During the 33rd Starz Denver Film Festival’s red-carpet screening of “Casino Jack,” Gov.-elect John Hickenlooper walked to the podium at the newly minted Denver FilmCenter/Colfax to say a few words about his cousin, director George Hickenlooper.
The 47-year-old filmmmaker had arrived the Friday before to join the mayor on the last of leg of his campaign and attend the festival screening of his film. He died suddenly the next morning.
Moments before Hickenlooper took the mic, film society co-founder Ron Henderson told the packed movie house that “George told me he loved his cousin like a brother.”
Henderson and Hickenlooper hugged. The governor-elect scanned the audience. Then he broke down, his sobs the only sound in the theater. Respectful moments passed. “We love you, John,” someone shouted gently.
“I beg a little indulgence,” said Hickenlooper. “The film will be a little late.”
It was an astonishingly human moment in a festival that has been rich with them, on and off screen. (The festival concludes today, after a full day of offerings.)
“Those are the kind of moments that make a festival special,” said film society executive director Tom Botelho. ” We’ve had four or five of them. I get chills thinking about Danny Boyle’s Q&A at Colfax, his creativity, his energy.”
Yes, there’s is highlight reel: From a short, utterly sweet concert given by the Spirituals Project’s Sankofa choir at the screening of “When I Rise,” a film about the mezzo-soprano Barbara Smith Conrad; to a sharing of Holocaust stories with “Forgotten Transports: to Poland” director Lukas Pribyl at a reception held at the Mizel Museum.
Sixty-one of the festival screenings have sold out. Many more have been near capacity. Ticket sales were up 20 percent from last year, which were up 20 percent from 2008, according to Botelho.
“We’ve done a better job reaching out to people, building community through film, using film as a catalyst for communal feeling,” Botelho said.
In keeping with the intimate spirit: Meet the parents, the siblings, the spouses, the heartbroken cousin, might have been one of the festival’s guiding themes.
Opening Night “Rabbit Hole” director John Cameron Mitchell’s parents, John and Joan Mitchell, came up from Colorado Springs. “Ask him tough questions,” Joan Mitchell said at the cocktail reception held at the Four Seasons. Actor Aaron Eckhart’s mom and dad traveled from Montana to see their son receive the fest’s Excellence in Acting Award.
The ruggedly handsome actor stars opposite Nicole Kidman in the exquisite and sorrow-laden drama about parents whose young son was killed in an accident.
Attending the Big Night screening of Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours” were Larry and Donna Ralston, parents of Aron Ralston, the mountaineer the film is based on.
The festival still had four days to go when this went to press. Today, there are a full day’s screenings, including a number of added shows of the fest’s most in demand films. Though in a departure from years past, the film society won’t be screening the winners of its juried awards. Too bad.
Still, the fest ends much in the way it began: with a moment not of silence but of tribute. George Hickenlooper’s “Casino Jack” will play in a special slot at the King Center (4 p.m.).
John Hickenlooper did regain his composure at that emotional first screening. He told a series of yarns about George, including how the two met in 1991 when Henderson and the film festival hosted a party at the then brewpub owner’s Wyn- koop Brewing Co.
Even with the shared Hickenloopy name, they didn’t think they were related. Then George mentioned in passing his great-aunt, 20th-century concert pianist Olga Samaroff, a.k.a. Lucy Hickenlooper, from Texas.
“Cousin,” each shouted.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com. Also on blogs.denverpostcom/madmoviegoer
