2013 FILMS
Wednesday, June 26
7pm at the Golf Course
Opening Party
Free Beverages + BYOB + Food
9:00pm at the Golf Course
Aint Them Bodies Saints
David Lowery . 2013 . USA . 105m
A romantic American story set against the backdrop of the 1970’s Texas Hill Country Ain’t Them Bodies Saints follows three characters on various sides of the law : outlaw Bob Muldoon, his wife Ruth Guthrie, and local sheriff Patrick Wheeler, who gets caught in their crosshairs.
Cast: Rooney Mara, Ben Foster, Casey Affleck
David Lowery is a filmmaker from Dallas, Texas. His short A Catalogue of Anticipations screened at the 2008 Marfa Film Festival. He co-edited Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color and co-wrote Yen Tan’s Pit Stop, which won the Dallas International Film Festival’s Texas Filmmaker Award. He is attached as a writer on an upcoming remake of Disney’s 1977 Pete’s Dragon. His previous pictures include St.Nick and Pioneer.
Thursday, June 27
1:30pm at the USO building
Brave Girl
Erin Galey . 2013 . Singapore . 20m
A 13-year-old Nepali girl leaves her Himalayan village seeking employment in the city with a trusted friend, but becomes increasingly suspicious of his intentions when he asks her to cross the Indian border with him. At a life-changing crossroads, she is forced to choose what she’s willing to sacrifice for the good of both her family, and his.
Cast: Pushpa Adhikari, Jeewan Adhikary, Kabita Ale
Erin Galey was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. She received a Literature degree from Brown University and completed her Master’s degree in Film and Television production at NYU Tisch School of the Arts Asia. Her work as a cinematographer has screened at festivals such as Palm Springs, Frameline35, New Mexico, LA Shorts, and NewFest. In 2013, she founded IN THE FLICKER, a Los Angeles / Portland based production company specializing in commercials, branded content, and short form narrative media.
The Taiwan Oyster
Mark Jarrett . 2012 . USA . 107m
The Taiwan Oyster tells the story of Darin and Simon, two American ex-patriots who steal the corpse of a fallen countryman and embark on a quixotic road trip through the Taiwanese countryside in search of a suitable burial place for a person they barely knew. Masquerading as a bender road-movie, this darkly comic film explores existential questions as the protagonists journey ever further from their lives in the city and are joined by Nikita, another lost soul. Darin and Simon’s quest for the perfect burial spot becomes a strange trip down Taiwan’s picturesque coast as they encounter local characters both welcoming and threatening. Along the way they explore the ex-patriot experience, their own personal demons, and the universal questions that arise when one is confronted with an untimely death.
Cast: Billy Harvey, Jeff Palmiotti, Leonora Moore
Mark Jarrett earned an English Literature degree from the University of Georgia in 1999. After graduation he moved to Taiwan to teach. He left Taiwan in 2001, returning to the US to begin his career in film and television. He has since lived and worked in Austin, TX as a Location Manager and Producer. During his time in Texas he has worked on multiple projects, most recently with director Terrence Malick. He also worked on every season of NBC's Friday Night Lights. In recent years Mark has turned his attention to writing, directing, and producing his own projects.
4:30pm at the USO building
As I Am
Alan Spearman . 2012 . USA . 14m
Chris Dean’s heart stopped when he was two. He died but he came back. When Chris was five, his father was murdered, riddled by more than 20 bullets in a gang shootout. At age 18, he gained national attention when he introduced President Barack Obama at his high school graduation. Chris is an observer and philosopher who has always had a few things to say about life from his vantage point in South Memphis. He and filmmaker Alan Spearman walked the neighborhood for eight weeks observing and recording what became the script of As I Am. The poetic and powerful imagery of this film uncover this remarkable young man's landscape, revealing the lives that have shaped his world.
Alan Spearman is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and photojournalist. In 2007, he made his directorial debut with the feature film Nobody. Two years later he won two Emmy Awards for the project $5 Cover Amplified, including one for cinematography and a second for film direction. Spearman lives in Memphis and co-founded the production studio, Spearman+Adams. He is currently developing a feature film with writer-director Craig Brewer, and continuing to shoot a series of short films around the world.
