Exciting news for Ann Arbor residents and University of Michigan students!

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is collaborating with the Ann Arbor District Library on the addition of film festival films to their collection. If you are an AADL cardholder, you already have access to four AAFF films currently available. To obtain a library card, just stop by your nearest library with proof of Ann Arbor residency to sign up. As a U-M student, I can say from first-hand experience that this process takes no longer than five minutes and is free!

To find the four films mentioned, go online to aadl.org and look up the “Ann Arbor Film Festival.” These films will appear in your search (alongside our digital archive of posters and program books) and you can watch them online. Synopsis, AAFF festival screenings and awards, connection to the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and other information is included in each record.

This project is ongoing, so after you have watched these films keep an eye out for more to come through the library’s collection in the future!

Films currently available online at the AADL:

Those Who Come Will Hear, Simon Ploueffe

Screened at the 56th Festival, 2018

Received a Jury Award

I Think You Should Come To America, Kamila Kuc

Screened at the 55th Festival, 2017

My Private Life II, Jill Daniels

Screened at the 55th Festival, 2017

Winner for Best Experimental Film

Walk For Me, Elegance Bratton

Screened at the 55th Festival, 2017

Winner of the \aut\ Award for Best LGBTQ Film

The Ann Arbor Film Festival celebrates exceptional film art in a variety of ways, including a robust awards program. Thanks to the generous contributions of a number of individuals and businesses who have supported AAFF awards throughout our 58-year history, the awards program is able to recognize the work of more than 20 talented makers at the festival each year.

To ensure that the funds that make these laurels possible every year will continue to be available for generations to come, forward-thinking donors set out about five years ago to begin building toward the full endowment of some of these awards. At this time, two of the festival’s 22 awards are fully funded through an endowment that AAFF donors have helped build for the festival under the stewardship of the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation (AAACF). Two other AAFF awards are not far behind in their quest to become fully endowed.

Of these four award-endowment initiatives, the one to launch most recently is the quest to endow the \aut\ FILM Award for Best LGBTQ+ film. This effort began with the Out Night program at the 57th festival, held in March 2019. At that time, the AAFF honored \aut\ BAR founders Martin Contreras and Keith Orr, who by then had already supported the award on an annual basis for a dozen years running (since 2007). Contreras and Orr retired from running \aut\ BAR not long before the festival this year, making 2019 an important time to begin securing the future of this vital award and its distinctive place at the intersection of the LGBTQ+ community and experimental film.

Contreras and Orr generously pledged a 1:2 match for every dollar contributed to the endowment effort for the \aut\ FILM Award. So far, their match challenge has generated just over $4,500 from big-hearted donors, bringing the award fund halfway to the goal of $9,000—an endowment amount that will, once achieved, produce $300 in award monies every year in perpetuity for a deserving LGBTQ+ filmmaker.

The first Ann Arbor Film Festival award to reach its original endowment target is the Peter Wilde Award for Most Technically Innovative Film. Peter Wilde was a longtime projectionist for the festival and a master of special effects. In honor of his creativity and continual pursuit of new techniques, the $500 award in Wilde’s name recognizes the film each year that demonstrates the most pioneering technical innovations. The generous donors who helped establish this fund in loving memory of Peter Wilde include Wilde’s sister and brother-in-law, Susan and Jim Warner, as well as Peter and Susan’s brother, the late Alan C. Wilde. Additional support was provided by Bernard Coakley, Constance Crump and Jay Simrod, Bill Davis, IATSE Local 395, the LaBour Foundation for Non-Institutional Living, John Nelson and Deb Gaydos, Glenda Pittman, Woody Sempliner, Kevin Smith, and Robert Ziebell and Elizabeth Ward.

The most recent AAFF award to meet its endowment goal is the Prix DeVarti for Funniest Film. The endowment fund for the Prix DeVarti was established by the DeVarti Family of Ann Arbor. The award honors the memory of Dominick and Alice DeVarti and recognizes the 58-year friendship between the establishment they founded—the much-loved neighborhood bar and restaurant Casa Dominick’s—and the AAFF. The festival has been presenting this award since at least the 4th Ann Arbor Film Festival, if not before. Worth $25 in 1966, the Prix DeVarti now disburses $1,000 to a deserving experimental filmmaker each year.

Last but not least, the George Manupelli Founder’s Spirit Award is also working its way toward full endowment. With lead support from brothers Dave and Rich DeVarti, this $500 award recognizes the filmmaker whose work best captures the bold and iconoclastic spirit of the Ann Arbor Film Festival founder, the late George Manupelli—whose vision for the festival continues to this day. Contributors to this key fund have included Betty Johnson and Joseph Wehrer, Pat Oleszko, Marilyn Rockefeller, David Rosenboom, and Buster Simpson, with matching funds contributed by the Helmut Stern Legacy Challenge at the AAACF.

To make your gift today to the \aut\ FILM Award for Best LGBTQ+ Film and the George Manupelli Founder’s Spirit Award, please visit the donation page or mail your check to:

The Ann Arbor Film Festival

230 Collingwood Drive, Suite 160-B Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103

Thank you for your support of filmmaker awards at the Ann Arbor Film Festival!

2019 is winding down and before you know it, the 58th Ann Arbor Film Festival will be here. We are excited to report, just in time for the holiday season, festival passes are now available!

Take advantage or our special holiday pricing on passes for the 58th AAFF (March 24-29, 2020).

With pass prices increasing for the first time in a decade, now is a great time to get yours at a discount!

58th AAFF Pass Pricing

Special Holiday Sale

now through December 31: $115

Early Bird Special

January 1 - February 29, 2020: $125

Standard Pricing

beginning March 1: $150

Treat yourself and/or a loved one this holiday season with a pass to the March 2020 festival. If you would like a certificate to present as a gift, please contact info@aafilmfest.org. Purchases must be made before December 17 to receive a certificate.

The festival pass gets you into our famous opening-night party, as well as all 40+ film programs and after parties throughout our 6-day festival, March 24-29, 2020.

Get them on sale while you can! Passes will be available for pickup beginning March 24, 2020 at the Michigan Theater.

Guidestar’s 2019 Seals of Transparency are here and we are proud to announce that the Ann Arbor Film Festival (AAFF) has earned a Silver Seal of Transparency! As a non-profit organization, we are committed to maintaining transparency with our current and prospective donors and stakeholders. This achievement indicates that we have added substantial basic and financial information to our nonprofit profile on Guidestar, which makes pertinent information about our organization available to our community members and each of Guidestar’s 10 million+ users.

The year is 1932-- A gallon of gas costs 10 cents, Johnny Cash has just been born, and the throes of the Great Depression can be felt around the world. The world is changing and the people with it, including the ever-engaging world of Film. The medium has been making waves since 1891 when Thomas Edison invented the kinetoscope. The invention took American and European audiences by storm and would pave the way for future inventions, like the Cinématographe and Vitascope. Now, 41 years later, the first Film Festival will open its doors--The Venice International Film Festival.

The Venice International Film Festival is the first established film festival in history. It was first organized in August of 1932 at the La Biennale di Venezia by the President of the Biennale, Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, the sculptor Antonio Maraini, and Luciano De Feo. The festival garnered so much positive response that it became an annual event from then on.

Once the Venice International Film Festival set the stage, many different festivals followed suit. The Venice International Film Festival is considered one of the “Big Three” film festivals out there, joined by the Cannes Festival, in 1946, and the Berlin International Film Festival in 1951. These three are said to be some of the most prestigious festivals in the world.

But what about America? Well, we’ve been doing this whole film festival thing for a while, too, just not as long! The Columbus International Film and Animation Festival, formerly known as The Chris Awards, is the oldest film festival in the United States, having been established in 1952. A hallmark for central Ohio, the festival has successfully promoted filmmakers for 68 years. While big-name industry professionals enter, the festival is about providing a platform for independent filmmakers as well.

But as we know, not every film is for every audience. Many individuals felt these festivals to be too broad for their work, not sure they should submit a film. Thus, independent and experimental festivals were born.

Based on our findings, we believe the Ann Arbor Film Festival to be the oldest experimental, avant-garde film festival in the world. Established in 1963, AAFF has been the premier venue for independent filmmakers to come together and experience film as an art-form. With a rich history and reputation as a platform for experimental makers, it is one of the more notable festivals for the niche.

