of the festival's weaker selections.

A number of filmmakers arrived at the halfway point as the majority of the jurors and dignitaries fled town, an exception being Naomie Harris, dynamite in projects at diverse as "Miami Vice" and the BBC's stunning adaptation of Zadie Smith's "White Teeth," who was honored with a Rising Star award on Tuesday night at Aura nightclub, a shimmering hotspot above the Atlantis Resort's casino.

The bulk of prizes were given out two nights before on Sunday, with Paul Haggis' "In The Valley of Elah" and Daniel Junge and Siatta Scott Johnson "The Iron Ladies of Liberia" taking the Spirit of Freedom prizes for drama and documentary. The short film prize went to Hoku Uchiyama's "Rose," while the festival's New Vision prize was awarded to Jennifer Sharpe's "I'm Through With White Girls," which has won ten second tier festival prizes since it's debut at the Atlanta Film Festival last spring. It is still without domestic distribution, perhaps a victim of it's provocative title, lack of stars and it's squandered, non-major festival premiere.


Brandon Harris has directed several award winning short films including Happiness is no fun, a recipient of the 2006 National Board of Review student filmmaking grant and Evangeleo, which has screened at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City. He serves as a film critic for National Board of Review’s website, freelances for Filmmaker Magazine and blogs at http://cinemaechochamber.blogspot.com.