The Passage
Alex Douglas . 2013 . USA . 62m
WORLD premier
The existence, maintenance, and development of the Panama Canal is of global interest. It is the primary shipping route for world trade between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and provides Panama with great economic stability. As Panama has learned to operate the canal, it has also learned of the challenges associated with it. During a trip to Panama, Alex Douglas began to investigate the canal's impending expansion due to global, economic and technological demands. Besides interviewing those directly involved in determining the canal's trajectory, he turned to voices not normally included in the dialogue. His immersion in the lives of people from all backgrounds reveals a pressing need to examine the country's distribution of wealth. Even with the canal’s current successes, many in Panama still struggle to survive. Alex returned with a small team to document the landscape and people whose lives would be affected by the canal expansion. While the appropriate investments have been made to secure their financial future, whether Panama will meet the social challenges that will undoubtably expand alongside the canal remains in question.
Alex Douglas comes from Houston, Texas and graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2006 with his degree in Filmmaking. Shortly thereafter he began Sculpting with Time Productions, seeking to further explore the possibilities of documentary production founded on real relationships with people and personal immersion in the locations being documented. Through strikingly rendered visual documentation of people’s lives in the face of global concerns, he explores and creates poetic documentary as a part of his wider goal to expand human connections across cultures. He has been awarded by the National Endowment for the Advancement of the Arts and participated in various Museum of Modern Art Biennials.
6 - 8pm at the Marfa Museum Thrift Store
Funny or Die Happier Hour
Free Booze! Personalized Jokes! Ice Cream Sandwiches! Funny Videos on VHS!
9:00pm at the Golf Course
Wild at Heart
David Lynch . 1990 . USA . 125m
After breaking parole for self defensive manslaughter, Sailor Ripley and his girlfriend Lula Fortune head down the highway for sunny California. Lula's mother sends a private detective and a hitman after them. Sailor and Lula encounter an assortment of extremely bizarre "people" while discovering hidden secrets about one another. Full of lurid imagery and references to The Wizard of Oz.
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe
David Lynch is famous for writing and directing what can only be called "David Lynch movies," features whose perplexing plots are often a surreal mix of wonder and repugnance. After his first film, Eraserhead (1976), became a cult hit on the midnight movie circuit, Lynch was tapped by Mel Brooks to direct The Elephant Man. The film was a critical and box-office success and he was nominated for an Oscar. His 1986 film Blue Velvet firmly established himself as a unique filmmaker who could appeal to more than arthouse crowds. He has ventured into television, most famously for the series Twin Peaks. His other feature films include Lost Highway and The Straight Story. His 2001 film Mulholland Drive earned him another Oscar nomination for Best Director.
Friday, June 28
11:00am at the USO building
I am John Wayne
Christina Choe . 2010 . USA . 18m
An urban teen struggles with the death of his best friend and the sudden inheritance of a horse, leading viewers on a contemplative journey from the streets of New York to the shores of Coney Island.
Cast: Jamir Daaliya, Violetta Shimanova, Basil Scrivens, Althea Alexis
Christina Choe has received funding from New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), Jerome Foundation, Brooklyn and Canada Arts Council for her projects. Her narrative shorts, The Queen, FLOW, and I am John Wayne, have been selected for Telluride, SXSW, Slamdance, Los Angeles Film Festival, Aspen Shorts Fest, Seattle, Palm Springs Shorts Fest, and Rooftop Films. In 2012 she was invited to the Berlinale Talent Campus and a residency at The MacDowell Colony. In 2013 she was selected as one of two fellows for the HBO / DGA Directing Fellowship. She recently received an M.F.A from Columbia University for writing / directing, and is currently in development for her first feature.
