ANIMATED SHORTS
Friday, May 6,
11:30 AM
Charles Theatre 4
Sunday, May 8,
5:00 PM
Charles Theatre 4
Awkward - Cesar Kuriyama, 3:00, BetaSP
Three bored companions experience an awkward moment.
Bid 'Em In - Neal Sopata, 2:10, 35mm
An animated telling of the slave sale song by Oscar Brown, Jr. (who is
the subject of the documentary, Music Is My Life, Politics My Mistress,
showing elsewhere in this festival).
Biopathy III - Justin Hellickson, 2:23, DVD
Experimental 3D animation challenging perceptions of anatomy and
environment.
A Buck's Worth - Tatia Rosenthal, 6:00, video
A men feels his social order upended when a homeless man requests a
dollar from him -- at gunpoint.
Decision - Freddy Maskeroni, 4:30, DVD
If one experiences art as a way to get inside an artists' head, this
computer generated does the job literally, by utilizing cat scans of the
filmmaker.
Egg - Benh Zeitln, 9:00, 16mm
Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" is given a surrealistic interpretation in
this microscopic tale of epic tragedy about a pea-sized pirate's quest
to slay his golden nemesis.
The Fan and the Flower - Bill Plympton, 7:00, DVD
An ill fated and unconsummated romance between a fan and a flower
magically creates a fairy tale ending. A very atypical film from
prolific animator, Bill Plympton.
Handshake - Patrick Smith, 4:30, 35mm
A polite greeting at a bus stop turns into a sticky situation.
Learn Self Defense - Chris Harding, 5:00, DVD
When George runs into trouble, it’s nothing a few lessons in self
defense can’t solve.
The Meaning of Life - Don Hertzfeldt, 12:00, 35mm
The inimitable Don Hertzfeldt returns with an animated opus
magnificently exploring time, space, life, death, and interplanetary
evolution.
9 - Shane Acker, 11:00, 35mm
In a post-apocalyptic future, number 9 reflects on the mistakes of the
past as he prepares to take on an apparently unstoppable foe.
Ryan - Chris Landreth, 14:00, BetaSP, Canada
An animated documentary portrait of Canadian animator Ryan Larkin.
Winner of the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film.
Surface (Terra Primus) - Stephen Brandt, 7:00, DVD
An avant garde composite of several Native American creation myths,
using visuals based on the art of painter Paul Klee.
TS120504 - BenniiD, 3:16, DVD
The culmination of pure experience swirled together with the pureness of
color, shape, form and movement result in a psychedelic eye-candy feast.
BLACK MARIA SHORTS
Saturday, May 7,
5:00 PM
Charles Theatre 4
The Binding of Isaac - 5.5 min.video by John Schnall,
Bloomfield, NJ
A richly textured and evocative telling of a man’s single-minded faith.
Schnall’s Abraham is not the pious, grief-stricken, humble servant of
God in the Bible story. This thought provoking and emotionally charged
piece suggests that there is an emotional price to be paid for religious
fanaticism
Getting Through to the President - 7.5 min. video by Emily and
Sara Kunstler, Brooklyn, NY
A truly jolly, tongue in cheek work in the tradition of the vintage TV
show Candid Camera. Randomly chosen people are invited to toss coins
into a pay phone and ring up the President’s Comment Line. They express
their very diverse opinions on the politics and policies of the current
administration.
Hardwood - 28 min. video by Hubert Davis, Montreal, Canada
If you mix a Harlem Globetrotters basketball star, with having two
families, of two different races, in two different cities, and a son
with a camera, who has some questions to ask about the whole thing; you
have a beautifully, honest personal documentary called “Hardwood.”
Harmony - 12 min. by Jim Trainor, Chicago, IL
Harmony is the latest installment in a series of films called The
Animals and their Limitations. According to the filmmaker, “A male God
bestows upon animals the gift of self-awareness, which they promptly use
to express guilt for their behavior. This moral breakthrough is somewhat
undermined by the appearance of humans, whose invention of magical
belief systems degrades the whole of Nature.
