The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
The Buckeye bunch
Films with Ohio ties comprise CIFF’s Local Heroes Competition
Made about Ohio, in Ohio or by Ohioans is the simple theme behind the Cleveland International Film Festival’s annual Local Heroes Competition.
This year’s popular film festival, which runs March 22 through April 1 at Playhouse Square, features a handful of Buckeye Staterelated movies with filmmakers vying for a $7,500 cash prize.
The Local Heroes Competition films include “Citizen Sleuth” (9:50 p.m. March 25 and 7:25 p.m. March 26), “Egghead & Twinkie” (4:55 p.m. March 29), “Join or Die” (7:25 p.m. March 25 and 11:50 a.m. March 26), “Pre Fab!” (2:40 p.m. March 26) and “We Are the Troopers” (4:50 p.m. March 25).
Patrick Shepherd, CIFF associate director, noted “Join or Die” features Harvard professor and awardwinning writer Robert Putnam, who is originally
from Port Clinton.
“Putnam wrote the book ‘Bowling Alone,’ which a lot of people know about,”
Shepherd said. “It shows these trends of Americans either doing things together. There’s this thing
called ‘social capital’ that is saying democracy is better when there is stronger social capital.
“One of the things highlighted is apparently bowling alleys are busier than ever, but bowling league participation — people connecting with each other on a week-to-week basis — is way down.
“We do believe Robert will come back for the screenings.”
One film that’s sure to draw interest from Northwest Ohio is “We Are the Troopers.”
“It’s about the Toledo Troopers national women’s
football league team that operated in the 1970s,” Shepherd said. “These women made history as the winningest team in football history. We have the world premiere of that film.”
For a local slant, there are two Northeast Ohiobased films as part of CIFF programming not affiliated with the Local Heroes Competition.
The first is “Olympic Oaks, Continuing Jesse Owens’Legacy,” which screens on March 23.
“This short film tells a great story about Jesse Owens’ Olympic oak samplings that he brought back from the 1936 Olympics in Germany,” Shepherd said. “Only one of the four trees left was at James Ford Rhodes High School in (Cleveland’s) Old Brooklyn.”
The film depicts the efforts of organizers to graft the last of the surviving oak trees to honor Owens’ story for generations to come.
“It’s an opportunity to talk about Jesse Owens’ legacy and the racism he faced coming back from the Olympics,” Shepherd said. “It was hard for him to find a good job.
“We’ll have a conversation that includes Tyrone Owens, a cousin of Jesse, who is also a former track and field coach at Rhodes High School.”
The other film of note is “Food And Country,” which screens at 2:30 p.m. March 31.
“The movie essentially chronicles the plight of the American food industry in the wake of the pandemic and globalism,” Shepherd said. “They talk to independent farmers, including Farmer Lee Jones in Huron. That’s a great local connection to a festival film.”