2008 International Tour Program

Program 1 (Digital)

“Doxology” (Michael Langan)
Most Promising Filmmaker
Providence, RI ~ 7 min ~ Animation
An experimental comedy about tennis, dancing cars, and God.

“My Olympic Summer ” (Daniel Robin)
Honorable Mention
San Francisco, CA ~ 13 min
Documentary
Against the backdrop of his own failed marriage, the director re-examines old 8mm films of his parents as seemingly blissful newlyweds, while revisiting the international drama of the 1972 Olympic Games that gave their marriage a new beginning.

“Yours Truly ” (Osbert Parker)
Most Technically Innovative Film
London, UK ~ 7 min ~ Animation
Film icons burst through yesterday's emulsion in this mix of animation and footage gathered from live action films. Parker ressurrects the spirits of classic film noir to tell a story of love, greed, and betrayal.

“The Green Grass of Twilight ”
(Richie Sherman)
Pine Grove Mills, PA ~ 7.5 min
Experimental
An upside-down time-lapse camera is moved frame by frame on a track along a beach inverting the ground and the sky. The camera moves through four shots recorded in different weather conditions. The result is a mysterious and disorienting space in accelerated time, where the originally solid ground at the top of the frame appears to be sliding past like a lava-stream.

“Frog Jesus” (Ben Peters)
Vancouver, BC, Canada ~ 2 min
Narrative
He thought he could make a frog Jesus.

“Bullet Proof Vest ” (May Lin Au Yung)
Stanford, CA ~ 6 min ~ Documentary
Welcome to Richmond, California, where children neither walk to school, nor go to the park - not if they want to live past the age of 18. Stark and beautiful images are contrasted by the voices of a family living in a 'Tent City' to protest the violence in their neighborhood.

“Safari” (Catherine Chalmers)
New York , NY ~ 8 min ~ Experimental
A startlingly intimate adventure through one of earth's "smaller" ecosystems. This is an evolutionary melodrama that travels deep into the world of insects, pests and other crawling creatures that we would otherwise swat away.

“America In Pictures ”
(Georg Koszulinski)
Gainesville, FL~ 7 min ~ Experimental
Various non-conventional film-developing and light exposure methods were used to create the strange and frenetic visual effects of America in Pictures. The result is an abstract representation of the filmmaker's American travels from 2001 to 2007.

“Crank Balls ” (Devin Bell)
Tom Berman Award For Most Promising Filmmaker
Los Angeles, CA ~ 5 min ~ Animation
The Crank Balls are trapped in a horrible colorless void until an infectious happiness changes their lives forever.

“Number One ” (Leighton Pierce)
Honorable Mention
Ridge, NY ~ 11 min ~ Experimental
With water imagery as the foundation, Number One engages the experience of elasticity between varying states of mind.

“Nijuman No Borei (200,000 Phantoms)” (Jean Gabriel Periot)
Best International Film
Paris, France ~ 11 min ~ Experimental
A remarkable visual achievement and an emotional journey, Periot overlays photos revolving around one location in Hiroshima, Japan from 1916 through 2004. Winner of Best Film at Rotterdam 2008.

“I Met the Walrus” (Josh Raskin)
Toronto, ON, Canada ~ 5 min
Animation
In 1969, fourteen-year-old Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room with his tape recorder and persuaded him to do an interview.

Program 1 (16mm)

“Li: The Patterns of Nature”
(John Campbell)
Best Cinematography
Lansdale, PA ~ 9 min ~ Experimental
This film explores in poetic, non-narrative terms, the myriad patterns of nature that are spontaneously generated in the physical world and blurs the distinction between living and inanimate phenomena.

“Office Suite” (Robert Todd)
Boston, MA ~ 14 min ~ Experimental
Life half-lived to the fullest, through light journeys within and without The Office, in 3 movements.

Program 2 (Digital)

“A Painful Glimpse Into My Writing Process” (Chel White)
Portland, OR ~ 2 min ~ Animation
Dark and humorous, A PAINFUL GLIMPSE INTO MY WRITING PROCESS is a stream-of-conscious look at the writing process, told with animated images straight from the subconscious… or somewhere. The narrative originates from an unpublished satirical essay by poet Scott Poole about his own writing process. It was the inspiration for filmmaker Chel White to build this one-minute film upon.