With experimental film dating all the way back to the 1920s, it is also important to mention the existence of another organization. Doc Films of the University of Chicago was officially established in 1940, but there are records of the group going back to 1932. While the organization started as a playground for nonfiction film, they found that it was not sustainable and thus branched out to include fiction and experimental films. It is the longest continuously running student film society in America, according to the Museum of Modern Art. Were they to be doing film festival since the time of inception, it would be considered the oldest experimental film festival--it was in May 2019 that Doc Films held their first film festival. (Congratulations to them!)

As AAFF gears up for our 58th annual festival, we pause to look back upon our history, what brought us here, what keeps us here. It’s clear that there is a large love of film all over the world; from Venice to Columbus, from Chicago to Berlin. With over 3,000 active film festivals taking place each year, it’s hard not to miss such an impressive crowd of people. As we continue to grow and promote artists, we remember our roots fondly and hold nothing but the utmost respect for the decades-long tradition of film festivals.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival (AAFF) family is always excited to welcome new members. If you or a loved one loves film art, now is the time to consider becoming a part of the AAFF family!

Enjoy regular pricing on our memberships through December 31.

Our members receive exclusive discounts, tickets or passes to the 58th festival in March 2020, and invitations to special members-only events. AAFF members also enjoy free admission to our newly established AAFF Presents screening series, which will start up again in spring 2020.

Don’t wait on this offer-- starting January 1, 2020, membership prices will increase.

Become a member today!

The AAFF HOLIDAY SALE is here! From now through December 31, we are offering this great deal on our DVDs!

Buy the 10-pack of Volumes 1–10 ($110), and get Volumes 11 and 12 for FREE! (a $30 savings)

For arrival by the holidays, standard holiday shipping rates apply for DVD orders placed by December 17. (Postal and shipping times may vary.)

Just in time for the holiday season, Volume 12 of the AAFF DVD has arrived! This DVD highlights nine award-winning films from the 57th festival in March 2019.

57th Awarded Films included in DVD

The unconventional artistic journey of Chicago-based artist and writer Fulla Abdul-Jabbar took her from working in biochemistry to creating experimental films. In this newly released short interview with the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Fulla discusses two of her works that were programmed at the 57th AAFF in March 2019: Why did you cry when you read that poem and A Comfortable Hole.

Fulla created the expanded cinema performance Why did you cry when you read that poem using Apple’s Keynote software, which she describes as a “potent, poetic, and personally expressive” media form. As one in a series of PowerPoint poems, Why did you cry when you read that poem explores the rigidity of structure and the quality of form that moves us.

Fulla's other work, A Comfortable Hole—which was a world premiere at AAFF—is described as "a PowerPoint poem that leans against its edge and falls asleep there." With both works, Fulla’s goal was to show how the PowerPoint media form is “intrinsically beautiful.”

To learn more from Fulla about these works—plus what she enjoyed most about the Ann Arbor Film Festival—watch the interview.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is seeking an experienced Communications and Marketing Manager. In this role you will be responsible for communications to the public with a primary focus on the festival’s marketing, and will provide support for development activities as assigned.

As an employee of our small nonprofit arts organization, you will have the opportunity to wear many hats while being encouraged and supported to take initiative and try new things. You will work closely with the team to bring about the continued success and improvement of the Ann Arbor Film Festival.

You can find more information about the position here.

To apply, please send your letter of interest, résumé/CV, and references to leslie@aafilmfest.org.

Volume 12 of the AAFF DVD collection has arrived and is ready for purchase! This year’s edition highlights nine films that were screened during the 57th festival in March 2019. The films include Mudanza Contemporánea by Teo Guillem, Object Dream by Kyungwon Song, Flores (Flowers) by Vado Vergara, Running in Circles by Ei Toshinari and Duy Nguyen, Armed Lullaby by Yana Ugrekhelidze, Pictured Rocks by Jack Cronin, Flame by Sami van Ingen, Sun Zoom Spark by Gina Kamentsky, and New Panther: A Call for Action by Sage Love and Nola Asantewaa. Visit our website for more details on each film.

Just in time for the grand finale of the first annual “Ann Arbor Film Festival Presents” monthly screening series, Patrick Dunn from the Ann Arbor Observer recently shared a film review of El Mar La Mar by Joshua Bonnetta and J.P. Sniadecki. This short film is set at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The “interplay of natural beauty with stark reality is the bread and butter of Sniadecki and Bonnetta's hypnotic, disturbing portrait of life-and gruesome death-along the U.S.-Mexico border,” writes Dunn. Click here for the full article.

The film shows on November 6 at 7 pm at the State Theatre as part of AAFF Presents. Tickets are free for AAFF members.

Be sure to secure tickets and select your seats for the November 6 screening.

We look forward to seeing you there!

It is screening season at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. This is the time when we devote ourselves to reviewing the hundreds of film submissions that have arrived on our doorstep. We are grateful to accept this honor for the 58th time and thrilled to regard the fruits of so much creative labor.

It is reassuring to witness the profusion of creative processing during these times of political uncertainty. Reflecting on the contemporary moment, articulating concerns and questions, envisioning new possibilities, journeying into the far reaches of the moving image medium— the films we receive indicate a whole lot of thinking, feeling, expressing, experimenting, playing, pondering, declaring, disclosing, revealing, proclaiming, discovering, and innovating.

The work and care that each maker has poured into their project is apparent, and we are fortunate to be entrusted with each film. As a maker myself who has submitted my work to dozens of juried festivals and exhibitions over the years, I understand firsthand how it feels to cast my work out into what seems like a black hole at times, blindly trusting that it will be regarded, subjected to a fair process of review, hoping for a shot, an opening through which it can be shared with an audience, wanting the film to have its own life and even to expand mine.

We respect our makers through our dedication to a transparent and fair selection process, and we stand by our code of ethics. At the AAFF, all films experience a full review process, and we ensure that each end every artist receives fair and equal consideration.

It is an adventure to witness the state of the world as articulated through the visions of our artists. I’ve been seeing existential ponderings, absurd humor, a continuing dedication to celluloid revealing still-new visual vistas, innovation in techniques and aesthetics, terrible but true stories, expressions of mental states, personal voices, poetry, existential anxiety, memories, stories, observations, and transformation.

Thank you, makers, for sharing your work with us.

Huge thanks, as well, for the incredible devotion of our fine cadre of volunteer screeners who dedicate hours of time to this wonderful process. We appreciate your help in mining the depths, digging and unearthing buried treasure. It can be challenging to scout for the work that will come to life on the silver screen for Ann Arbor Film Festival audience members (who come from near and far), yet teasing out the work best suited to our festival is an incredibly rewarding process.

For the 58th time, we dive deep undersea and comb the island for buried treasure. What we will turn up will be evident and presented in March….

Filmmakers Emma Piper-Burket (Driving Dinosaurs, 2019), second from right, and LNZ Arturo (2MissedCalls and <3, both 2017), far right, enjoy a March 2019 Off the Screen! installation hosted by the Ann Arbor Art Center, an AAFF community partner. The installation is Chorus for Untrained Operator by Stephan Moore and Peter Bussigel. [Photo by Bree Andruzzi]

The Ann Arbor Film Festival gets much more from the town it calls home than just a name.

The festival wouldn’t be what it is without the outstanding support of the greater Ann Arbor community—including the support of our community partners.

Who are these community partners? Well, each year we team up with about 20 different local organizations—from WCBN and the Ann Arbor Art Center to the Michigan Psychoanalytic Society and beyond—to help spread the word about our unique slice of Ann Arbor. The main thing that all of these partners have in common is that we think that they are each doing great things to help keep Ann Arbor and the surrounding area the strong, beautiful, and distinctive community that it is.

With so many people coming to Ann Arbor for the week of the festival, we see it as a chance to bring their attention to these organizations. At the same time, our partners help spread the word about our festival through their own networks, which can lead to many new and exciting relationships.

Because of the open-ended nature of the partnerships, they can take many different shapes and forms. For example, the Ann Arbor Art Center has been a longtime partner with the festival. The center not only promotes the festival as a community partner but also joins forces with us to present some of our Off The Screen! Installations and events, as seen in the photo above.

We are always open to engaging with potential new community partners, and we enjoy the process of thinking outside of the box on ways we can work together. If you are part of an organization or group with an interest in talking with us about a potential community partnership, or if you’d like a bit more information about the ways these partnerships can work, please reach out to me at marin@aafilmfest.org. I look forward to hearing from you!

