King’s Dollar Babies sweep UMaine Saturday

By Emily A. Whitney

Posted on Thursday, September 29th, 2005, 12:00 am

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Experience the fervor of the minor league. Taste the strength that is hungry direction, and couple that, with the heat from low-budget. Mingle with creators. Soak still with unborn stars. This Friday, cringe from beneath the buzz of an amateur film. The second annual Dollar Baby Film Festival is here.

Stephen King should be proud: For a dollar, independent filmmakers have been able to adapt his short stories into short films since the early 1980s. Thanks to King, an expansive group of these “shorts” were compiled and shared at last year’s first Dollar Baby Film Festival. Now, there will be a few reruns and some premiers, but hopefully another encouraging turnout.

“To adapt his work and bring it to the screen was a wonderful opportunity as well as a dream come true,” Julie Sands, director of “Lunch at the Gotham Cafe,” a film that will be premiered on Friday, said. “I wanted to do a dollar baby with a level of quality that was indistinguishable from a feature film. I think I succeeded but you will have to be the judge of that.”

Sands is one of the many directors showcasing their work this weekend. On Friday, her film is showing at 8, followed by a Q&A with her, producer Steve Wozniak, producer Lauri Hope, and artist Dennis Calero. Then, there will be a screening of “Riding the Bullet”, directed by Mick Garris.

“Riding the Bullet” premiered on Aug. 1, 2004, but is set in 1969 from the perspective of a hitchhiker. Alan is a desperate college student, trying to cross the state overnight to reach his hospitalized mother.

“Most of the movies that I’ve made since I started directing in 1986 have been in the horror genre. And several of them had been King projects,” Garris said. “I’m just a King fan who is lucky enough to have directed more films based on his work than anyone.”

This event will take place at Cinema 10 in Bangor at 8 p.m. Tickets are $8 and provide for both films. On Saturday, tickets are $5 dollars and encompass all the day’s events. At noon, the festival moves to Donald P. Corbett Business Building on campus, and screenings will be divided into three films with two panels.

The shorts usually run around 30 minutes, are un-rated, and are mostly drama or horror related. The program at noon starts off with “The Woman in the Room” directed by Darabont, a dramatic piece about a woman with an incurable illness who cannot die. Her son’s story shifts when he decides to try and relieve her. This particular film was adapted from King’s Night Shift Collection. Following that one is “A Dark Tower Cartoon,” “Lucky Quarter,” “Roland Meets Brown,” “Autopsy Room 4,” “Strawberry Spring,” “The Man in the Black Suit” and “I Know What You Need.”

Afterwards, at 3 p.m., there is a panel hosted by various directors about how to make your own dollar baby. 4 p.m. leads us into another round of movies beginning with “The Boogeyman,” then, “A Dark Tower Cartoon,” “All That You Love,” “The Lawnmower Man,” “The Road Virus Heads North,” “Sorry Right Number,” “The Woman in the Room,” and “Rainy Season.” The last panel starts at 7 p.m. and is a “conversation” with Rocky Wood, author of King’s Uncollected, Unpublished. Wood will talk about tracking down 12 “lost” King stories, followed by a book signing.

Finally, at 8 p.m. the last round of shorts start with “Night Surf,” then, “A Dark Tower Cartoon,” “Paranoid,” “The Shining Bunnies,” “Srajenie (The Battle),” “The Last Rung on the Ladder,” “Minimum Overdrive,” and “All That You Love Will Be Carried Away.”