“The Anthem ”
(Apichtapong Weerasethakul)
BangKok, Thailand ~ 5 min
Experimental
In Thailand there is a Royal Anthem before the feature presentation. Its purpose is to honor the King. One of the rituals imbedded in our society is to give a blessing to something or someone before certain ceremonies. I would like to propose a Cinema Anthem that praises and blesses the approaching feature for each screening. An older lady will perform a ritual channeling energy to the audience to give them a clear mind. The ritual will ensure that after the feature film ends, life the outside world will be better.

“The Drift ” (Kelly Sears)
Glendale, CA ~ 9 min ~ Animation
The disappearance of a group of astronauts and a mysterious transmission from outer space launches the counter-cultural revolution in this absurd fable. THE DRIFT explores both the American frontier spirit and it's apathetic polar opposite.

“A Hundred Feet Universe”
(Naoko Tasaka)
Valencia, CA ~ 3 min ~ Experimental
On the planet, the daytime and nighttime last for a thousand years. One night, small creatures were born under a thick layer of ice. They grew up and spread throughout the planet. The creatures left before the morning, then the night returns.

“Spontaneous Generation”
(Andrew Cahill)
Best Animated Film
Providence, RI ~ 5 min ~ Animation
SPONTANEOUS GENERATION is a film about things that grow and collapse. It's about clay and cardboard. It's about sex.

“My Croation Nose ” (Richard Dinter)
Stockholm, Sweden ~ 13 min
Documentary
The story of a man (the director) and his parents - a scientist from Yugoslavia and his Swedish, upper class wife. A deeply personal film about lack of contact, both physical and otherwise.

“Mates” (Martin Thoburn)
ANn Arbor, MI ~ 5.5 min ~ Animation
A montage of dancing textures and shapes. Created using a unique feedback technique that blurs the line between analog and digital technologies.

“White Out” (Jeff Scher)
Brooklyn, NY ~ 3 min ~ Animation
A visual paean to the magic of snow, by artist Jeff Scher with music by Shay Lynch.

“The Adventure” (Mike Brune)
Atlanta, GA ~ 22 min ~ Narrative
A couple's leisurely drive through the woods is interrupted by a persistent mime. The couple become a captive audience to, and then reluctant participants in a drama as it unfolds.

“On the Assassination of the President”
(Adam Keker)
Funniest Film
ANn Arbor, MI ~ 6 min ~ Narrative
A top-secret government file, to be viewed only in the event of the President's death by assassination, gives specific instructions on what should be done, and presents dossiers on the three most likely suspects.

“Brilliant Noise” (Semiconductor)
Brighton, UK ~ 6 min ~ Experimental
BRILLIANT NOISE takes us into the data vaults of solar astronomy. Most of the imagery has been collected by satellites orbiting the Earth as single frames, or files of information, that are then reorganized into spectral sequences. The soundtrack brings to light the hidden forces at play upon the solar surface, by directly translating the intensity of the brightness into audio manipulation.

“Energie!” (Thorsten Fleisch)
Emerging Experimental Video Artist
Berlin, Germany ~ 5 min
Experimental
In ENERGIE!, an uncontrolled high voltage discharge exposes photographic paper, which is then arranged in time to create new visual systems of electron organization. Even though the result is abstract, it tells a universal story older than the world itself.

“Portrait #2: Trojan” (Vanessa Renwick)
Portland, OR ~ 5 min ~ Experimental
The Portrait Series is part of an ongoing series of filmed places, stories and histories of Cascadia with scores by musicians living in the Pacific Northwest. PORTRAIT #2: TROJAN is an arresting examination of the dynamics between industrialization and nature.

Program 2 (16mm)

“Observando el Cielo” (Jeanna Liotta)
Best Sound Design
New York, NY ~ 19 min ~ Experimental
Seven years of celestial field recordings gathered from the chaos of the cosmos and inscribed onto 16mm film from various locations upon this turning tripod Earth. This work is neither a metaphor nor a symbol, but is feeling towards a fact in the midst of perception, which time flows through. Natural VLF radio recordings of the magnetosphere in action allow the universe to speak for itself.