The Boulder International Film Festival (BIFF) turns 21 this year. If it were a person, it could order a drink. Frankly, BIFF could probably use one, with the sword of Sundance hanging over its head.
And while questions of film fest-related ifs and whens might permeate the pre- and post-screening conversations at 2025 BIFF, when the lights go down, and the screens start to shine, all of that will get pushed aside for the chance to watch something beyond the everyday. Here are four that will make you excited to see more.
The Friend
7:15 p.m. Friday, March 14, Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St. Check biff1.com for ticket availability.
BIFF’s opening night film is of the crowd-pleasing variety, particularly for Colorado’s dog-loving crowd. Apollo, the 150-pound Great Dane at the center of the story, might steal the show.
Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, The Friend finds Iris (Naomi Watts) at wit’s end when her friend (Bill Murray) dies and his beloved Dane ends up in her care. But Iris lives in a New York City co-op with a strict no-pets policy. That might be easy for toy poodle owners to sidestep, but it’s difficult for Iris.
The Friend is light, and it would be a stretch for me to call it a good movie, but I can’t stop thinking about it. How Iris’ friend dies — I won’t say here — and the questions surrounding it imbue a rather saccharine surface with serious consideration. There’s even a moment of magical realism that almost feels lifted from another narrative entirely. It’s an oddball concoction that’s difficult to shake.
The White House Effect
1:15 p.m. Sunday, March 16, Century Boulder, 1700 29th St. $19
It was the Jimmy Carter administration that had solar panels installed on the White House roof in 1979. It was the Ronald Reagan administration that had them removed in 1986. And you thought the pendulum swing of today’s administrations was petty.
But what makes The White House Effect, directed by Pedro Kos and An Inconvenient Sequel’s Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, a riveting visual essay is that they don’t treat these kinds of institutional squabbles as cyclical but continuous.
Free from talking head interviews and constructed entirely from archival footage, The White House Effect hopscotches back and forth between administrations to see how the climate crisis has been acknowledged, dismissed, outright denied and traded in for votes. It’s fascinating, infuriating and so expertly constructed that you’ll be thinking about it for months.
In Waves and War
12:15 p.m. Saturday, March 15, First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce St., Boulder. $19
“I have endured so much in waves and war. Let this next adventure follow.” Drawing on these lines from The Odyssey, In Waves and War follows three Navy SEALs after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as they try to heal psychologically from their war-induced torment. Nothing seems to work. Then, psychedelics are introduced into the mix.
Also directed by Cohen and Shenk, In Waves and War begins conventionally with talking head interviews but then finds liftoff when animation takes over. These scenes, psychedelic and dreamy, illustrate that which the filmmakers could not. It’s a humane look at what it takes for someone to move beyond their pain, one that is sure to stir a fascinating post-screening conversation.
One to One: John & Yoko
3 p.m. Friday, March 14, Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St. $19
3:30 p.m. Saturday, March 15, Century Boulder, 1700 29th St. $19
John Lennon may have stopped playing live when the crowds got too big, but the showman inside never vanished. Lennon was a born rock ’n’ roller, one who could summon the crackle of electricity with a single note.
One to One: John & Yoko, from filmmakers Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards, traces 18 months in the early 1970s as Lennon and Yoko Ono try to put together a show to support the Black Panthers, only to be scuttled in the 11th hour and reconfigured as the One to One concert, Lennon’s final full-fledged concert prior to his death in 1980.
Though One to One isn’t a tip-to-turn concert film, the footage of Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band on stage is fantastic. So, too, is the archival footage Macdonald and Rice-Edwards use as connective tissue to bring political and personal context to the story. There’s enough here to wow even those well-versed in Lennon lore and plenty more to make non-Lennon fans fall under its spell.
BIFF has a full line-up of 60-plus narratives and docs, features and shorts to discover. The festival runs March 13-16 in multiple venues across Boulder and Longmont. Locations, times, tickets and more at biff1.com