On Friday, October 18, the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (MCACA) announced an award of $22,500 in operational support for the Ann Arbor Film Festival (AAFF) for the 2020 funding cycle. Of the total award, $2,360 consists of federal funds provided to the Council by the National Endowment for the Arts.

At its October 18 council meeting, MCACA announced that $9.6 million in grants would be awarded statewide during this fiscal year. Washtenaw County received the second-highest funding allocation in the state, after Wayne County ($1.8M). In total, Washtenaw County arts and cultural organizations and artists are to receive more than $1 million in grants from the MCACA for the fiscal year 2020 funding cycle. The MCACA’s award to the AAFF is one of more than 50 grants awarded to nonprofit arts organizations across the county.

Huge thanks to the MCACA, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the State of Michigan—including our local, regional, and state lawmakers—for their support of the arts in our state and county, both here at the Ann Arbor Film Festival and beyond.

After learning about the Ann Arbor Film Festival just a year prior to having two of her works included in the 57th annual event, London-based filmmaker Katharine Fry sat down for an interview to discuss these works.

The video installation, Before her investiture, the novice must hear what she has to, learn what she has to, shape what she has to, say was part of the Off the Screen! program. According to Fry’s description of her work in the program guide of the 57th festival: “In this video installation for one, you enter an intimate red velvet world and encounter a novice in a strange educational setting…. The novice must rehearse the lesson dictated by an unseen voice, but her body refuses.”

“I am very interested in the relation or invitation or confrontation between the viewer and the screen as a body,” says Fry in the interview with AAFF. Her digital film, d.a.n.c.e.f.o.r y.o.u.r d.a.d.d.y. had its North American premiere at the 2019 festival and was a film in competition.

In this conversation, Fry admits that her work “can upset people.” Even she is affected by it. In fact, she spoke about the emotional impact d.a.n.c.e.f.o.r y.o.u.r d.a.d.d.y. had on her, stating that “the ratcheting of the tension still gets my heart going.”

Fry’s works have been awarded and recognized around the world. Katharine has received a Hauser & Wirth First Prize, Soho House Mentoring Prize, and prizes from the Creekside Open and Black Swan Arts Open. Her work was also exhibited at Visions in the Nunnery in London and the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival in Hawick, Scotland.

Enjoy more of the interview with Katharine Fry.

Join us at the University of Michigan’s Hatcher Graduate Library Gallery for a one-time showing of short film highlights from the early days of the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Founded in 1963, the Ann Arbor Film Festival is the oldest avant-garde and experimental film festival in North America. And since its earliest days, the festival has promoted bold, visionary filmmakers, advancing the art of film and engaging the community with remarkable cinematic experiences.

This program highlights a cross-section of the left-field cinema art of that era: the non-narrative, the beautiful, the visually stunning, the playful, the progressive, the transgressive, the political, and the absurd—all hallmarks of the AAFF to this day. Films to be screened include Bruce Baillie’s poetic impression of place, Castro Street (1966); Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley’s critique of images of women, Schmeerguntz (1965); and Caroline and Frank Mouris’s Frank Film (1973, restored by the Academy Film Archive), an animated collage tour de force that not only won at Ann Arbor, but won an Oscar, too. Plus more — in all, about 90 minutes of rarely screened film art.

Tuesday, October 29, at 7:00 p.m.Hatcher Graduate Library, Room 100 (First Floor Gallery) 913 South University, Ann Arbor

Free and open to the public

The screening is organized by Greg Baise, Bridget Kennedy, and Autumn Wetli as part of a project funded by U-M Library’s Research and Creative Projects Committee. Watch for information about an exhibition of AAFF ephemera in the Hatcher Lobby in March 2020.

El Mar La MarHanna Keller, writing for the Forum Expanded catalog of the 2017 Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin

El Mar La Mar opens with a long impressionistic tracking shot of the border itself, a visual meditation of the object that reinforces the divide. We then move through the night in the Sonoran desert. Images are carved out of light, divulging the grievous space of the U.S.–Mexico borderland. Ambient and diegetic sounds mix with personal accounts and testimonials. El Mar La Mar thoughtfully considers the humanity contained within this contested space at a pace that allows the viewer to reflect and digest.

The film was made by Canadian artist and filmmaker Joshua Bonetta in collaboration with AAFF alumnus J.P. Sniadeki, whose films have been awarded at AAFF in the past. The Iron Ministry (2014) won a 53rd AAFF Jury Award and People’s Park (2012) was awarded the 51st AAFF FotoKem/Colorlab Award for Best Cinematography.

El Mar La Mar is presented in partnership with the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities, which currently features an exhibition of paintings that is in dialogue with the film. “Yo Tengo Nombre,” by Efroymson Emerging Artist in Residence Ruth Leonela Buentello, was inspired by the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy and images—which have dominated media outlets across the nation since the summer of 2017—of migrant families being separated and detained at the U.S.–Mexico border. The show runs September 19 – October 31, 2019.

El Mar La Mar will show on Wednesday, November 6, at 7:00 p.m. at the State Theatre (233 South State Street) in Ann Arbor. It will be the final program of this year’s “AAFF Presents” series. This is the only film of the series that did not show at the recent 57th festival in March 2019.

Tickets are free for AAFF members.

Be sure to secure tickets and select your seats for the November 6 screening.

We look forward to seeing you there!

For almost a century, the Ann Arbor Art Center’s annual All Media Exhibition has showcased works of diverse media by artists from the American Midwest. This year Ann Arbor Film Festival Director Leslie Raymond was selected to serve as a juror for the 97th annual exhibition.

As the only juror for this year’s exhibition, Raymond reviewed all of the entries and selected the ones to be exhibited in the program. “It was an honor to review this work and a challenge to whittle it down,” Raymond said.

“There are so many strong and beautiful works,” she added. Raymond will announce the awards for the best entries at the exhibition opening on Friday, October 18. Awards will include Best in Show, Second Place, Third Place, and Honorable Mentions (two).

The opening takes place from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. at the Ann Arbor Art Center (117 West Liberty Street). Following, the exhibition will remain open through Friday, November 15.

For more information, visit the event page. Hope to see you there!

When filmmaker LNZ Arturo came to the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival this past March, she sat down for an interview with the festival, which would soon screen two of her recent works: a feature-length visual album made for the Internet, <3 (an emoticon heart); and the short film 2Missed Calls. “You could argue it’s an album release instead of a film screening,” she says.

LNZ describes <3 as 13 tracks forming a loosely woven narrative that traverses three psychological spaces: waking consciousness, subconsciousness, and a dream world. “They all sort of like spiral together until they collapse,” she says. “And then I’m uploaded to the Internet to ‘live forever.’”

LNZ has also described <3 as a “60-minute selfie.” In this conversation with AAFF, LNZ talks about how the advent of the selfie relates to the making of the visual album. “The selfie was always this weird, it felt like, mutation of where we were going with the digital image,” she says.

She also talks about process: “It’s a lot of thinking about the scene in a collage aspect where you sort of have a base frame and then you think about how you want to start adding in objects and textures.”

Enjoy more of the interview with LNZ Arturo.

Two A.M., by German contemporary artist Loretta Fahrenholz, had its world premiere at the recent 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival in March 2019. The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London will launch the European premiere on October 5, 2019.

Two A.M. takes place in the not-too-distant future in a not-altogether-unfamiliar world. The story begins as our protagonist Sanna leaves behind her family of Watchers. Their unnerving ability to monitor the thoughts and feelings of Humans conjures a hint of science fiction. Sanna goes to the city to join her sister, sister’s husband, and yoga instructor friend.

The Watchers eventually follow her there, and their point of view is conveyed through low-resolution documentary-like video images. This layer of banal imagery accompanied by a haunting and dissonant soundtrack enriches the overall texture of the film. The narrative is remote and disjointed at times and carries a dramatic tension. It gives way to an invigorating martial arts fight as well as an unexpected (and violent) climax during a drug-fueled party at the conclusion of the film.

Two A.M. was first completed in 2016 as a shorter 40-minute film (which was half the length of the full feature-length version premiered by the AAFF in March 2019). That early version was initially commissioned in conjunction with Fahrenholz’s 3 Frauen exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich. The 3 Frauen show included her films Ditch Plains (2013) and Implosion (2011), a series of smartphone photographs, and a second photographic series created with an industrial 3-D point scanner. That version of Two A.M. also screened at Kunsthalle Fridericianum (Kassel), the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), VOX (Montréal), Galerie Buchholz (Berlin), and other venues.

