From the valor of the crew of the USS Minneapolis to the success story of Fritz Mondale, and from a Soap Box Derby champ from St. Paul to a polka-playing accordion legend from Sturgeon Lake, the Minnesota Historical Society's Moving Pictures film festival has us covered.
Starting tonight with a movie about Vice President Mondale's life, and concluding Sunday with epic all-day short-film feasts at the Mall of America and the Riverview Theater, this is Minnesota's home-movie festival. But don't get the wrong impression. These home movies are not boring: They are movies about ordinary Minnesotans in extraordinary circumstances: war, presidential campaigns, the Depression and more. No one will fall asleep watching them.
They are not about anyone's day at the beach.
The free film festival is part of the Historical Society's Greatest Generation project, and began in 2006 with the hope of using the talents of local filmmakers -- amateur and professional -- to help preserve the stories of World War II-era Minnesotans. Among this year's short films are two about subjects I've had the good fortune to help chronicle in the newspaper: the last reunion of the crew of the USS Minneapolis, a much-decorated World War II heavy cruiser; and the story of Ken Porwoll, a survivor of the Bataan Death March who now, at 88, gives homeless men free haircuts as a form of repayment to the people who helped save his life, through small acts of kindness, during his years as a prisoner of war. Those films screen Sunday at the Riverview Theater, 3800 42nd Ave S. in Minneapolis.
What is most "moving" about these moving pictures is that they tell the real stories of real heroes, and some of the heroes will be in the theater.
"That's the magical moment of watching these films," says festival director Randal Dietrich, who also serves as manager of the Historical Society's Greatest Generation project. "You watch these 10-minute films and you get to know the human stories. But unlike watching a Hollywood film, then the lights come on and those people whose stories you just watched are sitting three rows away. It's amazing."
The first festival, in 2006, featured 30 films. This year, there are 52 entries, and the festival will award $10,000 in prizes, including $5,000 to the best film. Although the theme involves the Greatest Generation, many of this year's films tell stories from the 1950s, and next year's theme will reflect on the 1960s with a special emphasis on 1968 and the troubled gap between the Greatest Generation and their offspring.
Attempting to capture the stories of an entire generation of Minnesotans is difficult enough. The fact that the World War II generation is disappearing makes it even harder. But the film festival turns out to be a great way to enlist the help of today's digital generation in preserving the stories of the men and women who defeated the Axis powers, survived depression and ushered in the baby boom and the Great Society.