Hide Your Smiling Faces
Daniel Patrick Carbone . 2013 . USA . 80m
TX premier
This first feature by MFF alumni Daniel Carbone (who shared his first short in Marfa in 2008) vividly depicts the young lives of two brothers as they abruptly come of age through the experience of a friend’s mysterious death. The event ripples under the surface of their town, unsettling the brothers and their friends in ways they can’t fully understand. Once familiar interactions take on a macabre tone in light of the tragic accident, leading Eric, 14, and Tommy, 9, to retreat into their wild surroundings to grapple with questions of mortality, both vocally and through silent musings which build into seemingly insurmountable moral quandaries. Hide Your Smiling Faces is a true, headlong glimpse into the raw spirit of youth and an examination of the calluses that often develop from an unfiltered past.
Cast: Ryan Jones, Nathan Varnson, Colm O'Leary
Daniel Patrick Carbone is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, currently residing in Brooklyn, NYC. In 2008, he received the Warner Bros. Film Award and multiple NYU First Run Film Festival awards for his short, Feral, which went on to screen at film festivals internationally. In 2012, he was selected for the IFP Narrative Labs Emerging Visions program, and the New York Film Festival’s Artists Academy. He is currently in post-production on Phantom Cowboys, a feature-length documentary and Cinereach grantee, which he co-directed and shot. Also a Director of Photography, Daniel shot the independent feature film A Little Closer for director Matthew Petock in 2009, and director Rick Alverson’s Rabbit in 2011. As DP, his work has been showcased at the Sundance Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, and the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, among many others.
12:00pm at the Alpine Rangra Theater
Dumpy Goes to the Big Smoke
Mirrah Foulkes . 2012 . Australia . 15m
The Taiwan Oyster
Mark Jarrett . 2012 . USA . 107m
1:30pm at the USO building
Tits
Opal Dockery . 2013 . USA . 7m
Despite prevailing notions about gender equality in the 21st century, it remains illegal for women to go topless in many places throughout the USA. Opal Dockery opines on a woman's right to bear her chest and mind in public.
Cast: Opal Dockery
Opal Dockery is a writer, speaker, actress and filmmaker. A burlesque dancer for over 20 years, she has a B.S. in Psychology and a Master's in Criminal Justice. She is the author of Thoughts of a Stripper: A Mother's Story, an inspirational biographical journal of her burlesque days in the early 1970s. In 2005 her son, filmmaker Jack Truman, shot a short titled Phone Sex Grandma which premiered at the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival and has become a festival cult hit. The team currently has 4 short films playing the festival circuit worldwide.
Betwixt & Between
Leigh Kimball . 2012 . USA . 3m
"A stop-frame phenomenological foray into the apprehension of adolescence and the discombobulation of uncertain identity".
Leigh Kimball is a Seattle based filmmaker whose work has been screened internationally, broadcast on PBS, and exhibited in museums. After spending much of her career focusing on documentary work she has recently returned to what sparked her first interest in film: making spare, short pieces focused on fleeting, ambiguous moments.
Emanuel and the Truth about Fishes
Francesca Gregorini . 2013 . USA . 105m
TX premier
A character-driven, psychological, drama / thriller about a young, troubled woman who becomes obsessed with her new, mysterious neighbor. To get closer to this woman, who looks uncannily like her dead mother, Emanuel offers to babysit her newborn and unwittingly enters a fragile, fictional world, of which she becomes the gatekeeper. Even when arrested for an imaginary crime, Emanuel doesn't betray Linda's fantasy world. But Emanuel will have to go to a place that she herself has never dared to enter to truly save Linda.
Cast: Jessica Biel, Kaya Scodelario, Jimmi Simpson
Francesca Gregorini grew up in Rome, Los Angeles and the English countryside. A Brown University graduate with a Theater Arts major, she sold scripts to HBO and Paramount before co-helming her directorial debut Tanner Hall, which was officially selected at the 2009 Toronto Film Festival. Her character-driven films are visceral and darkly humorous, stylistically bold, with undertones of the magical/surreal.
