There are some months when life in Colorado is an embarrassment of riches. April is one such month. And those craving moving images and good conversation will have two exceptional choices this weekend.
Let’s start in Boulder with the Ebert Interruptus film series during the 75th Conference on World Affairs, April 13-14. This year’s conference is devoted to one topic — the climate crisis — which every panel, event and discussion will address from a bevy of viewpoints. And at the conference’s annual cinematic showcase, the subject will be explored through a screening and discussion of Honeyland, a 2019 nonfiction film from Macedonia about beekeeper Hatidže Muratova.
Fiftysomething Muratova is a wild beekeeper, possibly the last in Europe, living high in the Lozovo hills with no running water and her 85-year-old mother. It’s like the land time forgot— until neighbors move in next door, bringing domesticated livestock with them. And despite Muratova’s coaching on how to live in this remote land and farm honey, the neighbors alter the precarious balance needed to survive.
“Honeyland may sadly chart a Fall, both local and existential, but it eventually finds its way to restoration of a sort,” Ebert Interruptus host Josh Larsen writes. “Hatidže’s rhythms have undoubtedly changed, in painful ways, but she’s also regained her equilibrium in the film’s final moments.”
Topics of balance, rhythm and equilibrium will no doubt populate many panels and discussions at this year’s CWA, but how they fill the screen so beautifully is what makes Honeyland an exceptional choice for Ebert Interruptus. This year marks Larsen’s sixth outing as Interruptus host, and, if you’ve never been, this year might prove to be one of the most memorable Interruptuses yet.
Down in Denver, the 14th Women+Film Festival takes over the Sie Film Center on Colfax Avenue, April 13-16, with this festival marking the retirement of festival founder Barbara Bridges.
A lot has changed in the industry for female filmmakers since Bridges conceived the program, and the movies that have played Women+Film document the ongoing battle for that change. Not to mention the stubbornness of old demons to die off.
Take Women+Film’s opening night movie, Judy Blume Forever. The film is a by-the-numbers documentary exploring Blume’s biography, books and legacy through interviews with the author and the many she inspired. What makes Judy Blume Forever compelling is the plethora of archival materials directors Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok weave in about Blume’s fight against censorship and the efforts to have her books banned.
That was back in the 1970s. And here we are, hot on the heels of 2022, a hellish year for books being banned, challenged and restricted in public institutions. Sex, then and now, is the trigger that seems to rile up the censors. Thankfully, there are few better to walk you through all that noise than Blume. She was a guide through the tough stuff for children, teens and adults alike. And at 85, she’s still got it.
ON SCREEN: Ebert Interruptus at the Conference on World Affairs, April 13-14, UMC East Ballroom, CU Boulder | Women+Film Festival, April 13-16, Sie Film Center, 2510 E. Colfax Ave., Denver.
