What Type of Car is Democracy?

“Cinemocracy Rocks!” a veritable celebration of democracy, was hosted by the Denver Film Society at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on August 25, as the DNC began in downtown Denver. The lengthy showcase was a finale to an online contest set up by the Society, in which filmmakers across the country were encouraged to submit a short describing democracy. The top ten films were selected by voters online, and were played alongside three specially awarded films.

Among those specially awarded was one of the night’s biggest hits, “The Short End of the Spaghetti,” by Ryan Charmatz, which ironically, was not elected by the democratic process online. In this film, Charmatz, a local from Greenwood Village, Colorado, animates an experience from middle school. In a strange project, students are instructed to use uncooked spaghetti to create a twelve inch tower that will withstand a certain amount of time on an electric sander. Through a serious of misfortunes, Charmatz runs out of materials and is forced to create a tower of only six inches. His sadistic teacher proposes that the class vote on whether or not his substandard tower should get credit. Being an outcast at his school, Charmatz has few that will vouch for him. “The unpopular kid gets screwed,” is his ultimate conclusion about democracy.

Along with Charmatz’s quirky piece, which garnered the largest laugh of the evening, there were a few more films worth attention. “Cinema + (Dem)ocracy =Cinemocracy,” by brothers Alan and David Dominguez, consisted of several interviews of people with varied ethnicity and background. The interviewees ranged in ages six to ninety, and the questions encompassed much from voting history and included questions about important features of popular politicians. The same interview approach was taken by John Knauff, who added a twist at the end of his video, “Demokratia,” by asking his subjects what type of car they believed democracy was (many votes for hybrids and hummers).

This approach by the Dominguez brothers and Knauff seemed the most candid. Rarely did the questions of democracy asked in these films land concrete answers, but rather yielded abstract musings and repetitions of “by the people, for the people.” Despite the vague idea of democracy that most people possessed in the interviews, it was clear through other questions, how passionate they were about their democratic rights. Also, these films didn’t avoid darker opinions, and showed that some believe the system to be broken, though most seemed to have faith in its ability to recover.        

All of the videos are available to view at www.cinemocracy.org/gallery.

-Erika Lund