The Ann Arbor Film Festival features the latest in independent and experimental film and video from all over the world. The touring program includes a selection of awarded and highlighted films from this year's festival. Half of the program will be presented on DVD; the other on good old fashioned 16mm film! A total of 18 shorts, a range of animation, experimental, documentary and narrative, including work by former IC film student Michael Robinson. more at aafilmfest.org 16mm and Video Projection
DVD Projection:
Tyger (Guilherme Marcondes) Santa
Monica, CA 4.5 min Animation
Chris Frayne Award for Best Animated Film; Daily Audience Award Winner
A giant tiger mysteriously appears in a big city. It will reveal the
hidden reality in an otherwise ordinary night. Inspired by William
Blake poem Tyger.
By Modern Measure (Matthew
Lessner) Nahalem, OR 6 min Experimental Narrative
An amateur French sociologist presents his observations on a day in the
life to two young Americans who meet by chance outside a Taco Bell on
October 8, 2006.
Help Is Coming (Ben Mor) Los
Angeles, CA 7.5 min Experimental
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, three youths survey the
desolate wasteland only to find a suspicious looking package.
Proximity (Inger Lise Hansen)
Norway/United Kingdom 3.5 min Experimental
An upside-down time-lapse camera is moved frame by frame on a track
along a beach inverting the ground and the sky. The camera moves
through four shots recorded in different weather conditions. The result
is a mysterious and disorienting space in accelerated time, where the
originally solid ground at the top of the frame appears to be sliding
past like a lava-stream.
Sift (Sally Van Gorder) Doha, Qatar 9.5
min Experimental Narrative
An intimate glimpse into the thoughts of fifteen young Arab women as
they sort through the shifting and often contradictory expectations
accompanying changes in the rapidly developing Arabian gulf country of
Qatar.
Flow (Scott Nyerges) Brooklyn, NY
4.5 min Experimental Animation
A meditation upon the perennial flow of the water around us, made with
painted 35mm and 16mm filmstrips and live video footage.
A Little Night Fright (Mischa
Livingstone) Los Angeles, CA 2.5 min Narrative
When the bedtime story ends and the lights go out, a little boy exacts
revenge on his tormenting older brother.
The General Returns From One Place To Another (Michael Robinson) Chicago, IL 10.5 min Experimental
Tom Berman Award For Most Promising Filmmaker
Learning to love again, with fear at its side, the film draws balance
between the romantic and the horrid, shaping a concurrently skeptical
and indulgent experience of the beautiful. A Frank O'Hara monologue
(from a play of the same title) attempts to undercut the sincerity of
the landscape, but there are stronger forces surfacing.
The Boy In The Air (Lyn Elliot)
State College, PA 2 min Experimental
Prix Devarti Award for Funniest Film
An enigmatic advertisement inspires a letter. The corporation writes
back.
Ski Boys (Benny Zenga) Toronto, ON Canada 9 min Experimental
Honorable Mention Award
The lost reels of the Ski Boys documents their inventive exploits in
rural Ontario during the early seventies. This film reveals the bizarre
footage of these folk stunt artists to the public for the first time
despite the implications of rewriting history and blowing your mind.
16mm Film Projection:
Black and White Trypps Number
3 (Ben Russell) Providence, RI 12 min Experimental
Documentary
Honorable Mention Award
The third part in a series of films
dealing with naturally-derived psychedelia. Shot during a performance
by local Rhode Island noise band Lightning Bolt, this film documents
the transformation of a rock audience's collective freak-out
into a trance ritual of the highest spiritual order.
A
Room With Askew (Gregory Godhard) Sydney, Australia 5.5 min
Animation
Trapped in a strange room where nothing is as it seems, a
hungry little creature awaits a meal that may never
happen.
Orbit (Kerry Laitala) San Francisco,
CA, b&w, 5 min Experimental
A study of a merged entity, a
bicycle and the cyclist, and its movement through a synthetic
environment: an urban landscape. Originally shot on super-8 and
optically printed to 16mm.
Silk Ties (Jim Jennings)
New York, NY 9 min Experimental
Jennings mostly shot 'Silk Ties' in New York's Garment District from the vantage point of a work truck. Filmed while parked on the street and driving in traffic, Jennings captures the rhythms and sensation of this vibrant street life. Edited mostly in-camera, 'Silk Ties' reflects the working-class sensibility of its environment.
Market Street (Tomonari Nishikawa)
Japan/U.S.A. 4.5 min Experimental
Honorable Mention Award
Having great interest in the projection apparatus and human visual perception, Nishikawa carefully juxtaposed images of Market Street, a main street in San Francisco, by single-framing, in order to create certain happenings on the screen. The result may look abstract, yet representative enough to show the characteristics of the street.
Block (Emily Richardson)
London, UK 12 min Experimental
Day through night, Block is a portrait of a London tower block, it's interior and exterior spaces explored and revealed.
Ema/Emaki 2 (Takashi Ishida)
Tokyo, Japan 7 min Experimental Animation
A progression of ornate calligraphical illustrations building upon one another to create a cinematic palimpsest.
Pump (Sinisa Kukic)
San Francisco, CA 5 min Experimental
A study of a merged entity, a bicycle and the cyclist, and its movement through a synthetic environment: an urban landscape. Originally shot on super-8 and optically printed to 16mm.