By Pam and George Singleton

Saugatuck, Michigan hosted the 7^th Annual Waterfront Film Festival, in this beautiful, art-filled colony on Lake Michigan’s Eastern Shore. This year’s festival boasted the largest attendance ever and featured several award-winning, independent feature films that are making the film festival circuit in places like Cannes, Sundance and Seattle. Some of the films shown have distribution deals and will be in theaters later this year. And it’s not too early to pencil in the dates for next year’s festival; June 8-11, 2006.

Here is a quick synopsis on a few of the films we saw this year. Coming soon to the Chicago area:

March of the Penguins: The Waterfront Film Festival hosted the Midwest premiere of this delightful and beautifully photographed documentary that’s sure to snag an Oscar nomination. It opens nation wide on July 8th. With a bit more action and humor than "Winged Migration," "Penguins" is set in majestic Antarctica, where we are dropped into a world that many of us are curious about but few ever know from personal experience. In winter temperatures drop to 80 degrees below zero, before factoring in winds up to 100 mph.

The Emperor penguin is technically a bird who can’t fly, but can plunge to 1700 feet in the icy water and hold its breath for up to 15 minutes before resurfacing. This love story about nature entertains and informs with minimal overtones concerning man’s abuse of natural resources. We follow the life cycle of these impressive though amusing looking penguins as they use teamwork to protect themselves against the brutal elements, search for a mate, court, make love and care for their young in ways that many humans could learn from.

"March of the Penguins" is presented by Warner Independent Films and National Geographic, hence the astonishing photography. We are drawn into this magical world of images and sound with the story "as told by Morgan Freeman," we are informed as the film opens. Personally, we were enchanted by Freeman’s voice and felt his narration lent a folk tale quality.

The fact that the Emperor penguins find a way to survive and prosper under these harsh conditions is a wonder of nature. Once the egg for the newborn is incubated by the mother for a certain period she carefully passes it to the father, who takes over the nurturing, caregiver role, as she then returns to the sea to find food. It’s almost four months before she returns from her 140-mile round-trip journey with nourishment for her newly born chick, which she has never seen. Yes, the chick hatched while the male had the egg nestled beneath his body. Now begins the slow, awkward relay for life the parents perform for survival, returning alternately to the sea to feed and bring food for their young.

When the chicks finally swim for the first time, they are now young adults who must fend for themselves without the aid of their parents, who have now gone out to sea. The young will remain at sea for four years. In their fifth year they will begin their own long trek to their place of birth. And so the cycle continues.

At times this icy plane appears to be a desolate wasteland, yet is clearly an oasis of much of what represents the best of life, whether human kind or otherwise.

Murderball opens on July 22. The advertisements highlight the rough sport of rugby with wheelchair athletes at the top of their game going for the gold in the Paralympics in Athens. It also peaks your curiosity about the sexual abilities of quadriplegics. While that does set up an accurate expectation of what some of the movie is about, the complete story gets beneath the surface of sensitive topics such as friendship, teamwork, patriotism, and how to view and treat those with physical handicaps. And for anyone that has or could have ever been guilty of driving while too tired or under the influence, there are some sobering thoughts they will walk away with that will likely affect their future behavior. From a spiritual perspective, the ability to "forgive" can at times be a positive life-changing event both for the victim of an accident and the offender.

Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School glides into theaters in September. This is a rare, sensitive movie about middle age men at crossroads in their lives. As a youngster in the 1960s, John Goodman was a roughneck boy who accidentally gave a young girl a real shiner of a black eye in a contact sport. He learns to like her when they meet again at a dancing and charm school. They promise to meet at the dance school on "…the fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth year, after the millenium." On the way to that appointment, Goodman is injured in a car crash, and Robert Carlyle ("The Full Monty") makes the 911 call and is told by paramedics to keep Goodman talking until help arrives. Carlyle, a dejected widower, is asked to ride with Goodman in the ambulance. Goodman shares his story and asks Carlyle to make the trip in his place. This leads to a path that allows Carlyle to effectively deal with the recent death of his wife. This very charming movie has an outstanding cast with actors Adam Arkan, Ernie Hudson, Marisa Tomei, Danny DeVito, Sean Astin, and Mary Steenburgen.

Me and You and Everyone We Know opens June 24^th and tells the story about all of us from 7 to 70 that are trying to get to the "next level" in our lives. Although many of the events are linked together, it’s better to think of each person as their own story to best understand what the title of the movie is about. A 7-year-old boy gets the attention of an adult with dirty talk on an Internet chat board. The adult needs to learn that for some communications to be effective it must be face to face. 17-year-old girls who want to be sexually active without losing their virginity approach the young boy’s teenage brother. The father of the two boys, newly single, struggles to take care of them while trying to find a new romance, which he does not know how to get started. Writer/director Miranda July is a cab driver who shuttles around senior citizens that can no longer drive. July is also looking for companionship to fill a void in her life. Her elder passengers give her a glimpse into how she might want to use her time now as she sees the future after the years have passed.

Several other wonderful films were screened also; some will be hitting theaters late this year or early 2006.

Plan a weekend trip to this area now, as there are lots of fun things to do (see the upcoming article on the Saugatuck area next week when adjacent to the "Herbie: Fully Loaded" review.) Then when it’s time to think about attending this festival next year, you’ll be familiar with the area. Enjoy!

For reviews of other films not included in this article, please click on the film title: