 |
Exhibition Programs |
This reflection on the American space race era uses 1950s sci-fi footage
and stars a flip book chimponaut who ultimately cannot navigate the breakdown
in either communications or imagination. (5 mins.)
Have
You Seen Patsy Wayne?In this pseudo-documentary, the love-child of Patsy Cline and John Wayne
is a woman whose charming insanity and breathless observations on family,
identity and sexual disabilities are truly stranger than fiction. (7 mins.)
Festival Winner.
Pulsing as if set in motion by a heartbeat, a richly colorful myriad
of shapes and sounds take form in this work of cameraless animation. (7
mins.)
This darkly comedic sci-fi takes place in a world in which blockbuster
entertainment is created by slaves ingesting film and imprinting it with
predetermined dreams. The forced abstinence from random dreaming finally
sends Luc 1139 over the edge and on a run for his life. (17 mins.) Best
Student Film Award.
A distraught student film director bemoans the film his crew made behind
his back: Road Movie, a movie about naive Canadians en route to
the Yukon and their encounter with one small town's evil Rockabilly band.
Satirizing both the director's experimental pretensions and his crew's
desperate attempt to graduate from film school with something slick for
their portfolios, this mockumentary implodes the art versus commerce debate
with hilarious (and entertaining) results. (25 mins.) Festival Winner.
Inspired by the boxes of sculptor Joseph Cornell, this work by internationally
renown animator Priestley conjures the magic in various objects through
their alchemical transformation. (5 mins.) Judge's Award.
Join this charming, elderly church music composer who was formerly a
UFO investigator as he relates eerie accounts of alien encounters as well
as articulate criticisms of the contemporary church. (21 mins.)
Biker
DreamsPerhaps no American sub-culture evokes a sense of freedom, romance, adventure more than that of motorcycles, and no group of bikers has more history, camaraderie and loyalty than Harley-Davidson riders. Adam Berman's wildly entertaining film takes the road to the annual Black Hills Motorcycle Classic in Sturgis, South Dakota where 150,000 Harley enthusiasts---including bankers, artists, outlaws, men and women, young and old---come to celebrate the lure of the open road and the power of the icon they ride. Part sociological inquiry, part road trip, Biker Dreams is a memorable portrait of people who have found community, independence and the road to their dreams straddling a motorcycle. (75 mins.) Festival Winner.
An intimate chronicle of a father and son a traditional seal hunt reveals
how the Native American Alutiiq tribe has dealt with the devastation of
Exxon Valdez oil spill. With an acute awareness of both the resiliency
of the human spirit and the obstinate majesty of the Alaskan landscape,
director Taylor shows how both culture and nature recuperate and survive.
(30 mins.)
In this insightful and arresting vision of the Canadian prairie, director
Linda Ohama returns to her childhood home to unfold the mystique of the
West through the intimate stories of neighbors, farmers and cowboys whose
struggles and joys are inextricably bound to this unforgiving land. (58
mins.) Judge's Award
A young boy rushes from bed to the window where his apocalyptic nightmares
and sexual dreams take shape in the cinematic projections of dancing girls,
guns and movie monsters. (3 mins.)
A reflection on mortality and the death of a friend, Impermanence
weaves jolting television reports of a plane crash, familiar, everyday
moments and compelling images to evoke the act itself of remembering rather
than memories themselves. (19 mins.)
In this stark and suggestive meditation on perception, only the room
remains constant as time passes in one man's life. (8 mins.)
Sabor
a Mi (Savour Me)With both poignant irony and an uninhibited assault of the senses, this
diptych tackles the question of the cultural and cinematic divide between
the United States and Canada through quiet meditation juxtaposed against
a furious montage of Hollywood noise, action and sex. (8 mins.) Judge's
Award.
When the natural world encroaches on the dark confines of a room devoted
solely to words, its inhabitant must face the blood on his own hands. (9
mins.)
The flight patterns of birds, airplanes and helicopters merge with shifting
landscapes to result in a haunting contemplation of a life and a body in
motion. (7 mins.)
With deadpan humor, subversive methods and found footage of an old 8mm
skin flick, Phillips and Baird pursue a confrontational inquiry into the
nature of sex, love, birth and what audiences think they do and don't want
to see. (8 mins.)
Tiny
BubblesSoft spoken, candid and tender, this portrait of the most important
women in the filmmaker's life---her mother, sister, friend, ex-lover and
current girlfriend---reveals the complexity of women's experiences and
expectations of life. (5 mins.)
The
Wright BrothersLachow's fictional feature is a wry and graceful meditation on dreamers
and dreaming, perception and history, and the ubiquitous effects of Orville
and Wilbur Wright's flying machine on modern life. Set simultaneously in
the past and present, the two intrepid bicycle mechanics play out their
remarkable story of great hopes and grand designs while the 1990s roar
by, complete with computers and cars, even though they have yet to invent
the airplane. From the obscurity of their bicycle shop in Ohio to the desolate
beaches of Kitty Hawk and finally to the limelight in New York City and
Paris, Orville (who is played by a woman) and Wilbur find themselves on
a journey fraught with illness, deceit, failure and rejection, through
which they are propelled by their unwavering desire to solve the last great
technological riddle of their era. (104 mins.) Judge's Award.
with
An applicant with only perfunctory enthusiasm and a history of utter failures may have found the perfect job. (3 mins.)
and
A ladybug plants a flower outside her home. (2 mins.)
HEART
OF THE COUNTRYIn this beautifully observed portrait of a rural elementary school in
central Hokkaido, the magnetic passion and vision of a remarkable school
principal brings a small town to blossom as parents and elders work together
to create a world that will instill in their children a love of learning
as well as encourage wisdom, humanity and responsibility. Seven years in
the making, this film fashions a rich, complex look at daily life in rural
Japan and the values that drive it as the town rallies with the principal
to challenge past definitions of success and education. Charming, incisive
and with a universal appeal to anyone who cares about children and education,
Heart of the Country makes the cross-cultural leap with intelligent
dexterity. (94 mins.) Judge's Award
Some are consumers of the mental health care system, others are survivors.
Here, seven recipients of mental health care tell the often harrowing stories
of their lives with powerful candor, grace and intelligence as they probe
the effects of not only their treatments but also the societal taboos that
have defined mental illness itself. (30 mins.)
Kuper
Island: Return to the Healing CircleFor almost a century, hundreds of Coast Salish children were sent to
Kuper Island Indian Residential School were they suffered abuse. Following
the return of former students twenty years after the school's closure,
directors Welsh and Campbell document a journey back to the past that for
many is their only road to the future. (45 mins.)
TAKE
THIS HEART