2014 FILMS
Wednesday, July 2
5:00pm
Fantastic Man
Jake Sumner . 2014 . USA / UK . 31m
Documents the true story of mythical Nigerian musician William Onyeabor, who made 8 ground-breaking albums of synthesized electronic music in his own state-of-the-art recording studio in the 1970's and 80’s, before abruptly turning his back on music.
Cast: William Onyeabor, Damon Albarn, Femi Kuti, Martyn Ware
Jake Sumner has directed work including commercial projects for major brands and music videos for artists including Lissy Trullie, Bruno Mars and Damien Marley. His short documentaries have addressed topics from Olympic figure skating sensations to Long Island Ramen Masters and Pantsula dance culture in Soweto, South Africa. He has made several film collaborations with the artist KAWS.
6:00pm
Impossible Light
Jeremy Ambers . 2014 . USA . 71m
Chronicles the technologically sophisticated process undertaken by artist Leo Villeral as he successfully endeavored to illuminate San Francisco’s Bay Bridge with 25,000 animated LEDs.
Cast: Leo Villareal, Timothy Childs, Amy Critchett, Ben Davis
Jeremy Ambers spent much of his early career working for a small production and post production company in midtown Manhattan. After moving to San Francisco he took up freelance filmmaking and spent three years, amidst other projects, documenting artist Leo Villareal’s iconic Bay Bridge light sculpture.
9:30pm at the Golf Course
The Color of Pomegranates Original Live Score Performance by CocoRosie
Sergei Parajanov . 1968 . USSR . 88m
A biography of the Armenian and Georgian poet Sayat-Nova, which portrays the poet's life visually and poetically rather than literally. Scenes take the form of static tableaux depicting the poet's coming of age, discovery of the female form, falling in love, entering a monastery and dying, all framed through both Sergei Parajanov's imagination and Sayat Nova's poems
Cast: Sofiko Chiaureli
Sergei Parjanovwas a Soviet film director and artist who made significant contributions to Ukrainian, Armenian and Georgian cinema. He invented his own cinematic style, which was totally out of step with the guiding principles of socialist realism (the only sanctioned art style in the USSR). This, combined with his controversial lifestyle and behavior, led Soviet authorities to repeatedly persecute and imprison him, and suppress his films, which nonetheless became regarded as classics.
CocoRosie
is an American musical group formed in 2003 by sisters Bianca "Coco" and Sierra "Rosie" Casady. Their music incorporates elements of pop, blues, opera, electronica, and hip hop.
Thursday, July 3
10:00am
The Last 40 Miles
Alex Hannaford . 2013 . USA . 14m
A condemned man makes the final journey from his solitary cell on death row in the east Texas town of Livingston to the execution chamber 40 miles away in Huntsville. During the journey his memories, the unlikely warmth of the guard escorting him, and his ever-present hope keep him company. Based on a true story.
Cast: Gary Kent, Victor Steele
DIRECTOR is a British-born journalist who contributes regularly to publications such as GQ magazine, The Atlantic, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times, Guardian and others. His coverage of inmates on Texas death row and the death penalty in America lead him to write “The Last 40 Miles.”
Natural Life
Tirtza Even . 2014 . USA . 78m .
TX Premiere
An experimental documentary challenging inequities in the U.S. juvenile justice system by depicting, through documentation and reenactment, the stories of five individuals of different age, gender, economic background and race, who were sentenced to Life Without Parole (Natural Life) for crimes they committed as youth.
Cast: Matthew Bentley, Barbara Hernandez, Kevin Boyd, Jennifer Pruitt, Efren Paredes
Tirtza Even has practiced video art and documentary filmmaking for fifteen years. She has produced linear and interactive video work representing the the social/political dynamics in specific locations including Palestine, Turkey, Spain, the U.S. and Germany. Her work has appeared at the Museum of Modern Art NY, at the Whitney Biennial, the Johannesburg Biennial, as well as in many other festivals, galleries and museums in the United States, Israel, and Europe.
12:30pm
Scooter Days
Léonie de Boer . 2014 . Netherlands . 45m .
