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You are here: Home / Archives for Sedona International Film Festival

Sedona International Film Festival

Sedona Honors Mariette Hartley with Lifetime Achievement Award

March 29, 2022 By quadcities Leave a Comment

Hartley and husband Jerry Sroka present their film, ‘Our Almost Completely True Story’.

Mariette Hartley and Jerry Sroka spent a sunny late-February day in the red rock country holding hands, quipping back and forth in their ongoing quick-witted banter and being nervous. The two veteran actors, married since 2005, were about to see their film, “Our Almost Completely True Story,” debut before a live audience at the Sedona International Film Festival.

The movie is an almost completely true love story, and a really funny one, as evidenced by the laughter in the Sedona Performing Arts Center. It brings the couple together in a Los Angeles bird store, not the true part of the story but a bird store seemed to fit, they said, because it is owned by one of their friends, Lloyd Bremseth, an actor from the original Broadway play “Godspell,” who let them shoot there for free and also played himself in the film.

As full as a sack of birdseed, “Our Almost Completely True Story” is packed with charming laugh-out-loud parts written by Hartley and Sroka for their famous friends like Bernie Kopell (Dr. Adam Bricker from “The Love Boat”), Morgan Fairchild (Chandler’s mom on “Friends,” also a cast member of “Falcon Crest”) and Mindy Sterling (Dr. Evil’s assistant in the Austin Powers films).

Viewers need to be on their game to catch all the clever one-liners throughout the film and identify the many impersonations delivered by Sroka. Hint: Soupy Sales, Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis and Woody Allen are among the 63 personalities that Sroka can channel spontaneously.

The story also is a really real one with scary dinner dates (Peter MacNicol), illness and loss. The challenges of aging are gently and humorously in the spotlight as the friends in their 70s, 80s and 90s navigate life from the tennis court to the audition stage to the operating room.

“Most of my best friends are as old as I am,” said Hartley, 82. “We really wanted a scene that showed what happens to older people who are still talented, still going out for auditions for crying out loud, and how they’re treated. Well, we got it.”

The audition scene features Hollywood royalty: Hartley, Fairchild and Tess Harper (“Tender Mercies,” “Crimes of the Heart”), all playing themselves as working actresses, sitting in a reception area waiting to be called for their turn by a young studio assistant who mispronounces their names.

But mostly, “Our Almost Completely True Story,” directed by actor Don Scardino (also from the original “Godspell”), features enduring friendship, love, compassion and depth both on film and behind the scenes.

“It was amazing. Our friends knocked us out!” said Hartley, of the cast she and Sroka assembled. “We don’t know how much power we have, soul power. The idea of who you are and how you live attracts amazing people.”

“We used everybody,” said Sroka, noting the roles that included their children and grandchildren. “Sweet, good people attract sweet, good people.”

Both Hartley and Sroka were childhood actors, starting at age 10. The two met at a Screen Actors Guild meeting following long marriages and painful divorces. In the film and in person, Hartley says the most important trait she was looking for in a relationship was a sense of humor. “I just don’t know how you can live without it. It’s always there with Jerry,” she says of Sroka. “And sometimes, I’m pretty funny.”

Fans know Hartley from roles such as Dr. Carolyn Fields in “The Incredible Hulk,” for which she received an Emmy, as Dr. Claire Morton in “Peyton Place” and from many other memorable roles in programs including “Gunsmoke,” “Bonanza,” “Star Trek” and “The Twilight Zone,” along with award-winning Polaroid commercials from the ‘80s with James Garner. She also is known for her work helping those who have a mental illness or who have survived a family member’s suicide.

At the showing, Hartley and Sroka held hands. “Neither one of us wanted to be great stars. We wanted to create an ensemble. That gave us the most joy. We realized we created this,” she said of “Our Almost Completely True Story.” “It was an ensemble. We just loved everybody in it. It gave us the most joy.”

The audience responded to the film with a standing ovation.

Sedona International Film Festival Executive Director Patrick Schweiss presented Hartley with the festival’s 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award. “In honor of your passion and dedication to cinema and your commitment to the art of filmmaking; in recognition of your outstanding career of bringing memorable characters to life on stage and screen; in appreciation of your tireless advocacy on mental health issues and the countless lives you have touched and saved, thank you for sharing your passion with us and for making a difference in the world!” he said.

Again, the audience responded with a standing ovation. QCBN

By Bonnie Stevens, QCBN

Hear more from Hartley and Sroka on Zonie Living with Bonnie Stevens at
StarWorldwideNetworks.com

Filed Under: Local News, Tourism Tagged With: Jerry Sroka, Mariette Hartley, Our Almost Completely True Story, Sedona, Sedona International Film Festival, Zonie Living with Bonnie Stevens

Life’s ‘Best Used By’ Date is Now

June 26, 2021 By quadcities Leave a Comment

“Because I can no longer ignore death,” she said, “I pay more attention to life.”

Humans are creative and resourceful, but sometimes it takes a transformative event to get us motivated.

In the new movie “Grace and Grit,” featured at the Sedona International Film Festival, filmmaker Sebastian Siegel and spirituality guru and former U.S. presidential candidate Marianne Williamson visited Sedona to discuss how deeply focused people can become when death is staring them down.

The movie is an adaptation from Ken Wilber’s book with the same name. His wife, Treya Killam Wilber, was diagnosed with cancer 10 days after they were married. Their honeymoon was spent in the hospital.

Sebastian said he wanted to capture the “urgency to love” that spoke to him so loudly in the book. “We all have to confront our mortality at some juncture or other. And I think any great love story, whether it’s Titanic or Grace and Grit or Love Story or Romeo and Juliet, the confrontation of that mortality and the recognition that we only have an instant left sometimes gives us the courage to appreciate life more deeply.”

Marianne has worked with many people who have been diagnosed with life-challenging illnesses. “One of the things I’ve seen repeatedly is that in the first five minutes, you just drop so many layers of seemingly meaningless preoccupations and things get very real and very exquisitely noble and intelligent very quickly. One of the things I thought about Ken and Treya, on one hand, the tragedy of the story is that she died; on the other hand, the profound love of the story was brought to the fore because she was dying.”

Mena Suvari plays Treya in the film, but Sebastian chose to let the audience hear Treya in her own words. “Because I can no longer ignore death,” she said, “I pay more attention to life.”

Sebastian wants audiences to “experience” the story of a passionate, romantic, selfless, courageous and transcendent love. He recognizes this “as a reference point for what’s possible in love, for what’s possible for us, how we can transform and become more for each other and through each other.”

In “A Course in Miracles,” Marianne Williamson discusses love and fear. In stressful times, it’s so easy to go the way of fear, but that’s exactly when Marianne suggests we escort fear right out the door. “As we change our thoughts, we can change our world. In the realm of thought, there are two main categories: thoughts of love and thoughts of fear. Every single moment, we choose between the two. If I think with love, then I am more likely to behave lovingly and to attract love from others,” she writes.

What Marianne has been telling us for years and what Sebastian demonstrates in the movie is that we have great capacity to be more present and give of ourselves more completely to things that matter.

COVID-19 has shown us this as well. Life is precious, time is precious. If we live aware of the beautiful gift of time and life, which comes with an expiration date, we may find its “best used by” date is now. QCBN

By Bonnie Stevens, QCBN

Bonnie Stevens is a public relations consultant. She can be reached at bonnie.stevens@gmail.com.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: A Course in Miracles, Bonnie Stevens, Business Cents, Grace and Grit, Marianne Williamson, now, Sedona International Film Festival

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