In partnership with the Michigan Theater, the Ann Arbor Film Festival will present Two A.M. on Wednesday, October 9, at 7:00 p.m. at the State Theatre (233 South State Street) in Ann Arbor. It will be the second-to-last of this year’s “AAFF Presents” series, which has focused on feature films from the 57th festival in March 2019.

Preceding the screening of Two A.M. will be the short film Stream by Chicago-based artist Jan Brugger. This surreal oddity references traditional painting in its nod to Cabanel’s and Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.” Here, the traditional odalisk is made bizarre. Depicted squeezing a ThighMaster while swiping through her iPhone, this classical subject becomes a lens through which we can reflect on the present.

Tickets for the entire series are free for AAFF members.

Be sure to secure tickets and select your seats for the October 9 screening. We look forward to seeing you there!

Jason and Debora Bernagozzi present the expanded cinema performance Ritual for Biological Media at the 57th AAFF.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival invites proposals for the Off The Screen! program at the upcoming 58th festival, March 24–29, 2020. We host a variety of intermedia installations, performances, and workshops—including (but not limited to) expanded and live cinema performances, new media installations, and educational salon sessions.

Please bring us your proposals for challenging and aesthetically potent works of art, and become part of a meaningful ongoing conversation about the culture of the moving image.

Expanded cinema performances could include, for example, projector experiments and live performances that interface with film or screen. New media works of all sorts are considered for display in various locations throughout Ann Arbor during the festival week, including the possibility of storefront windows, galleries, and the Michigan Theater lobby. Salon Session formats could include: lightning talks (Pecha Kucha–style brief presentations), process demos or lessons (concise “how-to” presentations by makers on technique), and moderated conversations.

The audience consists of the general public, filmmakers, writers, teachers, and film programmers. Artists are especially encouraged to propose a presentation that intentionally engages participants with material that complements the general content of the festival. For more information on the festival and its history, please visit the website.

Click here for more details—including how to submit your proposal.

Proposals are due October 1, 2019.

For questions, please contact submissions@aafilmfest.org

Artists and scholars: How do you navigate borders in your practice, your research?

The New Media Caucus (NMC) wants to know—and invites you to come and engage with other artists and scholars on this topic at the NMC’s annual symposium and exhibition.

This year’s event, “Border Control,” will take place September 19–22, 2019, at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art Design and Stamps Gallery at the University of Michigan. The Ann Arbor Film Festival is proud to serve as a community partner. For a detailed description of symposium events, check the mind-blowing schedule.

About the NMC

The NMC is an international nonprofit association that was formed to promote the development and understanding of new media art. Because new media art is inherently interdisciplinary, multimodal, and evolving, the NMC supports and advances diverse modes of inquiry to catalyze further evolution in the field.

The NMC represents—and serves—artists, designers, practitioners, historians, theorists, educators, students, and scholars. In addition to being an independent arts organization, the NMC is also an affiliate society of the College Art Association.

What to Do Next

For this year’s NMC symposium, together with guest curator Allison Collins, come to Ann Arbor to explore the notion of borders and boundaries—both tangible and ephemeral—along with their role in your work.

Ready to join us September 19–22? Register today.

Registration closes on Friday, September 13.

See you there!

The title of the next film in the “AAFF Presents” series is unpronounceable in spoken language. “<3” is an emoticon that lives in the realm of digital communications and the Internet. The title is an icon, a symbol, a wormhole. The film is a love story told in a fierce female dialect, in which what we know IRL is plunged deep into the digisphere as the parable unfolds.

Described by LNZ (Lindsey Arturo)—who is both the subject and maker—as a “60-minute selfie,” the film launches us into space in a self-styled La-Z-Boy rocket. Our protagonist tells a tale of what may be her last night on earth. She swaggers and emotes (often both at once) through a constellation of music videos punctuated by short interludes that move the narrative forward.

LNZ was hailed by Reddit as “the best suburban female rapper of 2017,” and the music presented in her feature-length film stands on its own. The “album” is well-produced with a considerable amount of attention to detail.

<3 the movie (or “visual album”) blends older and newer media together into a unified visual vocabulary that exploits a full spectrum of hardware and software tools—from AfterEffects, 3-D animation, and screen capture to green screen, night vision, and GoPro—with a generous measure of karaoke, glitch, and flip-phone emoji text thrown in.

LNZ is gutsy, expressive, and unapologetic, as she leads us along a highly imaginative adventure into the digital realm and beyond.

<3 plays on September 11, just in time for students returning to campus (and in honor of your return, students, your popcorn's free!). It will be preceded by the short experimental film Landscape of Absence by Verena Looser and Melina Weissenborn.

Join us at 7:00 p.m. at the State Theatre (233 South State Street) in Ann Arbor on a Wine-Down Wednesday, featuring half-price wine by the glass. Tickets are free for AAFF members and Michigan Theater gold card members. There’s no better time to become a member or learn more about membership, including $25 student memberships.

In her first feature film Nothing or Everything, South Korean filmmaker Gyeol Kim says a lot with a little. A limited range of shots, combined with a shallow depth-of-field, place the emphasis on the individual characters as a story of deep emotional trauma unfolds.

A rich and complex narrative draws from the strength of its two actors, exquisite cinematography, and circular time structure in which the past and present play out simultaneously. Despite the simple-seeming premise of two women walking on a mountain, the film draws the viewer in to discover so much more.

In its use of light, Nothing or Everything is atmospheric and original. In form, it is innovative; aesthetically and sonically, it is well-executed. In the end, the work is so beautiful to look at—and the acting so intense and accomplished—that the viewer is richly rewarded for slowing down to meet its pace.

In partnership with the Michigan Theater, the Ann Arbor Film Festival will present Nothing or Everything—which had its North American premiere at the festival this past March—on Wednesday, August 7, at 7:00 p.m. at the State Theatre (233 South State Street) in Ann Arbor. It will be the fourth of seven films to show this summer as part of the new monthly “AAFF Presents” screening series.

Tickets for the entire series are .

To secure your seats.

See you at the movies!

Please join the Ann Arbor Film Festival for a night of films, food, friends, and fun! Everyone is welcome.

We will be setting up a special outdoor theater in the Water Hill neighborhood of Ann Arbor on Saturday, August 3, for a screening of films from the 57th festival. Films begin at 7:30 p.m. and the fun lasts until 10:30 p.m.

This is your chance to view the best of the Ann Arbor Film Festival in a one-of-a-kind setting. Bring a chair or a blanket and plenty of bug spray!

Admission is free (though donations are always welcome!).

You can RSVP and find additional information about the event here. We can’t wait to see you there!

The day has arrived — today! — when the Ann Arbor Film Festival is not only accepting but also welcoming and encouraging film submissions for review, consideration, and potential inclusion in the very next — 58th! — iteration of North America's oldest experimental film festival. (If you haven't yet marked your calendar, the dates for the upcoming festival will be: March 24–29, 2020.)

The festival is proud to included on MovieMaker magazine's list of "50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee" for 2019.

Here's to all you filmmakers around the world who have been busy creating short and feature-length avant-garde and experimental film of all genres. The AAFF appreciates your work, invites your submissions, and looks forward to another amazing opportunity to bring the best in contemporary film art to the big screen at the Michigan Theater in downtown Ann Arbor.

For more information and to enter your film for consideration, please click here.

On Monday, July 1, the Ann Arbor Film Festival will open its call for entries for the upcoming 58th festival. Though the festival takes place in late March (March 24–29, 2020), this opening of submission activity in July marks the true beginning of festival planning. The call will be open through September 30, 2019, with an early submissions window in the month of July, regular submissions in August, and late entries accepted throughout September.

If the festival has learned anything in its 58 years, it is to stay curious about whatever may come its way. This includes not only the wonderful films that are submitted each year, but also the tools that are used to review each submission.

This year the AAFF is pleased to announce a new partnership with a proven submissions platform: FilmFreeway. For those not familiar with this platform, “FilmFreeway is the world's No.1 submission site across all top metrics, including: global web traffic, total festivals, Oscar/BAFTA-accredited festivals, and daily active users,” according to their website. “More than 800,000 filmmakers, writers, and artists use FilmFreeway to submit to over 8,000 of the world’s best film festivals and contests (including 80+ Oscar and BAFTA qualifying festivals).”

The AAFF feels confident that, in pairing with such a presence in the film community, the festival will continue to receive extraordinary work to review for potential inclusion. We are excited for all the possibilities this opportunity will bring.

