Film Festival Review: AddAmovie 'Day of the Dead'

Film Festival Review:
AddAMovie Film Festival 2021
'Day of the Dead '
On-Line
Tuesday, Nov. 2nd, 2021

 Paracademia has just presented its annual “AddAmovie” film festival. A project of the relentlessly creative cross genre composer and artist Milica Paranosic, the festival celebrates the organic link between film and music. The festival included films by musical composers, projects where the music and film emerged collaboratively and scores written specifically for finished films.

The spectre of Covid continues to impact  the festival from the fact that the it was once again virtual to the focus of films presented by Sophie Duner and Lara St.John.  Choosing the Day of the Dead for the festival also was a fitting context for meditations on death and our relationship to it. Every film in one way or another added reflections on what we have lost the last two years. An opening moment of silence was a fitting beginning for this journey.

The evening had three blocs. First, selected short  films by Kino Jin, Joseph Waters and Take A Pick (In addition to Duner and St.John.). Second, scores composed to films by Dejan Kovačević and Herk Harvey by Elisabetta Chiarelli, Lauren Lucente, Benjamin Harwood and Aaron Diamond scored to short films and stories on the theme and performed by Quartet Metadata. Finally, the festival’s feature film, North of Boston by Peter Dressel scored by Milica Paranosic.

North…is an exploration of assisted suicide and friendship that steadily grows in tension until its suspense filled conclusion. The score by Ms. Paranosic underscores the action in ways reminiscent of music in Hitchcock films. North..is a bit of an anomaly…at 40 minutes, too long for a short and too short for a feature. But in many ways, that goes to the very heart of what Paracademia does and is…a home for…and celebration of…. what doesn’t quite fit anywhere else. Keep your eyes open for more showings. And ears too.

-  Eli Y. Jack 


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