N.American Premiere
Smart but cocky 14-year old Julian lives alone with his obtrusive and alcoholic mother. Meeting the beautiful but much older Lara and her boyfriend Levi makes him dream of a better life. But as he falls deeper and deeper in love, he steadily loses grip of reality.
Cast: Roemer Prins, Eva Duijvestein, Hannah Hoekstra
Léonie de Boer earned her BA in Film Studies at the University of Amsterdam and went on to study filmmaking at the Utrecht School of the Arts. In 2010 she graduated with the short film Stokje.
The Perfect Hello
Zack Kasten . 2014 . USA . 41m .
TX Premiere
The film focuses on Wade Perkins, a fifty-five year old motivational speaker at the end of his rope. After learning of his younger brothers demise, he embarks on an alcoholic bender through middle America accompanied by a mysterious young woman named Sweetheart. Their short love affair is captured in a series of poetic and piercing scenes en route to Wade's brothers funeral.
Cast: Leonard Auclair, Vanessa Knight, Tom Seidman
Zack Kasten is a writer, filmmaker, and visual artist who works and lives in Oakland California. Oakland based photographer and interactive media artist Peter Hinson collaborated with Kasten to make The Perfect Hello
3:00pm
Groomed
Wyatt Rockefeller . 2014 . USA . 11m
When the groom goes missing on the day of their wedding, the bride must put her faith in his godmother's bold scheme to replace him at the altar without anyone noticing.
Cast: Yvette Mercedes, Karin de la Penha, Jessica Renee Russell, Stefano Fossa
Wyatt Rockefeller is currently pursuing an MBA and an MFA from NYU's Stern School of Business and the Kanbar Institute of Film & Television at the Tisch School of the Arts.
Lambing Season
Jeannie Donohoe . 2014 . USA . 15m
An American woman travels to the Irish countryside and poses as a stranger to track down her long-lost father. When things don't go according to her convoluted plan, Bridget and her father are surprised to learn they have more in common than they imagined.
Cast: Breeda Wool, Séamus Moran, Jamund Washington, Pádraig Murray
Jeannie Donohoe is an award-winning filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Originally from Natick, Massachusetts, she graduated from Dartmouth College with honors in studio art. Jeannie taught middle school in the South Bronx through the Teach for America program while earning her M.S. in education. Compelled by her desire to tell personal stories, she pursued writing and directing in Columbia University’s graduate film program, and earned her M.F.A. with honors in 2011.
We Could Be Your Parents
Charlie Anderson . 2014 . USA . 18m .
TX Premiere
Sue wants to have a baby, but first she needs her husband to quit smoking. Bob has been trying and failing for months now, so Sue gives him some added incentive - no sex until he successfully quits.
Cast: Alex Karpovsky, Alycia Delmore
Charlie Anderson teaches film production at Webster University. His work has screened at festivals throughout the United States, and he has various credits as an actor, photographer, makeup effects artist and sound mixer.
Life On Earth
Olivier Babinet . 2014 . France . 4m
Music Video : song by Tomorrow's World. Filmed in slow motion at Claude Debussy Junior High School in Paris, with lingering, intimate close-ups on its subjects, Babinet's video captures the excitement, weirdness, and occasional weightlessness of navigating adolescence.
Olivier Babinet wrote and directed his first short film, C'est plutôt genre Johnny Walker in 2008. His first feature film, Robert Mitchum est Mort was shown at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival. The film won the Grand Prize at the Premiers Plans Angers festival and was nominated for best first film at the Raindance London Festival.
Chocolate Heart
Harrison Atkins . 2014 . USA . 7m
Owen never learned about sex or relationships from his parents, since they turned into cats. But today, with the help of a human girl, Owen is going to learn a lot.
Cast: Johnathan Gordon, Allie Galleran
Harrison Atkins (b. 1990) is an American independent filmmaker. His work has screened at film festivals around the country including South By Southwest, Sarasota and Maryland. Currently based in New York, he regularly directs music videos and is hard at work on his first feature.
The Vision Quest
Lauren-Edward . 2014 . USA . 9m .