As always, filmmakers may also submit directly through the festival website. For this, we use a platform developed by our Ann Arbor–based partners, Festivant by InfoReady. Festivant is helping the festival prepare not only for the call for entries, but also for the film-reviewing process, which will begin soon after submissions are open. We look forward to using more of the site’s capabilities to create a better experience for our film-reviewing cadre than ever before.

For more information on how to submit work to the Ann Arbor Film Festival, please visit our web page. We look forward to the beginning of the submission season.

Next up in the new monthly screening series “Ann Arbor Film Festival Presents…,” on Wednesday, July 10, is the award-winning film My Friend the Polish Girl. Directors Ewa Banaszkiewicz and Mateusz Dymek recently won both the Grand Prix and the Award for Best Photos (aka Best Cinematography) for the film at the 38th Festiwal Młodzi i Film in Koszalin, Poland.

Set in London, My Friend the Polish Girl is a fictional tale made to look like a documentary. The film explores the relationship between an American amateur filmmaker, Katie, and her subject: an unemployed Polish actress, Alicja. The film is provocative and, at times, disturbing. The power dynamic between the two characters puts privilege on display in a play of domination and control that comes with difficult repercussions for the vulnerable party. The film is understated and complex in its discourse with the vital cultural circumstance of immigration.

Filmmakers Banaszkiewicz and Dymek met at the Łódź Film School (aka the Leon Schiller National Higher School of Film, Television and Theater) in Łódź, Poland. They began collaborating in 2007, and their work together has included not only films, but also a series of radio plays for the BBC in London, where they currently reside. My Friend the Polish Girl is the duo’s feature film debut.

At the July 10 screening, My Friend the Polish Girl will be presented with CUT COPY SPHINX, a short experimental film by Virginia Lee Montgomery, a Texas-based artist. Full of visual exploration and surprises, CUT COPY SPHINX has been described as “a surreal, sculptural short art film about metaphysics, myth, and destruction.” The film won a Jury Award at the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival in March 2019.

The two films will show at 7:00 p.m. at the State Theatre (233 South State Street) in Ann Arbor on a Wine-Down Wednesday, featuring half-price wine by the glass. Tickets are free for AAFF members and Michigan Theater gold card members. There’s no better time to become a member or learn more about membership!

To secure your tickets and select your seats for the July 10 screening, click here.

To connect about this event with your friends on Facebook, please check out the Facebook event.

Hope to see you there!

Three weeks from today (July 11–14, 2019), please join the AAFF in welcoming the up-and-coming Nevertheless Film Festival to town for its inaugural year! Nevertheless is here to celebrate and elevate the work of female-identifying filmmakers.

With a festival program that proudly features films made by crews in which women hold at least 50 percent of the leadership positions, this four-day celebration of women in film will bring documentaries, narratives, and short films to Ann Arbor from around the world.

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To learn more about the festival’s offerings, explore the searchable program of films or take a spin through the film guide. We look forward to seeing you July 11–14 at Nevertheless!

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is looking for a graphic design professional or team to work with us throughout the 58th festival season (through May/June 2020) and potentially beyond. The graphic designer’s role entails developing a visual identity for the 58th AAFF in collaboration with festival staff and stakeholders, as well as designing marketing materials for the organization. The wide range of materials that will bear the imprint of this hands-on designer or team, from concept to completion, could include any or all of the following:

a 150-page program book cataloging festival activities and worksposters ranging from 40” x 26” marquee posters to an 11” x 17” promotional poster and an 18” x 24” festival poster with detailed schedule information on the backT-shirtsevent collateral, including fundraiser invitations and festival ticketsinformational brochuressponsorship packagesDVD case artother promotional materials

the one

The AAFF is excited for the Art House Convergence regional seminar happening at the Michigan Theater next week! The seminar will bring art house theaters together from around the midwest to connect and learn about the power of inclusive and diverse programming through art house cinemas. Best part? The gathering will be right here in Ann Arbor! Themes for the seminar include Arab American cinema, fundraising, visioning, and much to our delight, experimental film.

Two members of the AAFF team will be attending the conference to learn and connect about art house programming, experimental film, and the greater film community, as well as to present on panels during the conference. AAFF Festival Director Leslie Raymond will be a guest presenter during an afternoon breakout session on "Strategies for Programming Experimental Films," and AAFF Operations Manager Angela Lenhardt will address the audience at the breakout session "On the Road: Thinking Outside of the Box (and your Building)."

If you will be in Ann Arbor attending the AHC regional seminar, please say hello to Leslie and Angela!

Registration details for the regional seminar are here and the schedule of events is here.

Hope to see you there!

It’s official: The 57th AAFF Tour is set to hit the road with its first stop on June 28, as part of the Rooftop Cinema series at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Madison, Wisconsin.

The tour stop will feature a program of notable and award-winning films from the 57th festival. (For details, including a list of the films, see "Digital Program Two" on the tour page). If you are in the Madison area, be sure to catch these great films in a one-of-a-kind setting! You can find out more about the series in this recent article.

In addition to the program that will show at the Rooftop Cinema, the festival offers two other amazing screening options:

• Digital Program One includes a different mix of notable and award-winning films from the 57th festival

• The Almost All Ages program brings one of the festival's most beloved programs on the road in its entirety

Almost All Ages is programmed for the enjoyment of all, from the seasoned experimental-film enthusiast to anyone looking to dip their toes into the world of avant-garde cinema. For content and attention span, the Almost All Ages program generally works for people six years and older. Details on all three touring programs of AAFF films are here.

If you are interested in bringing the AAFF tour to your community, or to learn more, please visit the tour page or reach out to Marin Smith at marin@aafilmfest.org.

Gloria's Call by Cheri Gaulke is part of a touring AAFF program to be shown on June 28 in the Rooftop Cinema series at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.

how we live – messages to the family by Gustav Deutsch

“Themes of humanity, love, image-making, history, and beauty all whirl together in this incredible epic patchwork mosaic of time and space.”— Victor Arroyo, filmmaker and member of the 57th AAFF screening cadre

“A global travelogue that crosses decades” — Deanna Morse, filmmaker and member of the 57th AAFF screening cadre

The new monthly screening series “Ann Arbor Film Festival Presents…” continues on Wednesday, June 5, 2019, with the feature film how we live – messages to the family by Austrian artist and filmmaker Gustav Deutsch.

Spanning decades, the film investigates home movies through both archival and contemporary footage. From early celluloid to consumer camcorder, modern cell phone and even Skype, it unearths a rich history of personal recordings by individuals for the purpose of communicating with family members about their experiences away. The filmmaker also weaves a thread of personal footage throughout the film, connecting this tradition with his own present-day home movies.

Gustav Deutsch’s films have been carried by Austrian film and video art distributor sixpack film since 1996. In the year 2000, Deutsch’s work Film ist. was honored with the 39th AAFF Mosaic Foundation Best of the Festival Award, and in 2003, his Film ist 8, 9, 10 won the 41st AAFF Tío’s Red Hot and Spicy Award.

The film how we live – messages to the family will show at 7:00 p.m. at the State Theatre (233 South State Street) in Ann Arbor on Wine-Down Wednesday (featuring half-price wine by the glass). Tickets are free for AAFF members and Michigan Theater gold card members! To become an AAFF member or learn more about membership, click here. Members and non-members alike can purchase tickets and select seats for the June 5 screening by clicking here.

Or check out the Facebook event.

See you there!

DREAMLAND By Mirai Mizue

With Memorial Day approaching, Ann Arbor is gearing up for the true marker of summer in the city, Summerfest. In case you needed any extra push or excuse to go out and enjoy the monthlong festival, there will be three opportunities to catch short films from the 57th AAFF throughout June and July. Each short experimental AAFF film will precede the main feature film showing at 10:00 p.m. on Thursday nights during Summerfest. Films are screened at Summerfest's Top of the Park venue (915 East Washington Street).

Come see...

Code Ruth (2018) by Caroline Voagen Nelson on Thursday, June 20

A true love story about a Morse code instructor finding her path during WWII, Code Ruth blends stop-motion techniques with archival materials to share a family’s history of connecting through technology. (4 minutes)

DREAMLAND (2018) by Mirai Mizue on Thursday, June 27

Dreamland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world. (5 minutes)

Clean Slate (2018) by David Opdyke on Thursday, July 4

A peaceful sky is under threat from new arrivals who will stop at nothing and want everything. When all seems lost, a band of survivors changes the rules and attempts a daring escape. Are they willing to do what is necessary to win their freedom? (3 minutes)

We are so thrilled to be a part of Summerfest, where you can enjoy the excitement of the AAFF in the warmer months with the support of the local community. Come out and and enjoy some experimental films as part of your summer fun!

