FIRST AID FOR CHOKING - 2pm
Megan Griffiths / Seattle, WA
Set in the director's hometown of Moscow, Idoaho, and filled with likeable and familiar characters that don't always make the decisions you'd like them to, FIRST AID FOR CHOKING is a realistic portrait of the entrapments of small towns and family histories. Looking for some direction in her life, Gillian enrolls in beauty school where she bumps into the Jerry Springer past that she thought she was ignoring. A 2001 Student Academy Award Finalist, Griffith has directed many award winning short films and directed the photography of others including last year's NW Fest Feature, SHAG CARPET SUNSET. This is Griffith's first feature. (100 min)

American Nutria - 7pm
Matt McCormick / Portland, OR
Brought to America from Argentina as a farmable, fur-bearing replacement for the dwindling beaver population, nutria have adapted in the wild and are now causing economic and environmental havoc. (10 min)

Les Nanas - 7pm
Danielle Morgan / Bellingham, WA
Live actors shot with stop motion technique create a film which resembles a turn of the century automaton. But watch out, this tea party is about to get out of hand. (3 min)

Transgenic Romance - 7pm
Morgan Currie / Portland, OR
One of those genetic engineering melodramas–– a torrid romance, they met in a Petri dish. (6 min)

German Lessons - 7pm
Liz Schulze / Burnaby, BC
The filmmaker accompanies her charming grandfather, Bernhard Schultz, on a tour of his homeland where he excavates the tough questions about being a German soldier during WWII. (23 min)
“I was most moved by this film; two very different generations (a young girl and her grandfather) directly confronting horror, one for the first time, and perhaps the other for the first time too. Let's hope recent events won't lead to a film called American Lessons, if it's not too late already.” –JB

Snap Crackle Pop - 7pm
Dawn Jones / Portland, OR
In the wake of a tragedy that is not quite personal, the filmmaker examines the responsibilities of the grieving. “Should I cry for the people that the people I know know?” (2-1/2 min)

Eye for an Eye - 7pm
David Rimmer / Vancouver, BC
Abstract, hand-painted images rhythmically build to the sound of contemporary world music. (10 min)

Do Not Disturb - 7pm
A. Jonathan Benny / Vancouver, BC
Disturbing things overheard in the next hotel room lead to this Hitchcockian suspense fable of the aural voyeur's dilemma. (10 min)

Ananda - 7pm
Mike Smith / Portland, OR
Dali meets Bollywood in this surreal fantasy of a man wandering through the bleak industrial wasteland of his mind where a magical childhood memory ignites a joyous wish that the girl of his dreams might escape a tradition that keeps her from him. (5-1/2 min)

Nocturno - 7pm
Naoko Sasaki / Delta, BC
A mundane task becomes something mysteriously sensual through beautiful slow-motion photography. (6 min)

More Sensitive - 7pm
Gail Noonan / Mayne Island, BC
A broadly painted portrait of a lounge singer of limited talents. Still life with ham. (2 min)

Pan With Us - 7pm
David Russo / Seattle, WA
"A conceptually pastoral poem-film about the creative retirement of the ancient Greek woodland god, Pan."  Employing stop-action techniques honed in POPULI, Awarded Best of the 28th Northwest Film & Video Festival, Russo illustrates a Robert Frost poem in a wildly imaginative rendering.  (4 min)

THE MAGICAL LIFE OF LONG TACK SAM - 9pm
Ann Marie Fleming / Vancouver BC
It’s not uncommon for a filmmaker to get to know a family member by making a film about them but, in the hands and mind of Ann Marie Fleming, director of last year’s NW Fest favorite “Blue Skies”, telling the tale of her great grandfather, Long Tack Sam, draws every trick from her well-appointed filmmaking quiver.
A quite successful, but largely forgotten character in the romantic world of caudeville, Long Tack Sam traveled the world as an acrobat and magician. Capitalizing on the popularity of oriental mystique, he was one of the few magicians of his genre that was actually of Asian dissent and because of his popularity, came to know the likes of Orson Welles, Jack Benny and Ed Sullivan.
Unlike the now ubiquitous documentary treatment of dramas about the dearly departed, retold through cameras swimming over still photographs, Fleming frolics in the genre with a conversational first-person narration, well-positioned use of period style, moving comic strips, and by selectively tinkering with some of the magnificent stills that do exist–combining them to bring the grandfather she never met, to life. (90 min)