Industrious - 2:30 min video. by Guillaume Turpin, Arlington, VA
In this syncopated work made in a industrial hen house, thousands of
chickens’ eggs march to the rhythms of a computer driven production
schedule.
Lawn - 12 min. by video Monteith McCollum, Barton, NY
This elegant lyrical piece is an understated consideration of the
culture of manicured lawns and what it may reflect about our values.
Images of a natural, undisciplined habitat play off our impulse to
civilize, subdue and circumscribe nature.
Layette - 16 min. video by Ariana Gerstein, Barton, NY
“Layette” is an experimental documentary that revolves around a phone
interview with a woman who speaks regretfully about her inability to
continue producing children. The piece was created by layering several
generations of various mediums from Super 8 film to digital
manipulation, to hand processed 16mm and analogue video.
Past and Pending - 5 min. video by Matt McCormick, co-director
Greg Brown, Portland, OR
This is an elegant and poignant music video featuring an expressive tune
by the Shins. Images in suspended animation: an empty prairie homestead,
a rusted and forgotten hulk of a boat, a lacy suspension bridge and an
elder taking Polaroids from a vintage Plymouth Valiant paint a
thoughtful impression of a lost time.
S. P. I. C. The Storyboard of my Life - (7 min excerpt) 25
min.video by Robert Castillo, Jersey City, NJ
This personal and revealing animated film uses drawing in the form of
storyboards as a device to frame a series of life changing events
experienced by the filmmaker. The “cartoons” become hyper-real elements,
almost larger than life, as they unfold as individual moments within a
complex whole.
COMEDY SHORTS
Friday, May 6,
4:00 PM
Charles Theatre 3
Saturday, May 7,
9:30 PM
Charles Theatre 2
Cold Feet - Shamit Choksey & Sheleen Choksey, 18:00, BetaSP
At the church on his wedding day, a groom must get some help from his
best man to help him determine what to do.
Commentary: On - Rob Lindsey & Rudolf Mammitzsch, 9:00, BetaSP,
Canada
On the way to visit his ex-girlfriend who is now a famous movie star, a
young man recalls the relationship DVD style.
Estes Avenue - Paul Cotter, 3:00, video
An examination on how the same phrase can have very different meanings.
Henry and Veronica – Nate Stark,10:00,video
Finding the perfect romantic match for Henry is a challenge, but
Veronica may just fit the bill.
Late Bloomer - Craig Macneill, 13:00, BetaSP
Sex education class is fraught with anxiety and peril for a teenage boy.
Motel - Thor Freudenthal, 7:00, video
Things seem too good to be true when a traveler checks into a motel
where the accommodations and amenities are free.
Pizza Shop - Mark Mainguy, 3:00, DVD, Canada
A potentially violent domestic situation takes an unexpected twist at
the local pizza shop.
Whoa - Maurice A. Dwyer, 7:00, BetaSP
Three men with a score to settle chase another man through the streets.
COMIC TWISTS SHORTS
Friday, May 6,
10:30 PM
Charles Theatre 1
Sunday, May 8,
1:00 PM
Charles Theatre 5
Blake's Junction 7 - Ben Gregor, 15:00, 35mm, U.K.
The characters from an 80’s U.K. cult sci-fi television series make a
late night pit stop at a roadside rest stop.
Broadcast 23 - Tom Putnam, 7:00, 35mm
A professor is on the brink of one of the biggest scientific discoveries
of all time – but it’s not what he thinks.
Pee Shy - Deb Hagan, 15:00, 35mm
A boy becomes so frightened by his scout leader’s campfire stories that
he humiliates himself one night. He becomes an outcast until the troop
encounters something truly terrifying in the woods.
Tap Heat - Dean Hargrove, 14:00, 35mm
A story, told with all tap dancing and no dialogue, of two very
different styles of tap that first challenge each other and then meld
together in harmony.