We are so lucky here at the AAFF to have the opportunity to work with a wonderful group of student interns each year. They come to us from the University of Michigan; Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti; the College for Creative Studies and Wayne State University, both in Detroit; and Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, Lancashire, England.

We recently bade a fond farewell to many of the interns for the 57th festival (pictured here). If you have an interest in joining our team as a student intern for the coming festival cycle, now's the time. From outreach to graphic design, we have eight internship positions available for the 58th.

If you love to learn; have an interest in the world of the arts, film, and community; and are hoping to find your passion within the arts and nonprofit sector, our internship program might be just the thing.

The internship program is based around mutual learning and growth. You learn from the internship, and by becoming a vital member of the team, you also have the chance to bring your skills and knowledge to the table and gain priceless experience. AAFF interns go on to do many great things from here.

Open positions include:

-Festival Operations Assistant

-Graphic Design Assistant

-Marketing Assistant

-Outreach Assistant

-Programs Assistant

-Video Production Assistant

Applications are currently being accepted on a rolling basis. All internships last through April 2020. Internships are unpaid, but some academic programs will permit internship hours to be applied toward college credit requirements. For more information about the internships and how to apply, check out the web page. We hope to hear from you!!

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Starting next month, the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival will be hitting the road! The 57th touring programs are almost ready, and we are excited to send them all over the world to galleries, art house theaters, universities, media arts centers, and anywhere else that wants to experience the world of AAFF.

This year there will be three distinct programs of experimental short films from the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival. The programs will feature films by Cecelia Condit, Catherine Chalmers, David Opdyke, Michaela Olsen, and many other favorites from the 57th. We will also, for the first time ever, be offering the “Almost All Ages” program, as its very own touring package, in hopes of spreading the joy of experimental film to an even wider audience. This program is perfect for those who may be new to the experience of watching experimental films.

What makes our tour so special? Just like the AAFF itself, the touring program is one of the longest-running of its kind and has been making experimental and avant-garde film more accessible to diverse audiences for almost 60 years. The AAFF tour also directs support to filmmakers. Not only is it an opportunity for the films to screen in front of audiences who might otherwise never get the chance to see them, but the filmmakers whose work is part of the touring program receive some revenue from AAFF for each stop where their film is screened, helping them to continue to bring more of their artwork into the world.

The tour is an amazing and cherished tradition that we hope will continue to bring some of the best works from the most recent festival to new audiences while also broadening the worldwide AAFF community. If you know of a place that might like to join in on the fun, or for more information, please reach out to marin@aafilmfest.org.

Filmmaker contentment, favorable audience feedback, and general positive buzz summed up a fantastic week of cinematic celebration at the recently concluded festival. Thank you to the film and video artists, staff, volunteers, and supporters, including the board and the community, all of whom made the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival possible — we could not do it without each and every one of you!

And, thanks to our fans across the country and around the world who voted AAFF the No. 1 film festival in North America last month. Your votes placed AAFF ahead of such giants as the Chicago International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and Seattle International Film Festival.

Upon meeting Brazilian filmmaker Vado Vergara at the 57th AAFF filmmaker check-in, he reported that he had, in accordance with the rules of the contest, voted every single day. He was thrilled to be with us in Ann Arbor, and five days later, when the announcement was made on Winners Night that his film Flowers had won the Lawrence Kasdan Best Narrative Film Award, he was so deeply moved that he had to step out of the theater for a spell. He later posted “I'm a Streetwalking Cheetah with a Heart Full of Napalm!!!”

How did our modest, mom-and-pop experimental festival achieve top ranking, as voted by the people? It is likely thanks to a deeply engaged community that truly loves the space we have held open for makers for 57 years. AAFF is a place for the underdog, the outsider, and the artist. Through the pursuit of this mission, we are grateful to have earned the dedication of so many individuals who personally step up to pre-screen films, to drive and host and feed filmmakers, to take tickets and sell merchandise, to contribute time and resources, and to share their work with us.

The festival enjoyed a 20 percent increase in attendance this year. More than 100 film artists turned up to personally share their work with our audience of nearly 10,000 ticket holders. There were 133 short and 10 feature films in competition from 32 countries all over North America, South America, Asia, Europe, and Africa, including 16 world premieres, 21 North American premieres, and 17 U.S. premieres. Numerous expanded cinema projects proliferated out beyond the Michigan Theater throughout downtown Ann Arbor. From interactive and virtual reality artworks to live cinema performances and multi-channel video installations, the audience was challenged to confront the screen in unconventional ways.

The festival’s three distinguished filmmaker jurors, Bryan Konefsky, Akosua Adoma Owusu, and Stacey Steers, presented outstanding, free screenings of their own work. Special programs looked at the work of Dutch filmmaker Barbara Meter and Japanese animator Atsushi Wada, pushed against the walls of epistemological givens in ethnographic filmmaking, surveyed archival women’s video art as well as contemporary Chinese women artist’s videos, presented a recollection of global black experience with a predilection toward paths of healing, and celebrated the work of the late and great Robert Todd.

Finally, feedback that we received suggested that there was a strong feminine element in the festival this year, that it wasn’t overt, but instead was subtle, radical, subversive, and refreshing:

A seasoned film festival-goer said this was the first time they’d be able to say it was a celebration of the divine feminine, not laden with the male gaze. I think I agree. It almost seems we’ve turned a corner on that. It’s a whole cultural direction, and we reflected that movement. Three years ago, we would have resisted.

— Jonathan Tyman, AAFF board chair

The moving-image language spoken by AAFF filmmakers diverges considerably from mainstream and conventional movie making. We continue to champion the work of artists who push the boundaries to the edge of the medium and bring new stories to light in highly innovative ways. Thanks again to everyone who says YES to this.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is proud to announce the launch of the "Ann Arbor Film Festival Presents" monthly screening series! This year's series will feature films from the 57th festival, starting with...Last Days of Chinatown The State Theatre Wednesday, May 8, 2019 7:00 p.m. After the screening, stick around as Senior Producer Bill Kubota of Detroit Public TV conducts a conversation with filmmaker Nicole Macdonald and Detroit News reporter Louis Aguilar, both of whom appear in the documentary.

The full monthly series is free for AAFF membersand Michigan Theater gold card members!

To become a member of the AAFF, click here. AAFF members: To receive your waiver code, please contact Cathy at cathy@aafilmfest.org. Mark your calendar now for all six films in the series! You can catch them all at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesdays at the State Theatre: May 8 – Last Days of Chinatown by Nicole Macdonald June 5 – how we live, messages to the family by Gustav Deutsch July 10 – My Friend the Polish Girl by Ewa Banaszkiewicz and Mateusz Dymek August 7 – Nothing or Everything by Gyeol Kim September 11 – <3 by LNZ Arturo October 9 – Two A.M. by Loretta Fahrenholz We hope to see you on May 8 at the State Theatre for Last Days of Chinatown with filmmaker Nicole Macdonald!

Three new episodes of CTN’s Let’s Watch with the Ann Arbor Film Festival featuring filmmakers Deanna Morse and Bryan Konefsky are online now for your viewing pleasure. Morse discusses her work and Konefsky talks about his role as a juror at the 57th festival. A third episode of Let’s Watch features the opening day of the 57th AAFF, including interviews with artists and other attendees. Past episodes of Let's Watch are here for your viewing!

The festival is pleased to announce the recipient of the UMCU Audience Award for the 57th AAFF, as determined by audience ballot: . Congratulations, Christopher!

Shot in Vancouver, Canada, in 2018, this 4-minute short explores juicy colors and crunchy textures driven by chaotic electronic music. Strickler made BIRD MILK in 2018 during his final year of school while earning a B.M.A. in animation from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada. Originally from Lafayette, Indiana, Strickler also does installation art and live visual performances, in addition to animation. He was in attendance at the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival.

The AAFF presented BIRD MILK on Wednesday, March 27, at 9:15 p.m. in the main auditorium of the Michigan Theater (603 East Liberty Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan) as part of Films in Competition 4 (FIC 4). The FIC 4 program was sponsored by the James and Anne Duderstadt Center at the University of Michigan, with support from the Austrian Cultural Forum. North Coast Modular served as a community partner.

