41 North Film Festival Begins Today

Award-winning films and film makers will take the stage at the 41 North Film Festival on the campus of Michigan Technological University, Thursday through Sunday (Nov. 3-6).  Formerly known as the Northern Lights Film Festival, the 41 North Film Festival showcases award-winning independent films from throughout the region, country and world.

One of the highlights of the festival is a showing and panel discussion of “Life Animated.”  Owen Suskind is a young man on the autism spectrum. As a child he was unable to speak until he and his family discovered a way to communicate by immersing themselves in the world of Disney Films.  Owen Suskind is the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind on whose best-selling memoir “Life Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism,” the film is based. “Life Animated,” is directed by Academy Award-winning director Roger Ross Williams. Suskind and Williams will be in attendance when “Life Animated” is shown at 7:30 p.m. Friday. They will lead a discussion of the film following its showing. Williams will also be on hand at 6 p.m. Friday for the showing of “Music by Prudence,” the documentary short for which he received the 2010 Academy Award.

Michigan native Jason Zeldes, an award-winning editor, will help kick off the festival with the showing of his directorial debut “Romeo is Bleeding” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.  The film follows poet Donté Clark as he attempts to mount an urban adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” with the hopes of starting a dialogue about violence in his hometown of Richmond, California.

Director Brian Kaufman will participate in a panel discussion on his films “Predator/Prey: The Fight for Isle Royale Wolves “ and “Counting Wolves.” Kaufman will be joined by researchers Rolf Peterson and John Vucetich. The film takes up the controversy around how to respond to the island’s dwindling wolf population.