By Peg Aloi

At the Woodstock Film Festival: the stunning documentary The Remarkable life of Ibelin and Mike Leigh’s rich and powerful Hard Truths.

This is my first time covering the Woodstock Film Festival, although it is located only an hour from where I live. Timing has been one of the reasons; the WFF usually takes place at the same time as the London Film Festival at the BFI, which I have covered for the Arts Fuse for the last several years. Well, there was a last minute change in my travel plans, so I was happy to have the opportunity to cover this small regional film festival, which is celebrating its 25^th year. The schedule contained an impressive array of documentary films, narrative features, and shorts, as well as special events and talks, including a Q & A with Paul Schrader, whose new film Oh Canada premiered there. Several films stood out as highlights for me from this small but well-curated film festival.

A scene from The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, Photo: Netflix

The Remarkable life of Ibelin is a stunning documentary, an unusual story about a young man in Norway born with muscular dystrophy who finds solace and social connection through the online gaming world. Mats Steen passed away over a decade ago at 25. Filmmaker Benjamin Ree read about the young man’s involvement in gaming and became intrigued with his life story as a subject for a film. A treasure trove of archival video footage shot by Mats’ uncle at family gatherings and celebrations adds a layer of intimacy to the narrative. Add a unique combination of archival footage, interviews, and animated sequences and you have a vivid and engaging portrait of a young man whose life was far more complex and layered than even his family realized.

The film’s visual tapestry also includes Mats’ online adventures, rendered by the truly impressive animation of Rasmus Tukia in the style of World of Warcraft, and voiced by disabled actors. The animation segment is at the heart of this film; it is based on chat logs and descriptions by the community of friends who played the game with Mats’ alter ego, Ibelin. Ibelin is a strong, manly fighter who radiates kindness and humor, a character who offered support to Mats’ online community. Those who considered Mats a friend are interviewed about him, often relating the extraordinary impact he had on their lives. Ironically, most of his gaming friends he shared near-daily adventures with online knew very little about him and the limits of his physical abilities. Mats’ family members were astonished to learn of the depth of his involvement with the game and its players and the film portrays how they are moved by the deep friendships he made with so many people. The Remarkable life of Ibelin is an impressive achievement on many levels: technical, artistic, emotional, and social. It’s a must-see.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste in a scene from Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths.

Hard Truths has British filmmaker Mike Leigh returning to familiar territory for him, contemporary London. His most recent forays were into history, via Mr. Turner and Peterloo. The new film’s sterling cast features Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who was first cast by Leigh in what many would argue was the film that initially attracted international attention to his work, 1996’s Secrets and Lies. Hard Truths centers on the two households of an extended family who lives in London. Jean-Baptiste is Pansy, a woman who seems perpetually angry and stressed. She scolds her teenage son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) for being lazy and sloppy (a family dynamic not unlike the dysfunctional clan in Leigh’s 2002 film All or Nothing, starring Lesley Manville and James Corden). Pansy also rails against police who harass young Black men like Moses on the street for doing nothing. Pansy spends her days complaining about being tired and in pain, yet she works all day cleaning her already spotless home. She seems to have an aversion to dirt and to nature, finding little pleasure in her daily life.

By contrast, Pansy’s sister (played by Michele Austin, also seen in Leigh’s 2010 film Another Year) is a busy hairdresser and single mother who has two outgoing, successful adult daughters she is very close to. She is worried about Pansy’s emotional state. Pansy’s husband Curtley (David Webber) has a successful plumbing business; he is also concerned about his wife, but seems to be unable to help her. Son Moses has opted not to work for his father and spends his days playing video games in his room or wandering the streets. Shy and withdrawn, Moses is annoyed by his mother’s constant pestering. In All or Nothing, a working class family struggles with making ends meet as they deal with various impending crises. In Hard Truths, the family struggles with unexpressed emotions, regrets, and strained relationships. Leigh’s domestic dramas often intimate catharsis through small signs of change and redemption. But this family’s future trajectory lacks signs of solace. This is Leigh’s first film focused entirely on Black characters and it is a complex and moving story. True to his masterful ways with casting and character development, Hard Truths is rich and powerful, a hard-hitting commentary on life’s unrelenting challenges, rendered with Leigh’s noteworthy sensitivity and depth.

Peg Aloi is a former film critic for the Boston Phoenix and member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Critics Choice Awards, and the Alliance for Women Film Journalists. She taught film studies in Boston for over a decade. She has written on film, TV, and culture for web publications like Time, Vice, Polygon, Bustle, Dread Central, Mic, Orlando Weekly, Refinery29, and Bloody Disgusting. Her blog “The Witching Hour” can be found on substack.