Tumbleweeds Festival

On Saturday the 16^th, I went to a children’s film festival called the Tumbleweeds Film Festival in Salt Lake.  I got tickets for a film called “Eliot and Me”. It was an Irish film about the relationship between a young girl and her dog.  Though it was a fiction film, it tried to have a more documentary film feel.  It was about the Lucy’s experience with her life.  Lucy’s parents had divorced and the alienation was clear.  She was combative and argumentative with her mother, and she could only talk to her dad via telephone.  She struggled and it was all shown in striking detail.  The audience was full of families and children, and I wondered how children interpreted what we saw. How do they understand the dark complexities of life? I wonder how much they know about divorce and other topics.

One of these topics I wonder about is safety.  In the film, Eliot goes missing. Long story short, Lucy goes alone to a man’s house to steal him back. He catches her doing it. She is a young defenseless girl, and as a young woman myself I instantly worry for her safety.  The film almost becomes a morality tale, but she is able to get the dog and get away safely. Is that the reality of what would happen in that situation, or wishful thinking? We just don’t know.  The young kids watching can definitely understand and empathize with wanting to get Eliot back, but I’m super curious how well they understand the danger she is in. I just don’t know enough about kids I guess. It was a very good film, and did a wonderful job of portraying Lucy’s everyday life and struggles.

Before they showed “Eliot and Me”, they showed an eight-minute short called “The Boy in the Bubble”.  This film was a very imaginative piece. It was completely narrated with no dialogue, and the narration was in the form of poetry.  It also had an interesting take on the conflict between emotion and rationality after being hurt romantically.  After the pain, rationally he wants to avoid having to go through the same thing again. So he uses magic to put himself in a bubble, trying to doe something physical to protect his mental well-being. In the end, a girl breaks through the bubble as a visual representation of getting through his ego to his Id. It was a stunning film, and it was narrated by Alan Rickman, which was a huge plus.