We went to our first film festival this last weekend, the Lake Travis Film Festival. My wife and I had all-day passes to one day of the three-day event hosted by the cities of Lakeway and Bee Caves, which are suburbs of Austin.

We had no idea what we were doing, so we learned a lot about such things.

We saw about 10 films of various forms as we bounced back and forth between three venues that were showing student shorts (they weren’t so good), documentaries (which were very good), and an art gallery with static displays. We skipped the venue showing music video shorts.

One of the beauties of it was being exposed to things I would have never ever gone out to see otherwise. Three that most impressed us (with trailers for the interested):

The Act of Reading — Ostensibly about a quirky young man who decided to complete a book report on Moby Dick for his teacher after she flunked him for not doing it 11 years earlier. Strangely structured, but very engaging.

Motorcycle Man — A polished and emotionally engaging look at an old guy who can’t give up racing — living — motorcycles.

A Cut Above — And from the world of competitive Lumberjills, a clever look inside a sport and culture I’ve never thought about.

Listening to the directors after each documentary, it was fascinating to hear how much they each focused on the story, and the struggle to figure out what the story was they were trying to tell. Sometimes they did not realize what the story was until all the filming was already done. Though there were differences, much it sounded familiar.

Turn out was light, but I hope they have funding for a few more years so they can become better established and grow their attendance as well as draw in strong candidates.

They really need to step up their student entrants. I wanted to see them because though I knew the average quality was going to be worse, I had hoped for that rare gem from an unsung talent on the rise. Unfortunately, that one did not show up in what we saw.

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