2:30pm at the Alpine Rangra Theater
Manuel
Tao Ruspoli . 2013 . USA . 22m
The Passage
Alex Douglas . 2010 . USA . 62m
4:30pm at the USO building
See the Dirt
Erik Mauck, Chelsea Hernandez . 2012 . USA . 16m
Scott MacMillan is a young man with an unusual hobby. Scott collects vacuum cleaners. Besides collecting them he takes them apart and puts them back together, and retains an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of this household appliance. Scott loves science and engineering and wants to some day work for NASA. His unwavering dedication to his unique hobby, not to mention the 150 or so vacuums he's collected over the years, bear testament to the quirky obsession of a young man who just wants to figure out how things tick.
Cast: Scott MacMillan
Chelsea Hernandez finished her film degree at the University of Texas, screening several of her school projects at film festivals around the country, and has worked as an associate producer and assistant editor at PBS.
Erik Mauck studied journalism in college and worked as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Central New Hampshire. He studied filmmaking at Southern Illinois University, where he also produced, photographed, and edited for a PBS documentary project on the life of former US Senator Paul Simon. His first feature-length documentary Zombie Girl: The Movie screened at film festivals around the world.
Set It Off
Ryan Staake . 2013 . USA . 4m
An infinite stripper pole extending into interstellar space plays host to all manner of skillful manuevers in this video for electronic music producer Diplo
Ryan Staake studied Graphic Design at Carnegie Mellon University, and Rhode Island School of Design. He worked at Apple as a mobile interface designer, where he began exploring animation and video in his free time. He left the company to found his production company, Pomp&Clout. His music video and commercial work for a wide range of clients and projects has become known for a graphic style which employs seamless transitioning, hyper-realistic aesthetics, and experimental production methods. He currently splits his time between Minnesota and Los Angeles.
Houston
Bastian Günther . 2013 . Germany . 107m
Clemens Trunschka is not doing so well. With spotty employment and a shaky marriage, he’s pretty much lost any claim to being a “functional alcoholic.” When an opportunity arises to help a German company recruit an American candidate as its CEO, Trunschka seizes the chance to get back in the black with both his finances and his family. Trunschka’s headhunting expedition develops into a captivating and subtle examination of failure. He’s aided by lead actor Ulrich Tukur, who delivers a fearless portrayal of a man searching for new ways to hit bottom as he flings himself down the slopes of self‐loathing with boastful swagger. Houston dives unflinchingly into the heart of Texas, exploring a uniquely difficult american landscape and culture from the perspective of an outsider.
Cast: Ulrich Tukur, Garret Dillahunt, Wolfram Koch
Bastian Günther was born in 1974 in Hachenburg, Germany. He studied directing at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin. The short film he made there, End of a Trip, won a First Steps award in 2006. Autopilots, which he wrote and directed in 2007, premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and went on to screen at festivals worldwide, winning the MFG-Star award for young directors at the MFG Festival in Baden-Baden. He divides his time between Berlin and Austin, Texas.
6 - 8pm at the Marfa Museum Thrift Store
Funny or Die Happier Hour
Free Booze! Personalized Jokes! Ice Cream Sandwiches! Funny Videos on VHS!
9:00pm at the Golf Course
A Face in the Crowd
Elia Kazan . 1957 . USA . 126m
Andy Griffith makes a spectacular film debut in this searing drama as Lonesome Rhodes, a philosophical country-western singer discovered in a drunk tank by radio talent scout Patricia Neal and her assistant Walter Matthau. After appearing in a radio spot the gangly, aw-shucks entertainer becomes a surprise overnight sensation. As he ascends to stardom Rhodes attracts fans, sponsors, and endorsements by the carload, and soon becomes the most powerful and influential entertainer on the airwaves. Beloved by his audience, Rhodes reveals himself to his intimates as a scheming, power-hungry manipulator with Machiavellian political aspirations. He uses everyone around him, coldly discarding anyone who might impede his climb to the top. Just when it seems that there's no stopping Rhodes' megalomania, his mentor and ex-lover inserts herself back into his fate.
