SpIFF 2010: Day 3 dawns early

The first three film programs for the 12th-annual Spokane International Film Festival gave a pretty good indication that this year’s lineup, indeed, may end up being the best ever.

We started off with “Soundtrack for a Revolution,” a look at the civil rights movement as seen through the music of the era, which played Thursday night at AMC’s River Park Square Theatres. Preceded by Kyle Bell’s short “The Mouse That Soared,” the program got things off to a good start. A packed house, a stirring re-examination of U.S. history of the 1950s and ‘60s, a luminously made animated short, followed by free pizza and wine in the River Park Square ground-floor courtyard: Pretty good way to begin.

Then on Friday, at AMC, we had back-to-back features that couldn’t have been more different. The opening film, “The Horse Boy,” is an intriguing documentary about a couple who, in an effort to treat their autistic son, take him to Mongolia. While there, the family treks across the plains, they ride horses, and they visit a number of shamans who try their best to alleviate the boy’s symptoms. And it seems to work. In any event, filmmaker Michel O. Scott - who was at the screening - manages to create a fascinating story that never insults the audience’s intelligence while keeping open the possibility that it takes more than science to cure our problems.

Friday’s late movie was “Cow,” a Chinese film set during World War II in which the lone survivor of a Chinese village fights to care for a cow that has been left in his charge. His love-hate relationship with the animal survives massacres, marauding Japanese soldiers, starving Chinese peasants, the return of the army and more other problems than I care to recount. It’s a curious film, one that blends humor with graphic violence and war drama, but one that kept my interest throughout its near-two-hour running time. It was preceded by the bizarre animated short from Canada, “Runaway,” which also features a hardy cow.

Hardy types then had a midnight showing to see. Screening at the Garland was the co-called “political zomedy” “ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction.” Having been up since early that morning, I was asleep before the film even got started. By the way, this film is part of the Horror Fest IV, a collection of horror films that will continue showing at the Magic Lantern .

Today’s series of programs kicks off (little sports cliche there) at noon with the short film “Pups,” followed by two other shorts, “The Spam Job” and “Dive!” at the Magic Lantern. Meanwhile at AMC, the Animation Showcase presents 11 shorts. At 2 p.m., four filmmakers - Denise Bennett (“Pups”), Kyle Bell (“The Mouse That Soared”), Michel Scott (“The Horse Boy”) and Jeremy Seifert (“DIVE!”) will talk during a Filmmaker Forum at the Magic Lantern. At 2:30, the Italian film “Mid-August Lunch” will play at AMC, followed by “Gigante” at 5:30 and “John Rabe” at 8:30.

Click here for the entire schedule , and also for information on how to purchase tickets.

Below : The trailer for “John Rabe.”