TX Premiere
An original fable about two extremely nearsighted men wandering a mystical land in search of food and inspiration. Influenced by the often-epic video game prologue, with music from Olafur Arnalds and Charles Watson.
Cast: Wes Wessels, David Flowers
Lauren-Edward is a rare, two-headed creature composed of Andrea Sisson & Pete Ohs. They enjoy a happy marriage and collaborate on all aspects of filmmaking.
Kangaroo Court
Carlos Lopez Estrada . 2014 . USA . 5m
Music Video : song by Capitol Cities. A zebra dares to pass himself off as a Black Stallion to enter to an exclusive night club where zebras aren't allowed, winning love and experiencing unforeseen consequences.
Cast: Ryan Merchant, Shannon Woodward, Darren Criss, Sebu Simonian
Carlos Lopez Estrada is a music video director and a Latin Grammy Award recipient. At the 13th Annual Latin Grammy Awards, Lopez Estrada’s music video for “Me Voy,” by Mexican pop band Jesse & Joy, earned the title of Best Short Form Music Video.
5:00pm
Regina
Frances Barth . 2014 . USA . 12m .
WORLD Premiere
Explores the work of painter Regina Bogat, who never exhibited the paintings she produced while heavily embedded in the 1960-70s NYC art scene until 2013, at the age of 84.
Cast: Regina Bogat
Frances Barth was born in the Bronx and studied painting at Hunter College. She has shown at the Whitney. Her awards include two NEA grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, the Adolphe and Esther Gottlieb Grant and two American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Awards. She is the Mount Royal School of Art graduate director.
Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace
Jeff Dupre . 2013 . USA . 39m
Famous for his vibrant reinterpretations of classical portraits featuring African-American men, Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace follows the New York based artist as he steps out of his comfort zone to create a series of paintings of women for the first time. Kehinde finds his models on the streets of New York and enlists Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy to create couture gowns for each woman. The film traces the artist's process from concept to canvas as he reveals to us another side of black femininity.
Cast: Kehinde Wiley
Jeff Dupre recently produced and co-directed the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning Marina Abramovic The Artist is Present for HBO. He is an Executive Producer of the groundbreaking Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide for PBS in 2012. Other recent projects include Carrier and Broadway: The American Musical, both Emmy Award Winning documentaries produced for PBS, BBC and NHK. His directorial debut, Out of the Past, won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and aired on PBS.
9:00pm
Buttercup Bill
Émilie Richard-Froozan, Remy Bennett . 2013 . UK / USA . 94m .
WORLD Premiere
A psycho-sexual romance featuring Patrick and Pernilla, mutually obsessed soul mates clinging to childhood secrets. Closer to twins separated at birth than friends or lovers, they express love through sexual games of jealousy and subversion, seeking escape from a reality they believe has no place for them.
Cast: Remy Bennett, Evan Louison
Émilie Richard-Froozan and Rémy Bennett are 28 year old filmmakers living and working in New York city. The pair met when they were 16 years old at an NYU abroad acting and directing program in Dublin where they collaborated on their first film together. Besides directing music videos and other shorts they co-wrote Buttercup Bill, which was discovered and picked up by producers Sadie Frost and Emma Comely of Blonde to Black Pictures in London.
Friday, July 4
10:00am
Honor The Treaties
Eric Becker . 2012 . USA . 15m .
TX Premiere
Examines photographer Aaron Huey's personal journey from photojournalist to advocate through his exploration of the social injustice and forgotten history of Native Americans on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Eric Becker is an award winning Seattle-based director who has been working domestically in documentary for 7 years. His work, both short and feature-length, focuses on human rights, peace, and the environment, and has screened at festivals and on television.
Overpass Light Brigade
Dusan Harminc, Matt Mullins. 2014 . USA . 6m .
TX Premiere
Uses time-lapse photography and interviews to chronicle the activities and motivations of a group of Wisconsin activists who use LED lettering boards to communicate messages after dark.