Elia Kazan, known for his creative stage direction, was born "Elia Kazanjoglous" in Istanbul in 1909 to Greek parents. He directed such Broadway plays as A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He directed the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and various films written for the screen. He was a proponent of the "method approach" to acting, developed by Konstantin Stanislavski. Kazan received two Academy Awards for Best Director.
Saturday, June 29
11:00am at the USO building
Lollywood
Todd Looby . 2012 . Liberia, USA . 10m
Edwin G Kollie, a 15 year old Liberian war orphan and honor student, always wanted to make a Nollywood movie. So one day he wrote a script, cast the 30 actors needed and in just 3 hours he and his fellow students built an entire African village. Todd Looby follows Edwin's amazing effort and makes some discoveries along the way.
Cast: Edwin G Kollie
Todd Looby is a mostly self-taught filmmaker based in Chicago. Lefty, Todd's second narrative feature, was named one of the "Top 10 Movies of 2009" by the Chicago Tribune's metromix and is currently distributed by IndieFlix. His next film, Son of None, was a narrative short shot in Liberia, West Africa. The film won the Special Jury Award at Slamdance 2011 and took home "Best Short Film" at the Boston Film Festival. Besides Lollywood, Todd is screening his latest narrative feature, Be Good, on the 2013 festival circuit. He is adapting Thomas Cahill's non-fiction book A Saint on Death Row into a narrative feature film. He is currently in postproduction on Solo Madres: Stories of the Families Left Behind, a feature documentary he and his wife shot in Honduras.
Blackfish
Gabriela Cowperthwaite . 2013 . USA . 90m .
Tx premiere
Notorious killer whale Tilikum is responsible for the deaths of three individuals, including a top killer whale trainer. Blackfish uses unfiltered video footage and emotionally riveting interviews to compellingly demonstrate the devastating consequences of keeping such intelligent, sentient creatures in captivity for human entertainment.
Gabriela Cowperthwaite has directed, written and produced for ESPN, National Geographic, Animal Planet, Discovery, and History Channel, including History Channel’s Shootout! a series for which she and a cameraman were embedded with 300 Marines at Twenty Nine Palms, and Disaster Tech, a documentary series about the biggest natural disasters in world history. In 2009 she completed a medical film for UCLA International Medicine in conjunction with the International Rescue Committee, teaching doctors in Darfur, Sierra Leone, Thailand and Pakistan, Clinical Management of Assault.
12:00pm at the Alpine Rangra Theater
The Love Competition
Brent Hoff . 2012 . USA . 16m
Hide Your Smiling Faces
Daniel Patrick Carbone . 2013 . USA . 80m
1:30pm at the USO building
Exiles
Thomas Bertelsen . 2012 . USA . 23m
A brutal and atmospheric addendum to the greatest love story of all time, Romeo & Juliet. Forsaking everything she has ever known, a young girl braves punishment and death to join her condemned husband in exile. Reunited and finally free of their violent past, the two lovers set out to build a new life together, but as the days pass in the hostile landscape of an endless desert they realize just how little they truly know about each other.
Cast: Troian Bellisario, Shane Coffey
Thomas Bertelsen is an American film and theater director. He has worked with contemporary luminaries including Arin Arbus and NYC's Phantom Limb Company, was trained at the University of Southern California, and is a founding member of The Casitas Group with his long time collaborators Troian Bellisario, Shane Coffey, Joshua Schell, and Peter Vack. He is represented by The Gersh Agency and currently developing his first feature film A Surf Noir.
RPG OKC
Emily Carmichael . 2013 . USA . 9m
Animated in the style of a retro video game, RPG OKC tells the story of two minor video game characters who go on a perilous first date after meeting each other on an internet dating website.
Emily Carmichael is a filmmaker and artist whose funny and fantastical movies combine magic, adventure and sharp dialogue. Her short films have screened at Sundance, Slamdance, SXSW, Cinevegas, Rooftop Films and now Tribeca, at festivals in Canada, England, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, in New York at BAM and IFC, once on the beach, twice in bars, and several times in small Italian villages. Her short film The Hunter and the Swan discuss their Meeting premiered at Sundance in 2011.
