Spread out over a week, and mostly during the evening hours, and just one screen, the Wild Rose isn’t the most convenient film fest, but its selections this year have been some of the best. At what price though? $96? 2 people for 2 nights, and 1 person one night, $96? That’s 6 films. I think a film will really have to standout before I go back. IIFF is only $25 for 2 DAYS. Interrobang is free. The Manhattan Short FF held at the Art Center is free also.

Frankly, there haven’t been a lot of standouts the last year or so at the Iowa film fests. The 4 I’ve seen this year at WR were well done, and one, 23 Minutes to Sunrise was superb. I would call it best of show. It stars Eric Roberts and Nia Peeples and was directed by Jay Kanzler. I ordered it from Amazon the next day, it’s a keeper.

Other keepers were Lost Cinemas of Greater Des Moines, Masque, and Guest House. Tonight’s final showings are two Iowa films, The Highway Walkers and These Hopeless Savages.

The WR plays  at the Fleur Cinema and is put on by Kimberly and John Busbee.

Eric Roberts of 23 Minutes to Sunrise

As an interesting side note, when I got the DVD it took me a minute to figure out what I didn’t like about the intro. It turns out there’s a quirk about copyright laws that allowed the playing of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Everybody Knows’ in a live venue like the film festival, but he couldn’t sell it on the DVD. So he replaced it with some non-descript headbanger “music”. It really detracted from the mood.