Minnesota on screen: Five local films at MSPIFF
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Each year, the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival (MSPIFF) highlights new work from around the globe, but it also reserves space for stories rooted closer to home.
The Minnesota Made program showcases features, documentaries and shorts created by local filmmakers or shot in the region. This year, we reviewed five standout Minnesota-connected films from the festival, each offering its own perspective on the people, places, and ideas that shape the state.
You can find a full list of Minnesota-made films — and all remaining festival offerings and showtimes — on the MSPIFF website.
‘The Dance is Not Over’
Documentarian Mark Wojahn explores the long career of dancer and storyteller Patrick Scully, one of the titans of the Twin Cities artistic community — not just because of his prodigious height (he’s almost 7 feet tall).
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Scully’s career closely intersects with several key moments in the region’s artistic history: He was an early proponent of postmodern contact improvisation during the rise of the Twin Cities’ contemporary dance scene. His work explored the intersection of politics, health and LGBTQ+ identity during the AIDS crisis. And, as the proprietor of Patrick’s Cabaret, he provided something increasingly rare: an unjuried and inclusive space for performers to experiment.
Scully was connected to one of the defining moments of Minneapolis arts when the Walker Art Center used his cabaret to showcase Ron Athey in 1994. Athey, who is HIV-positive, performed a piece involving cutting another performer’s skin and blotting paper with the blood, under proper precautions and medical oversight. The performance became a flashpoint in the culture wars when national lawmakers, aided by sensational local coverage from a critic who hadn’t attended the show, used it as justification for cutting the NEA budget.
Patrick’s Cabaret closed in 2018, but Scully remains active. The film follows him as he creates and performs a spoken word and movement piece based on “Leaves of Grass,” still using performance as a tool for queer liberation — with his now equally imposing beard adding to the presence.
‘The Fun-Raiser’
Minneapolis filmmaker-producer duo Wyatt McDill and Megan Huber deliver a sweet, silly comedy in “The Fun-Raiser,” filmed in St. Louis County. The 82-minute comedy is a putting-on-the-show farce about a scrappy, floundering performing arts school (with a ton of heart!) that throws a fundraiser to avoid closure.
A folly list including flooding, food poisoning, bounced checks, rich drunk donors, mimes and doobie smoke breaks is punched up by great comedic performances from pretty much the entire cast, and St. Paul actress Shana Berg shows her chops as an indie comedy lead. Adding to the film’s charm are environmental shots of some of the North’s best vintage bar and storefronts (think Homer Tavern in Hibbing, USA Foxx & Furs in Duluth, Queen City Sports Palace in Virginia).
‘Good Sport’
Few things are more full of passion than the parents of a young athlete. The pride, joy, and energy that fill the court, field or gym can be both uplifting and intense — a balance “Good Sport” captures well. The film follows Pat, a divorced dad trying to make sense of his life while coaching his son’s basketball team and navigating the personalities of other eager parents.
Though his personal life is a mess, including owing $1,500 to an escort service, Pat proves to be a devoted father and a coach the kids genuinely admire. The movie certainly has elements of other feel-good sports movies, with a healthy dash of subversive comedy — at one point, the people he owes money to kidnap him from the basketball court to pay his bill. At just over an hour, “Good Sport” delivers a clever, self-contained story about growing up — both literally and figuratively.
‘The People’s Way’
While the future of George Floyd Square is hotly debated, the documentary “The People’s Way” provides a moment for reflection on why the site matters and how the lives of three local leaders intersected at East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in the aftermath of Floyd’s murder.
At the film’s heart are community organizers: Jeanelle Austin, who lives in the neighborhood and acts as a caretaker for the memorial; Toshira Garraway, the leader of Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence; and Robin Wonsley, who, during the film, is shown running and winning the election for city council seat, representing Ward 2.
Documentarians Ashley Tyner and William Tyner have done the essential work of bearing witness. They capture footage of protests, city council meetings, confrontations with Mayor Jacob Frey about the Minneapolis Police Department and the neighborhood’s own engagement of the site.
Perhaps most compelling are the intimate conversations among Austin, Garraway and Wonsley about how this act of police brutality, and many more, have affected them and their communities.
‘Unholy Communion’
Set in Scandia, “Unholy Communion” at its core is a game of cat and mouse. A serial killer is targeting clergy — men who were either perpetrators of child sexual abuse or helped cover it up in the name of the Catholic Church. It’s up to a small-town detective to uncover the truth. The movie is a Minnesota affair, full of actors you may have seen on the local stage or screen, as well as Minnesotans who have gone on to have long careers in Hollywood, including Vincent Kartheiser of “Mad Men.”
While the cast delivers solid performances, it’s the film’s moral questions that linger. The story is based on a book by Thomas Rumreich, a survivor of sexual abuse. It places viewers in a moral gray zone: should we root for the killer enacting revenge or the detective trying to stop him? What the priests did was abhorrent and worthy of justice, but should their fates be left to vigilantism when the system failed their victims?