The award was announced at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 31, 2019, from the stage of the main auditorium at the Michigan Theater as part of the festival's Winners Night program. Thank you to all who attended and voted for the UMCU Audience Award by ranking their favorite films throughout the festival week!

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is proud to announce this year’s award-winning filmmakers selected by this year’s jurors, Bryan Konefsky, Akosua Adoma Owusu, and Stacey Steers. The 2019 awards competition presents $22,500 to filmmakers through cash and in-kind awards such as film stock, film processing, camera equipment, and digital scanning services.

An award from the AAFF confers prestige and financial support; it can also qualify filmmakers for an Oscar® nomination by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the short film category. Qualifying awards include the Ken Burns Award for Best of the Festival, the Chris Frayne Award for Best Animated Film, the Lawrence Kasdan Award for Best Narrative Film, and Best Experimental Film.

Congratulations to the 57th AAFF award winners:

Ken Burns Award for Best of the Festival - $3,000

On Destruction and Preservation - Maija Blåfield

Tom Berman Award for Most Promising Filmmaker - $2,000

Mom’s Clothes - Jordan Wong

Kodak Cinematic Vision Award - $2,000 in film stock

vulture - Philip Hoffman

Best Experimental Film - $1,500

TROPICS - Mathilde Lavenne

Best Documentary Film - $1,000

Gloria’s Call - Cheri Gaulke

Lawrence Kasdan Award for Best Narrative Film - $1,000

Flowers - Vado Vergara

Chris Frayne Award for Best Animated Film - $1,000

32-Rbit - Victor Orozco Ramirez

Cutters Studios Archival Film Award - $1,000 in film scanning services

Flame - Sami van Ingen

Gil Omenn Art and Science Award - $1,000

The Leafcutters - Catherine Chalmers

Prix DeVarti for Funniest Film - $1,000

Under Covers - Michaela Olsen

The Barbara Aronofsky Latham Award for an Emerging Experimental Video Artist - $1,000

The Divine Way (La Via Divina) - Ilaria Di Carlo

The Eileen Maitland Award - $750

We Were Hardly More than Children - Cecelia Condit

PROCAM Best Regional Filmmaker Award - $750 in kind

As Above, So Below - Cooper Holoweski

The No Violence Award - $512

60 Elephants. Episodes of a Theory. - Sasha Pirker and Michael Klein

UMCU Audience Award - $500

BIRD MILK - Christopher Strickler

George Manupelli Founder’s Spirit Award - $500

Running in Circles - Ei Toshinari and Duy Nguyen

Leon Speakers Award for Best Sound Design - $500

Screen - Christoph Girardet and Matthias Müller

Peter Wilde Award for Most Technically Innovative Film - $500

Traces With Elikem - Ariana Gerstein

Tíos Award for Best International Film - $500

At the Horizon - Manuel Knapp and Makino Takashi

\aut\ FILM Award for Best LGBTQ Film - $300

La Mesa - Adrian Garcia Gomez

Overture/Wazoo Award for Best Music Video - $300

Sun Zoom Spark - Gina Kamentsky

Jury Awards - $1,888 total

ANATOPIES - Jean-Baptiste Decavèle

Armed Lullaby - Yana Ugrekhelidze

Mudanza Contemporánea - Teo Guillem

New Panther: A Call for Action - Sage Love and Nola Asantewaa

Object Dream - Kyungwon Song

Phantom Ride Phantom - Siegfried A. Fruhauf

Pictured Rocks - Jack Cronin

TÅKE - Inger Lise Hansen

Wolves From Above - Demelza Kooij

Xvideo - Miss Free Collective

Congratulations again to all of the 57th AAFF award winners and to all whose work was screened at this year’s festival. It was truly an honor to present all of the incredible works of film art from this year’s festival. We cannot wait for next year!

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is excited to announce a No. 1 ranking in the 2019 USA TODAY 10Best Readers' Choice travel award contest for Best Film Festival! The Top 10 festivals were announced today on 10Best:

Ann Arbor Film FestivalAtlanta Film FestivalChicago International Film FestivalAmerican Black Film FestivalToronto International Film FestivalChelsea Film FestivalSeattle International Film FestivalSonoma International Film FestivalTrue/False Film FestTribeca Film Festival

AAFF was one of 19 contenders nominated by a panel of experts, including editors from USA TODAY, editors from 10Best.com, expert contributors, and sources from these media outlets and other Gannett properties. The outcome was determined by an online public vote every day for four weeks, closing on March 12, 2019.

AAFF extends its gratitude to Gannett for the nomination and to the filmmakers, artists, volunteers, sponsors, Ann Arbor community members, and friends around the world who bestowed the honor of a first-place ranking on the 57-year-old festival. Thank you!

Still from Feature in Competition . This film will be shown on Saturday, March 30 ,at 1 pm in the Michigan Theater Screening Room.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is excited to feature films that focus on fierce women in the variety of programming offered at the 57th festival. Not only do these films highlight strong female-driven stories, but they are all works by female filmmakers!

Cheri Gaulke’s film Gloria’s Call will be shown as a part of Films in Competition 8 on Friday, March 29 at 7:15 pm in the Michigan Theater Main Auditorium. From the cafés of Paris to the mountaintops of Samiland, a scholar's life is forever changed through her friendships with the women artists of Surrealism. Tickets for FIC 8 are available here.

On Saturday, March 30, the feature film <3 by LNZ will be screened in the Michigan Theater Screening Room. In this loosely woven, spiraling death odyssey of the night, LNZ's body moves through different forms of digital imagery until finally being uploaded to the Internet to live forever. Formally, it's a 60-minute selfie, LOL It's also a coming-of-age story in a technological communications revolution where love gets uploaded, digitally dislocated, unseen, and lost, bit by bit, into an asynchronous Internet landscape. Tickets for this feature are available here.

In addition to these two films, the special program Looking in the Mirror, I See Me - Early Women’s Video Art from the Video Data Bank Collection features film art by women. The emergence of video art tools in the late 1960s and early 1970s paved the way for an extraordinary number of outstanding art works by women. Captivated by the relative accessibility, portability, and immediacy of Sony's Video Portapak recording system, a significant number of female artists began to experiment with the video format. Often taking a direct-to-camera approach, many of the resulting works reflect the burgeoning feminist movement in the U.S. at the time. Curated by Abina Manning and presented by Zach Vanes, this special program will be presented in the Michigan Theater Screening Room on Saturday, March 30, at 7pm. Tickets are available here!

The fierce women of the Ann Arbor Film Festival team are excited to present these films and programs by other strong women artists. We hope to see you at these events!

Ayo Akingbade’s short film Tower XYZ is part of curator Amir George’s special program Remnants of a Dream on Saturday at 3pm.

The 57th AAFF is pleased to present many special programs that explore and celebrate black history. On Friday, March 29, at 1pm in the Michigan Theater Screening Room, festival juror Akosua Adoma Owusu will present Triple Consciousness: Films by Akosua Adoma Owusu. Owusu’s documentary essay and experimental film work makes varied use of archival material, direct animation, and staged scenes as it examines the construction of historical memory and cultural identity. Her films address a collision of identities – and the triple consciousness, or third identity – of the African immigrant in the U.S., transitioning between avant-garde cinema, fine art, and African tradition. This presentation is free and open to the public.

On Saturday, March 30, at 1:15pm in the Michigan Theater Main Auditorium, New Panther: A Call for Action by Sage Love and Nola Asantewaa will be screened as a part of Films in Competition 11. The documentary follows a collective focused on creating a thriving Afrikan community rooted in self-determination, collective action, and economics. The film's mission is to cause a culture shift by eradicating stereotypes and bringing to light injustice within the community. Tickets are available here.

Also on Saturday, at 3pm, the special program Remnants of a Dream will be presented in the Michigan Theater Screening Room. Our memory can be a rekindling of the moments that shook us most – a pool party gone wrong, a summer on the brink, a disaster within the days of youth, our ancestral struggles, and our own desires. Curated by Amir George, this recollection of global black experiences is directed toward paths of healing. Tickets are available here.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is proud to feature black voices in a variety of ways at the 57th.

We look forward to seeing you at these events!

still from Silver Seeds by Kim Collmer

The Ann Arbor Film Festival appreciates and celebrates all different styles of experimental filmmaking and we are excited to offer some great animation selections at the 57th AAFF!