West Bank Story - Ari Sandel, 22:00, 35mm
A musical comedy set in the fast-paced, fast-food world of competing
falafel stands in the West Bank.
CONNECTIONS SHORTS
Friday, May 6,
11:00 AM
Charles Theatre 3
Saturday, May 7,
1:30 PM
Charles Theatre 2
America – Sigal Mordechai, 23:00, Beta SP, Israel
Two brothers in Israel plan, but never take a long time coming trip to
America. Just when it looks like they may finally take the trip
The Diversion - Elizabeth Holder & Holter Graham, 15:00, BetaSP
A young couple heading on a long needed vacation together gets into a
power struggle involving jealousy and fantasy.
I'd Rather Be Dead Than Live In This World - Andrew Semans,
17:00, BetaSP
When a young woman first meets her internet paramour, they immediately
head to her apartment to make love, but now that they have found each
other will they ever want to leave?
Intervention - Jay Duplass, 14:30, video
A group of friends come together to confront one of them about why he
felt the need to lie to them about his signed Bill Parcels poster.
Rice Counter Ice Sleeper - J Wesley Bassard, 4:00, DVD
A stylized story of romance, passion, temptation and self control.
Something Dying, Something Dead - May Tam, 2:40, DVD
An experimental piece of appropriated images and sound inspired by the
role of women in Asian media.
DOCUMENTARY SHORTS
Friday, May 6,
7:00 PM
Charles Theatre 3
Sunday, May 8,
4:30 PM
Charles Theatre 3
Infected - Paul Santomenna, 19:00, DVD
An examination of the questionable health care that detainees receive at
the Baltimore City Detention Center.
One Nice Thing - Julia Kim Smith, Francesca Danieli & David
Beaudouin, 10:00, DVD
In the current red state versus blue state environment, the toughest
thing for either side to do may be to say one nice thing about the
other.
Rosevelt's America - Roger Weisberg, 26:00, BetaSP
The story of an immigrant from war torn Liberia as he tries to make a
living in America while at the same time taking care of his children and
trying to bring his wife, who is still in Liberia, to join him.
Top of the Circle - Shaz Bennett, 5:00, video
A young woman recollects about the food chain, her mom, and bacon bits.
What is Art? - Karin Hayes, 5:30, BetaSP
Made as part of the Slamdance Film Festival's On-The-Fly-Films program,
in which filmmakers pick a word out of a hat, and then have five days to
conceive, shoot, edit, mix and present a five minute documentary based
on that word, using no budget but a lot of donated goods & services.
Karin Hayes picked the word, "art."
DRAMA SHORTS
Friday, May 6,
9:00 PM
Charles Theatre 3
Saturday, May 7,
12:30 PM
Charles Theatre 3
Pony Under a Painted Sky - Bill Hallinan, 13:00, Beta SP
Frank has a new addiction in his life- a tiny toy Pony. Forgetting his
craving for heroin entirely, he focuses his energies towards caring for
the toy. This new relationship will change Frank's life.
Sunday in August (Sonntag Im August) - Marc Meyer, 15:00, video,
Germany
Sunday in August. A couple on a boat. Their love is burnt out. But how
to let go when souls are entangled?
Tahara - Sara Rashad, 17:30, Beta SP
A woman is forced by her mother to perform a traditional right of
passage on her daughter. Painful memories of her own initiation cause
the woman to hesitate, but she is also subject to cultural pressures
that make it difficult to resist.
Tuffy Low-Low - James Bartolomeo, 38:00, Beta SP
A young man can’t seem to catch a break when he is left with the
responsibility of caring for his ailing grandmother after his father’s
death as he tries to hold down a job and start a club deejay career.
Where Is There Room? - Sonali Gulati, Byron Karabatsos, Antonio
Paez, 6:30, DVD
An Indian woman attempts to come to terms with her mother's death.