Baikonur
Veit Helmer . 2011 . Germany . 95m .
TX premier
Living by the moto “what drops from the sky is a gift from God”, Kazakh radio operator and space junkie Iskander Orynbekov falls hoplessky in love with french space tourist Julie Mahe. After an amazng twist of fate it seems all of Iskander’s dreams may come true, however perhaps not exactly as planned. Baikonur delivers a gorgeous, space age fairy tale imbued with humor and romanticism.
Cast: Alexander Asochakov, Marie de Villepin, Sitora Farmonova, Erbulat Toguzakov
Veit Helmer was born 1968 in Hannover, Germany and shot his first film at the age of 14. He went on to receive a masters from the Munich Film and Television Academy and became known for off-beat short films. In 1992 he founded his own production company Veit Helmer-Filmproduktion. He directed the features Tuvalu (1999), Gate to Heaven (2003), and Absurdistan (2008), as well as two documentary features. Behind the Couch aired on BBC, and Strangers in Tokyo was commissioned by NHK Japan. He has produced more then 15 short films. He became member of the European Film Academy in August 2002 and lectures at film schools in Prague, Beirut, Tbilisi, Djakarta and Tashkent.
2:30pm at the Alpine Rangra Theater
Tyrolean Riviera
Tatiana von Furstenberg . 2013 . USA / Austria . 13m
Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes
Francesca Gregorini . 2013 . USA . 105m
4:30pm at the USO building
Manuel
Tao Ruspoli . 2013 . USA . 22m
Manuel Molina is an impeccable poet, singer, and guitarist, respected in Spain as one of the most talented flamenco musicians alive. Manuel offers a joyous glimpse in to the life and mind of this extoradinarily passionate artist.
Cast: Manuel Molina
Tao Ruspoli is an Italian-American filmmaker, photographer, and musician. Moviemaker magazine singled out Ruspoli as one of "10 Young Filmmakers To Watch" in 2008. His feature narrative debut, Fix, won Best Film at the 2008 Brooklyn Film Festival, Vail Film Festival, and the 2008 Twin Rivers Media Festival, among other international festival prizes. In 2000 Ruspoli founded The Los Angeles Filmmakers Cooperative, a bohemian collective of filmmakers and musicians who work out of a converted school bus. Through LAFCO, Tao has produced several films and helped dozens of filmmakers to make their first films and discover the wonders of digital media.
Harry Dean Stanton : Partly Fiction
Sophie Huber . 2012 . Switzerland . 77m
A mesmerizing, impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his own heart-breaking renditions of American folk songs. Stunningly lensed in color and b/w, the film explores the actor's enigmatic outlook on his life, his unexploited talents as a musician, and includes candid scenes with David Lynch, Wim Wenders, Sam Shepard, Kris Kristofferson, and Debbie Harry. The fragile soul of an actor emerges from in poignant collage.
Cast: Harry Dean Stanton, David Lynch, Sam Shepard
Sophie Huber was born in Bern, Switzerland. After studying acting at The Lee Strasberg Institute in Los Angeles, she worked as a performer for several theater and film productions in Switzerland and Germany. Huber co-founded the Berlin Film Collective Hangover Ltd. She co-wrote and co-directed and composed music for all the Hangover Ltd. films.
6 - 8pm at the Marfa Museum Thrift Store
Funny or Die Happier Hour
Free Booze! Personalized Jokes! Ice Cream Sandwiches! Funny Videos on VHS!
9:00pm at the Golf Course
Paris, Texas
Wim Wenders . 1984 . USA . 147m
Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) is wandering through the Texas desert, a bit shaky and in desperate need of water, when he stumbles into a bar and collapses. A German doctor of dubious credentials finds a phone number in Travis' wallet belonging to his brother, Walt (Dean Stockwell). Walt is shocked to hear about his brother's condition, since no one in the family has seen or heard from Travis in four years; Walt flies to Texas to bring Travis home, only to find him wandering by the side of the road. They begin a long drive back to Los Angeles, where Walt lives with Travis' estranged wife and son. Travis remains mute and oddly distant, but eventually begins to talk again to begin the painful process of reacquainting himself with his son and trying to reconcile with his wife, Jane (Nastassia Kinski).