A fan-favorite night of the festival returns again this year on Friday, March 29, with Films in Competition 9, or Animation Night, at 9:15 p.m. in the Main Auditorium of the Michigan Theater (603 East Liberty Street). This program features 14 unique animated films exploring different topics and themes.Learn more about the films to be featured on Animation Night!

still from Edge of Alchemy by Stacey Steers

This program will be presented on Thursday, March 28 at 1pm in the Michigan Theater Screening Room.

still from My Exercise bvideo game by Wada Atsushi

On Saturday, March 30, don’t miss Wada’s World: Wrestling with Existence, a special program featuring works by Japanese animator Wada Atsushi and curated by Markus Nornes, a U-M professor of Asian studies and film in the College for Literature, Science, and the Arts and the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design. These are a far cry from traditional Japanese anime. Using animation, Wada presents his own strange, wonderful, and instantly recognizable world through his .3mm sharp pen.

still from Lukas Berger’s Circus Movements

With the 57th festival approaching, the Ann Arbor Film Festival is excited to share a sneak preview of nearly 20 films that will be shown at the festival! Check out the sneak preview here to get a glimpse of some of the films at the 57th AAFF.

In connection with the Ann Arbor Film Festival, students from U-M’s Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design have created costumes inspired by the short film Quasi at the Quackadero, a widely respected work of animation made in 1975 by artist Sally Cruikshank, who has screened work at the AAFF about a half-dozen times. The students are part of the wearable art class Dressing Up + Down, which leads them to examine the transformative and communicative powers of garments and costumes.

Taught by Professor Rebekah Modrak, the course prompts students to respond to culture, design, fashion, architecture, performance, and aspects of wearable art. The class emphasizes experimentation, the development of personal expression, and discovering technical methods to support these ideas.

Films in Competition 9: Animation on Friday, March 29. The costumes will also be displayed in the theater following the animation screening for the remainder of the festival.

“We had a lot of fun, and also a great challenge, responding to Cruikshank’s film,” Professor Modrak said. “Since she takes liberties with the physical world, we wanted to do the same and use the garments to defy human anatomy. Each student drew inspiration from different parts of the film: from the main character Anita’s drawl and affectations to the whimsical, oblique architecture and wallpaper and to Cruikshank’s constant renderings of energy shifts with bursting stars and gusts of clouds.

“For us, it’s really important that the objects we make are part of lived experiences,” Modrak added, “and we’re excited to collaborate with the AAFF to try to extend Quasi into the theater foyer on the animation screening night.”

Come get inspired by the creative energy of students from Dressing Up + Down at the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival. Class members include:

Professor Rebekah Modrak Sophie Hochwald Alyssa Lopatin Mac Macvaugh Elena Odulak Manny Rodriguez Robina Rranza Rachel Slakter Adam Van Osdol Gilly Yerington Cameron Arnold Summer Benton Ilma Bilic Steffi Cao Taylor Carpenter Cheyenne Couture Bobby Daratony Amanda Donovan Taylor Elisius Tori Essex Ariel Friedlander Ashley Hilyard Leah Kahane El (Elizabeth) Leung Mac Macvaugh Juan Marquez Maddie Messinger Livvy Meyers Elena Odulak Nicole Pallas Becky Portman Elsa Ramesh Andy Regos Manny Rodriguez Robina Rranza Erin Wakeland Gilly Yerington

Huge thanks to all of the film artists who submitted 30-second and 60-second festival trailers for the 57th festival! For today, check out the one by artist and filmmaker James Snazell, who produces live cinema performances and installations. You can watch Snazell's 50-second AAFF trailerhere.

Snazell’s work explores the development of analog film and film emulsion. He is a senior lecturer in animation and film at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, England. You can catch Snazell during AAFF's 57th festival week at two free Off the Screen! AAFF events:

-An artist roundtable at the North Quad Space 2435 on Wednesday, March 27, 10am-12noon

-A live cinema Milk Drops 2 performance at the Ann Arbor Art Center on Thursday, March 28, 3–5pm; Milk Drops 2 explores using milk as film emulsion and highlights a duel between a 16mm projector and a digital recording from a 16mm analytic projector.

Join us!

The 57th festival is thrilled to partner with the Stamps Gallery – part of the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan – to present an Off the Screen! exhibition by Israeli artist Hamutal Attar. Attar’s video installation YYYAAAOOO explores the gap between the everyday pressures of society and the deeper, hidden desires within one’s soul.

The work is composed of a two-channel video and a large-scale charcoal drawing. Together they create an immersive environment where the artist is portrayed trying to mediate between the two worlds.

Please join us for the Opening Reception of YYYAAAOOO on March 15 at the Stamps Gallery, 201 South Division Street, Ann Arbor. The exhibition runs March 15–31, concurrent with the Stamps Gallery’s 2019 MFA Thesis Exhibition showcasing recent works by students at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

Be sure to stop by the gallery again during festival week (March 26–31) for an Artist Roundtable with Hamutal Attar and other Off the Screen! AAFF artists:

Wednesday, March 27

3–5pm

Stamps Gallery 201 South Division Street

We look forward to seeing you at the Stamps Gallery…

The live cinema performance Ritual for Biological Media by Debora and Jason Bernagozzi is a continuation of the artists’ Ritual for Hybrid Media.

A Word from our Director

The Ann Arbor Film Festival thrives at the edges of film art. In addition to three juror presentations, nine special curated programs, and 26 competition programs of edgy, mind-bending and boundary-pushing films, we are delighted to bring several live cinema shows to the upcoming festival, March 26–31.

Performances by Sophie Trudeau and Michaela Grill, as well as Debora and Jason Bernagozzi, will be featured in Films in Competition 4 on Wednesday, March 27, on the Michigan Theater main stage. Preceded by four short films in competition, each performance will demonstrate a distinct approach to mixing sound and image in real time, in the moment, for the live audience.

Ritual for Biological Media by Debora and Jason Bernagozzi explores real-time sound- and image-processing with video, audio, and other electronic forms. The performance will feature custom-made, real-time analog and digital processing tools created in part by Jason Bernagozzi for the performers’ nonprofit residency center, Signal Culture.

Sophie Trudeau (of Godspeed You! Black Emperor) and Michaela Grill will present glimmer, an improvisational work designed to engulf the audience in images – generated live using a laptop computer – mixed with live sounds of electronics and violin. The duo aims to “explore audiovisual worlds filled with fragile structures of melody and shadows of images.”

James Snazell will perform “a duel between a 16mm projector and a digital recording from a 16mm analytic projector.” Milk Drops 2 will be presented during an Off the Screen! reception at the Ann Arbor Art Center on the afternoon of Thursday, March 28.

On Sunday, March 31 at 1pm, preceding the World Premiere of Philip Hofman’s feature film vulture, Fulla Abdul-Jabbar will perform Why did you cry when you read that poem. The artist explores yet another intermedia hybrid through the intersection of live spoken word with experimental powerpoint video.

In a Free Sound Field by Monteith McCollum, presented as part of the Films in Competition 16 screening on Sunday, March 31, is an experimental documentary “about a home filled with rare art objects from around the world, in which a disjunctured set of tales unravel about the travels of collector Don Boros.” It is also an interactive event that activates audience members’ iPhones with additional sounds and visuals, shaping the film and audience experience in very different ways sonically, visually, and conceptually.

The AAFF afterparties will also venture into live cinema terrain with a Friday night magic lantern and noise music show and a Saturday night VJ/DJ set.

Melissa Ferrari and Sam Gurry, performing as Saint Victoria’s Incorruptible Body at the Club Above, will project an impassioned wall of sound through voice and guitar. Handmade and antique mechanical magic lantern slides – with imagery ranging from phantasmagoria to the cosmos – will set the stage for them to summon the spirit of St. Victoria.

Library Music by Jared Van Eck, aka microluv – with live-mixed visuals by Camilo Gonzalez – at Circ Bar will take a deep dive into the rare and fascinating world of library music. Heard on television, on radio, and in film, library music encompasses every genre, from classical to funk and experimental electronic and much, much more.

You are invited to find out more about live cinema performance art at a free salon session on the morning of Wednesday, March 27, at North Quad Space 2435. The Artist Roundtable will feature James Snazell and other Off the Screen! performers discussing their work with each other and the audience.

While live cinema’s roots can be found in pre-cinematic forms, it exists at the bleeding edge of experimental film art today. Please check it out and let us know what you think!