GENERATIONS SHORTS
Friday, May 6,
2:00 PM
Charles Theatre 4
Sunday, May 8,
5:00 PM
Charles Theatre 1
Among Thieves - Oscar Daniels, 24:00, 35mm
A young gangster on the run from the cops hides out in the house of a
terminally ill elderly woman.
Last Night - Sean Mewshaw, 22:00, 35mm
A couple spends one last night together along with a young woman who is
along to play witness to the evening’s happenings.
Wednesday Afternoon - Alfonso F. Mayo, 25:00, 35mm
A teenage boy spends his Wednesday afternoons with his drug-dealing
father. He tries to do the right thing while at the same time he tries
to mend his strained relationship with his dad.
Winter Sea - Erika Tasini, 25:00, 35mm
A secretive woman's intimate relationship with her brother is threatened
when an unexpected guest shows up for dinner at their eccentric mother's
house.
OUTSIDE LOOKING IN SHORTS
Friday, May 6,
4:30 PM
Charles Theatre 5
Saturday, May 7,
11:00 AM
Charles Theatre 5
Alone - Gregory Orr, 30:00, 35mm
Peter Shipke is an evictor who is perfectly content to eat alone, live
alone, and sleep alone until he meets Anya at the local pool and she
becomes the object of his fantasies.
Everything's Gone Green - Aaron Ruell, 17:00, 35mm
An idiosyncratic, reserved man who never leaves his office/apartment
strikes up a relationship with the bubbly, vivacious receptionist from
downstairs.
The Last Full Measure - Alexandra Kerry, 17:00, 35mm
A young girl uses her imagination to help her cope in welcoming her
father who is returning home from the Vietnam War.
Pity 24 - Amanda Kerley, 16:00, 35mm, Australia
Stash, a legend in a small suburban bush lot, is remembered by his
brother, bandmates, and girlfriend five months after he died in a car
wreck.
Smarty Pants - Janet Marcus, 17:00, 35mm, France
Eric, an unemployed doctor of biophysics, meets Marguerite at the Home
of Balzac, a museum in Paris where she works as an attendant, but can he
compete with her true love, Balzac?
Swim Test - Alex Chung, 11:00, 35mm
A swim test requirement for graduation becomes a potentially
insurmountable obstacle when a boy doesn’t want to take his shirt off in
front of his classmates.
PAST PRESENT FUTURE SHORTS
Friday, May 6,
1:30 PM
Charles Theatre 3
Saturday, May 7,
8:00 PM
Charles Theatre 3
Four Star Day - Chris Keating & Grady Owens, 26:00, BetaSP
Glen's obsession with astrology leads him to some bizarre conclusions.
Keeper of the Past - Alfonso F. Mayo, 18:00, DVD
A computer expert who specializes in manufacturing scandals to damage
his clients’ political opponents runs into trouble when his newest
target seems to be one step ahead of him.
Poof - Kevin Walla, 7:00, DVD
Two men in a waiting room discuss the nature of life.
Premonition - Renata Adamidov, 24:00, BetaSP
A psychic young girl and her brother use her skills to earn money for
their abusive father as she learns that what happens is what is supposed
to happen.
Staring at the Sun - Toby Wilkins, 14:00, DVD
When a fortune-teller refuses to reveal her vision of a man's future, he
becomes so obsessed with knowing the answer that he unwittingly fulfills
his fate.
ROBERT FLAHERTY SHORTS
Saturday, May 7,
2:30 PM
Charles Theatre 4
A.W.O.L. - 3:30 min. 35mm film by Robert Banks Jr., Cleveland,
OH
Renegade filmmaker Robert Banks delivers a frenetic tornado of images in
this film about protest in a key “red” state.
Baghdad in no Particular Order - 51 min .video by Paul Chan,
Chicago, IL
This is a penetrating and riveting cinema verité portrait of the people
of Bagdad. Pre-teen girls playfully belly dance, a bookseller recites
western poetry in the street, a Christmas pageant, Dolly Parton songs on
the radio. Then in a mosque a chant snowballs into a frenzied expression
of religious fervor.
