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Beer movie is toast of the town at Waterfront Film Festival
Monday, June 14, 2004
By Troy Reimink
The Grand Rapids Press
SAUGATUCK -- At a packed Waterfront Film Festival screening of "American Beer" on Saturday, the audience burst into applause midway through the film.
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In the documentary, a group of five friends from New York had just spent an evening with Larry Bell, founder of Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, one of the stops on the crew's cross-country, behind-the-scenes journey through America's microbrewing industry.
Prompting the applause, Bell, a hero of sorts to West Michigan beer drinkers, delivered a poetic soliloquy on the virtues of perpetual inebriation.
"The sequence at Bell's is worth seeing the film for," said Paul Kermizian, who directed, produced and edited the film, which chronicles the group's fuzzy tour of 38 breweries. "Larry Bell got us so drunk that we had to film a segment on hangover recovery."
Bell, who attended a Saturday screening of the flick at the Saugatuck festival, said participating in the "bockumentary" was every bit as fun for him as it looked on screen.
"I absolutely had fun," Bell said. "I had a blast knowing they were going to Lakefront Brewery (in Milwaukee) the next day. I didn't know how they would handle it after that night."
Bell said watching the film also was meaningful, because he has ties to many of the brewmasters interviewed and featured. "It was especially fun for me to watch, because I know 75 percent of the people in the film. It's fun to see your buddies," he said. "It did a good job capturing the way it is for small breweries."
"American Beer" was one of several hits at the sixth-annual event, which showed about 60 films -- features, documentaries, short films and student submissions -- in addition to presenting seminars on marketing, screen writing and acting.
Judy Smith, one of the festival's co-founders, said early attendance figures put this year's Waterfront ahead of last year's by at least 30 percent. Although final numbers were unavailable Sunday night, she estimated sales totals would approach 8,000 individual admissions.
"It's the quality of the films we have that made this year so good," Smith said.
Among this year's hot tickets were those for "Saved!" a light satire about Christian fundamentalist teenagers; "Open Water," a thriller about two stranded scuba divers; "Napoleon Dynamite," a comedy about a high-school outcast; "The Story of the Weeping Camel," a documentary about a family of Mongolian camel herders; and "Primer," a bizarre science-fiction story that won the Grand Jury prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival.
Since Waterfront's inception, in 1999, the event has turned into a showcase for independent films, offering festival goers a chance to mingle with actors and filmmakers. The Chicago Tribune called Waterfront a "laid-back Sundance."
Smith said the goal of the festival is "to afford people in West Michigan the opportunity to see films they wouldn't otherwise see."
"This year, we fulfilled that mission. Needless to say, we are very happy with this year."
Those in attendance said they were thrilled, too, despite the absence of some celebrities who were tentatively scheduled to appear, most notably actor Jason Biggs and "Saved!" star Mandy Moore.
Don Topp, 24, and Angela Mitchell, 21, both of Holland, attended the festival for the second year in a row.
When interviewed Sunday at the event, they already had watched "Saved!" and "Dead and Breakfast" and were on their way to see "American Beer."
"I can see coming more for the festival as a whole next year," Topp said. "Last year and this year, we came just to see certain films."
"They get a lot of good films and have good variety," he said.
Mitchell agreed: "We haven't seen a movie yet at the festival that we haven't enjoyed. In general, (the festival) is very well put-together."
Kevin Buist, 22, of Grand Rapids, said the festival's location between Grand Rapids and Chicago presented a golden opportunity create wide appeal.
"It's really great that it's in West Michigan," he said. "It's kind of exciting to have this thing around here."
Waterfront Film Festival kicked off Thursday night and ran through Sunday.
Press reporters Tricia Woolfenden and John Serba contributed to this report.