Wim Wenders was born in Düsseldorf in 1945. After studying medicine and philosophy and living in Paris as a painter he attended the University of Television and Film in Munich. One of the most important figures to emerge from the “New German Cinema” period in the 1970s, he was a founding member of the German film distribution “Filmverlag der Autoren” and established his own production company in Berlin in 1975. He became a member of the Academy of Arts Berlin in 1984. He was awarded honorary doctorates at the Sorbonne University in Paris, the Theological Faculty of the University of Fribourg, the University of Louvain, and the Architectural Faculty of the University of Catania. He is founding member and president of the European Film Academy and member of the order Pour le Mérite. Currently he is teaching film as a professor at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg.
Sunday, June 30
11:00am at the USO building
Ditch Work
Simon Liu . 2013 . USA . 25m
A filmic meditation on movement, ancestry, and memory set in Hong Kong, the film follows a young Eurasian woman grieving the recent passing of her estranged Chinese grandmother. Haunted by the loss, she exercises a series of rituals to both reconnect and release herself from her memory. A brother / sister collaboration between director SImon Liu and choreographer / performer Jennie MaryTai Liu, the film was shot on location in Sheung Shui, a village in rural Hong Kong where the Liu's paternal ancestors settled four hundred years ago. Ditchwork uses intimate physicality, folk-tale themes, and lush imagery to imaginatively fill in the blanks of a family history that is, like every history, both deeply known and unfathomably mysterious.
Cast: Jennie MaryTai Liu
Simon Liu was born from a Chinese father and an English mother and spent his childhood between Hong Kong and Stoke On Trent in England. Now a Brooklyn based artist, he is currently in post-production on his first feature film Living Room and is in preparation for his second; Inquire Within. Simon has developed a fascination with gesture and unspoken exchanges, relishing the dramatization of our often flawed and fragile attempts at communication.
Viva
Cheryl Dunn . 2013 . USA . 4m
A lonely woman called Viva sits restlessly in a house by herself. She collapses on her bed and loses herself in projected memories. A visiting spirit tries to awaken her with touch and implores her to "be love". Yielding to his voice, she invokes the violet flame and embarks on a vision quest to overcome her insecurities and fears.
Cast: Penelope Gil, Melissa Auf Der Maur, Adeline Medalia
Cheryl Dunn is a documentary filmmaker and street photographer based in New York City. Her films have played at numerous film festivals including Tribeca, Edinburgh, Rotterdam, Los Angeles, Havana, and on PBS. Cheryl was one of the subjects of the documentary, book, & traveling museum exhibition “Beautiful Losers”. She has had two books of her photographs published - Bicycle Gangs of New York and Some Kinda Vocation.
Jackson/Marker 4 AM
Ruth Beckermann . 2012 . Austria . 3m
A late night street performer dances with evident self absorbtion in the headlights of obstructed traffic somewhere in Jackson, Mississippi.
Ruth Beckermann was born in Vienna where she also spent her childhood. After her studies in journalism and history of art in Vienna, Tel Aviv and New York, she took her degree in philosophy at the University of Vienna. She has contributed as a journalist to several Austrian and Swiss magazines. In 1978 she co-founded the distribution company filmladen in which she was active for seven years. Since 1985 she works as a writer and filmmaker.
Dumpy goes to the Big Smoke
Mirrah Foulkes . 2012 . Australia . 15m
A stranded motorist enters the insular world of an RV dwelling cat lover.
Cast: Eden Falk, Anthony Hayes, Emily Tomlins
Mirrah Foulkes has appeared in feature films including the highly acclaimed Animal Kingdom, which won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2010 and Julia Leigh's debut feature Sleeping Beauty which played in official competition at Cannes 2011. Dumpy Goes to the Big Smoke is her first film as director.