Lost Motion - 4 min. 16mm film by Janie Geiser, Los Angeles, CA
“Lost Motion” is the sumptuously told tale of a futile search. Draped in
mystery, shadowy miniature play sets and model train tableaus are
traversed by a male figure who is seeking an illusive goal. The
filmmaker’s images are evocative of a noir drama and a failed meeting,
and are intertwined with a subtext about how our lushest dreams fail by
virtue of their extravagance.
Odysseus in Ithaca - 5 min. video by Peter Rose, Philadelphia, PA
Peter Rose proposes to the viewer a trip into the architectural
labyrinth of an empty parking lot. But this empty space is represented
as classical ruins of an empire of greed, lust, and power from which
there is no way out.
Tabula Rasa - 7.5 min. video by Vincent Grenier, Ithaca, NY
Verbal descriptions of fictional comic book characters are interwoven
with elegant abstracted shots of a South Bronx high school’s walls and
corridors (which according to the filmmaker is an “...attempt to sort
through and take to task the enormity of that institution... to engage
in a real discourse...with the clues that tell the history of objects,
colors, texture, architecture and ultimately, psychological states of
mind that are but some of the players ...” A possible, undercover study
on institutional formatting of minds not yet affected by experiences.
Themes - 20 min. video by Dan Boord & Louis Valdovino, Boulder,
CO
This is a witty tongue-in-cheek travelogue with a social-political twist
by two University of Colorado masters of irony. A tour de force of wry
commentary and exquisite panoramas from around the world. Within
“Themes,” the past, present and the future converge as the Venice of
Dante becomes a hotel in Las Vegas. “Themes” nostalgically observes that
they do not make the future the way that they used to.
Two Minutes to Zero - 1 min. 16mm film by Lewis Klahr, Los
Angeles, CA
This piece by noted alternative filmmaker, Lewis Klahr, appropriates
cops and robbers comic strip art and fragments the frames into cinematic
close-ups. Projecting the film on a screen results in a larger-than-life
presentation which is not unrelated to Roy Lichtenstein’s style. Klahr’s
almost melancholy embrace of circa 1950s kitsch carries a more edgy
sensibility than Lichtenstein’s, and which ricochets through and off the
original story line.
ZOMBIES DEMONS & ROBOTS SHORTS
Friday, May 6,
9:00 PM
Charles Theatre 4
Saturday, May 7,
12:00 PM
Charles Theatre 4
Cry for Help - Nicholas McCarthy, 12:00, video
A bizarre and funny tale of circumcision, jerky, and the rapture.
Loretta - Mike Gutridge, 23:00, DVD
When a young grave robber and a crafty zombie embark on a 'life' of
crime, nothing will stand in their way. Except Loretta; a pretty blind
woman who makes them see the error of their ways.
Raging Cyclist - Sean McCarthy, 30:00, DVD
Besides being a bit quirky and naïve, "the cyclist" was your basic
every-man, stuck in the daily routine of life. That is until a chance
encounter with a dark force sets the cyclist on a journey of
self-destruction, fear, and paranoia, ultimately challenging his
perception of the world around him. The man meets the myth in this comic
nightmare.
Robot-ussin - Nikc Miller, 3:20, DVD
After drinking a bottle of 'Tussin, a young animator becomes delusional.
He is forced to deal with a persistent animated-robot-come-to-life, who
merely wants to bestow upon him the gift of a can of chunk ham.
Samuel Demango - Everett R. Aponte, 19:00, BetaSP
Samuel is part man, part zombie, and part mango. Unhappy with his life
as a shut-in, he wants to take his own life but finds the task
impossible to accomplish. The pretty woman next door wants to help
Samuel find an existence outside of his domineering mother's house,
while Death, in the form of a mango, wants to help him find his way to
the afterlife.