Best Fest

WAITSBURG - Or should the dateline be "PALM SPRINGS?" Let's go there for a minute in the very recent memory of Waitsburg's very own filmmaker Karen Stanton Gregutt.

January. Eighty degrees and lush. Check.

Boulevards lined with palm trees, packed with Beamers and Bentleys. Check.

Hollywood honchos arriving at screening theaters a la Oscar Night. Check.

Beautiful women and handsome guys. Check. Tans. Check. Valets running like mad. Check.

A poolside party for French filmmakers at the former home of Lucille Ball. Check.

TV interviews. Check. Radio talk shows. Check. Audience Q&A. Check.

AWARDS. Check. Check. Check.

That's right. Stanton Gregutt's documentary feature "A Not So Still Life" about Seattle glass-artist Ginny Ruffner - shown at the Plaza in Waitsburg long before festies poured their eyes on it in California - has won its second set of awards.

The film was one of 30 Best of Fest winners and one of five runners up for the Audience Award, Best Documentary. Last June, the feature-length movie won the Golden Space Needle Award at the Seattle International Film Festival.

Not bad for a movie that represents Stanton Gregutt's first foray into full-fledged documentaries after a long career making commercials.

"A Not So Still Life" is the story of an artist who broke ground by taking " lamp working" glass art to a whole new level and making it world renowned. She's also known for surviving a near fatal accident two decades ago only to recover miraculously and become an inspiration to those around her - inside and outside the art world.

The Palm Springs festival guide said "A Not So Still Life" is sure "to challenge you to see the world from a new and unexpected perspective."

Now in its 22nd year, the 12- day mid- January Palm Springs festival drew 132,000 viewers, judges and movie insiders, a record up 10 percent from the previous year, translating into lots of attention for Stanton Gregutt.

Al though the downto earth, Waitsburg-based filmmaker said the "desert chique" scene that enveloped her for four days was "so not me," Stanton Gregutt also admitted "it was fun" and that it makes up a near-mandatory part of getting one's movie before audiences, critics and, as importantly, distributors.

"It's important to be there and sell your film," she said, noting that she, her husband, wine writer Paul Gregutt, Ruffner, producer Tom Gorai and executive producer David Skinner, had no time to see any of the other movies. "It's like working."

Oh sure. :)

Now there's talk of the movie, which took Stanton Gregutt almost two years to make, going to film festivals in Sonoma, San Luis Obispo, Toronto, Venice and Amsterdam because every time you draw attention at one glitzy film event you get on the radar for the next.

And winning in any category isn't exactly easy. Of the thousands of movies submitted to the festival, only some 200 are shown to the film industry execs and movie buffs within driving distance from Hollywood. This year, they included features with actors like John Hurt, Rachel Weisz, Vanessa Redgrave, Monica Belluci and Gerald Depardieu.

Some categories are juried beforehand, while the outcome of others, such as the "audience choice" awards, isn't known until everyone has sampled the cinematic smorgasbord at venues all over town. That distinction, popularity among movie goers, is something other festivals look at closely as they hope to get the crowd pleasers.

In Palm Springs, each "Audience Choice" runner up gets an extra screening, and, in the case of "A Not So Still Life," the place was packed.

Stanton Gregutt and Ruffner were relieved of their duty earlier in the week to be up on stage as the movie was introduced and answer viewers' questions afterwards, so they decided to gauge the audience's reactions in their midst and incognito.

After the screening was done and the crowd lingered (to Stanton Gregutt's delight), someone spotted the two ladies, recognized Ruffner from the movie, and said out loud "Oh my God, she's here!" For an awkward moment, the crowd fell silent, then what started as an instant receiving line soon became a full-blown "hug fest," with everyone treating Ruffner as a long-lost relative and complementing Stanton Gregutt on her film.

"We were mobbed," she said .

Ushers had to break up the impromptu and "effervescent" scene so the next screening could start, Stanton Gregutt said.

"People were very sweet and so appreciative of the film," she said. "It was my goal to make viewers feel connected to her."

Audiences in Palm Springs had the same reaction to her touching story about Ruffner as those who came for the previews in Waitsburg last summer.

"They didn't bolt," Stanton Gregutt understated. "They felt like they knew her."