Tyrolean Riviera
Tatiana von Furstenberg . 2013 . USA / Austria . 13m
Shot in the tradition of a vintage holiday postcard, Tyrolean Riviera tells the story of an overly confident jet setter who delights in his own charm, and weaves a web of untruths to attract beautiful women to pay his way. The Hills are alive with the sound of deception.
Cast: Sharon Dita Johnson, Antony Langdon, Tara Subkoff
Tatiana von Furstenberg studied modern culture and media, comparative literature, and education at Brown University, and did graduate work in applied psychology at New York University. She has worked as an arts journalist, gallery curator, talent scout, and independent entrepreneur. She is the program director of the Diller-vonFurstenberg Family Foundation. She co-wrote and directed Tanner Hall, which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Once it Started it Could Not End Otherwise
Kelly Sears . 2012 . USA . 8m
Candid photos from 1970s high school yearbooks resurface in a minimalist horror story. An unknown force seeps into the walls of the school, eerily mirroring larger political and social history of the recent past.
Kelly Sears's collage animations are created from foraged magazines, books, and films. She uses appropriated imagery from our nation’s past to create speculative historical narratives that resonate with present-day events. Her work has screened at museums, galleries, and film festivals including The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, MOMA, LACMA, The Hammer Museum, Machine Project, Sundance Film Festival, South by Southwest Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, and Black Maria Film Festival.
City Limits
Kris Moyes . 2012 . Australia . 10m
A glamorous socialite realizes her money man has betrayed her and decides to seek justice personally.
Kris Moyes is an Australian-born director, producer and artist known for his innovative and ground-breaking music videos for Grizzly Bear, Beck, & Franz Ferdinand. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the world including City Limits screening at Centre Pompidou, France and Gutenberg Museum, Germany.
1:30pm at the USO building
The Love Competition
Brent Hoff . 2012 . USA . 16m
In recent years, technology has enabled scientists to begin mapping emotional experiences in the human brain, discovering the geographic location and specific neurochemical pathways responsible for feelings like love, joy, fear, and hate. To some extent these advances allow scientists to measure one individual’s emotional experience against another’s. With this in mind, a filmmaker enlists The Stanford Center for Cognitive Neurobiological Imaging to help hold the world’s first ever “Love Competition,” in which seven contestants have five minutes in an MRI machine to love someone “as hard as they can.” Attempting to scientifically quantify such a deeply personal experience may seem far from romantic, the results are anything but…
Brent Hoff is the Co-Founder & Executive Producer of Wholphin, where he films drunk bees, crying competitions, and illegal trans-border volleyball matches. Before that he authored Mapping Epidemics, a book on pandemic disease transmission, made TV at The Daily Show, VH1, and Nickelodeon, and wrote articles about squid. His first feature script, about the last days of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, is currently in production.
An Oversimplification of her Beauty
Terrence Nance . 2012 . USA . 93m
With arresting insight, vulnerability, and a delightful sense of humor, Terence Nance’s explosively creative debut feature documents the relationship between Terence and a lovely young woman (Namik Minter) as it teeters on the divide between platonic and romantic. Utilizing a tapestry of live action and various styles of animation, Terence explores the fantasies, emotions, and memories that race through his mind during a singular moment in time.
Cast: Alisa Becher, Jc Cain, Dexter Jones, Namik Minter, Terence Nance, Talibah Lateefah Newman, Chanelle Pearson
Terrance Nance grew up in Dallas, TX and currently resides in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. His work includes installation, performance, music, and moving images. In addition to personal work, he has collaborated on short films and music videos with Blitz the Ambassador, Cody ChesnuTT, and Pharoahe Monch.
6pm at the Golf Course
Closing Holi Party
Come join our closing celebration with a festive Indian tradition representing the triumph of good over evil and the relaxing of social barriers in the interest of equality and good will. Be sure to wear clothes you don't mind ruining!