SEPTEMBER 2017 AAFF ALUMNI CORNER
Mike Olenick, who screened has screened films at past Festivals (such as The Son of Samsonite at the 42nd, Beautiful Things at the 53rd), and who also edited a fantastic trailer for us in the past, has recently had a great deal of success with his latest short film The Cure. The Cure screened this year at the 55th AAFF, it was chosen as an Official Selection of Fantasia International Film Festival (a premier genre film festival in Montreal), and was later featured on the Nightmares Film Festival Top 13 list. It has also been chosen to be screened at Fantastic Fest! Congratulations to Mike and his continued success this year with The Cure! *Check out his official website here!*
Alisa Yang, who won the PROCAM Best Regional Filmmaker Award for her short documentary Sleeping With the Devil at the 55th AAFF, was a Grand Prize recipient for the 2017 Stamps Alumni Juried Exhibition, which was entitled “Ambiguities/Innuendoes? Go Fish.” Her film Please Come Again, chronicling a recent change in status quo of Japanese “love hotels” and the intergenerational trauma and sexuality centered on Asian female bodies, was one of three alumni pieces to win the grand prize. The Alumni exhibition ran from July 18 to August 19 at the Stamps Gallery. The film also screened at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival this year, where it won the First Golden Reel Best Documentary Short, and will be playing at the Platform Film Festival and the San Diego Asian Film Festival. Her previous film Sleeping with the Devil will be playing at the San Diego Underground Film Festival, the San Diego Asian Film Festival, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, and the Downtown LA Film Festival.
Congratulations to Alisa, who will most certainly be busy this year at all of her future film screenings!
*Check out her official website here!*
Ephraim Asili, an acclaimed experimental filmmaker/documentarian and DJ, has recently won the Grand Prize for his film Fluid Frontiers at the 22nd Media City Film Festival, an experimental film festival that took place in Detroit and Windsor earlier this month during August 2nd-5th. Ephraim also was a Resident at last year’s Media City Film Festival as well! Fluid Frontiers is also having its U.S. premiere at the 55th New York Film Festival at the Lincoln Center this October as well as a screening at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
In addition to his success as a filmmaker, Ephraim's DJ career is also hit a milestone, with the third anniversary of his event “Botanica,” which advertised “Vinyl Healing and Good Vibes with DJ Ephraim Asili...[with] Live Performance by Zemog El Gallo Bueno,” happened earlier this month. We at the Ann Arbor Film Festival have a personal stake in his DJ career, as he spun during a legendary after-party at Hathaway’s Hideaway during the 54th AAFF.
Congrats to Ephraim on all of his recent successes!
