I first was introduced to the work of Alex Karpovsky back in 2006 when The Hole Story was screened at the Minneapolis/St Paul International Film Festival. The Hole Story was an incredibly unique film that seamlessly melded fiction and non-fiction into a wonderfully funny and melancholy story about one man’s dream to try and make a pilot for his television show.

With Woodpecker Karpovsky once again uses his unique style of mixing fact and fiction, this time focusing on the fervor surrounding the sightings of the previously presumed extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the bayous of eastern Arkansas. Following one ardent bird watcher (Jon Hyrns) as he attempts to become the first person to definitively prove the elusive birds existence, Karpovsky also interviews many of the locals who are both thankful and frustrated by the birds sudden reappearance.

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If any of you have ever had the opportunity to attend a large film festival you may not know the hysteria going on behind the scenes. In 2006, my theater had the privilege of being part of the Minneapolis/St Paul International Film Festival. The festival lasted two weeks and our theater averaged showing 4 films a day. This meant we typically had 8 films a day that either had to be built up or broken down. Couple this with the fact that many of these films don’t arrive at the theater until an hour or two before they need to be on screen, resulting in less then ideal conditions for working with these prints. Hell is less stressful. (more…)