Cast: Joe Brusky, Lisa Moline, Carrie Riddle
Dusan Harminc and Matt Mullins met in Madison in early 2010 and began making films shortly thereafter. Their first collaborative short Capillary Curried Cow won the Madison 48 hour film project in 2010. They have since made a handful of films including the upcoming feature documentary Forward, about the Wisconsin uprising.
Above All Else
John Fiege . 2014 . USA . 95m
Shot in the forests, pastures, and living rooms of rural East Texas, Above All Else follows David Daniel as he rallies neighbors and environmental activists to join him in a final act of brinkmanship: a tree-top blockade of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
Cast: David Daniel, Eleanor Fairchild, Julia Trigg Crawford
John Fiege is a director, cinematographer and photographer whose films have played at the Cannes Film Festival, SXSW, Museum of Modern Art, and Hot Docs, among many others. Mississippi Chicken, his intimate portrait of immigrants working in the poultry industry, was nominated for a Gotham Award. He holds a B.A. from Carleton College, an M.S. in cultural geography and environmental history from The Pennsylvania State University, and an M.F.A. in film production from the University of Texas at Austin, where he has also worked as a lecturer.
12:30pm
365
The Brothers McLeod . 2014 . UK . 7m .
N.American Premiere
An improvised film made up of a second a day of animation which began on the 1st January 2013 and ended on New Year’s Eve. The final film charts the comings and goings of the year, real and imagined. Greg used the everyday as inspiration to create an abstract, disconnected, stream of consciousness film which allows the viewer to find connections to create narratives and hidden meanings which may or may not be there.
The Brothers McLeod write, draw,and make animations. Their work has won BAFTAs and Webbys. They've worked with Hit, Entertainment One, Disney, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Aardman, Royal Shakespeare Company, and others.
Dalai Lama
Jeremy Cohen . 2014 . USA . 14m .
TX Premiere
A short film about what happens when you get too good at meditating.
Cast: Stephanie Hunt, Jesse Plemons, Megan Mullally, Derek Waters, Elisha Yaffe
Jeremy Cohen is a graduate of the film program at UT Austin. He got his start interning for Mike Judge on Idiocracy. After several years in Austin directing ads for Trojan Condoms and his first feature film Love and Tambourines, he left for LA where he is currently directing National TV ads and developing his next feature film.
BFE
Shawn Telford . 2014 . USA . 98m .
TX Premiere
They say say it's quiet out in the country... They don't know shit!
Cast: Hans Altwies, Mark Carr, Will Cowles Meyer, Wally Dalton, Abby Dylan
Shawn Telford is an award-winning actor, writer, and director who received an MFA in acting from the University of Washington. He has performed extensively in Seattle’s theater scene and appeared in various film, video, and commercial projects. His films and videos have fared well in film festivals. BFE is his first feature-length work.
3:00pm
WOR
Jim Demuth . 2014 . India / USA . 6m
Music Video : song by Django Django. Depicts the fearless lives of Indian stunt motorcycle riders and automobile drivers who routinely perform gravity-defying feats inside a giant sphere.
Jim Demuth is a documentary director based in London working in the spectrums of popular science, anthropology and natural history, and in pursuit of 'the ecstatic truth'.
Afronauts
Frances Bodomo . 2014 . USA . 14m
Inspired by true events, Afronauts tells an alternative history of the 1960s Space Race. As America prepares to send Apollo 11 to the moon, a group of exiles in the Zambian desert rush to launch their rocket first.
Cast: Diandra Forrest, Yolonda Ross, Hoji Fortuna
Frances Bodomo is a Ghanaian filmmaker based in New York City. She grew up on four continents - in Ghana, Norway, California, and Hong Kong—before moving to New York to attend Columbia University as a Kluge Scholar. She received a BA in English Literature and Film Studies in 2010. Her work features doppelgangers, imaginary friends, ventriloquist dummies, and the un-institutionalized crazies who constantly break society’s view of itself. Her ultimate goal is to make conceptually strong films that bring African images to the forefront.
Borgman
Alex van Warmerdam . 2013 . Netherlands . 113m
A vagrant enters the lives of an arrogant upper-class family, unfolding a psychological nightmare in the process.
Cast: Jan Bijvoet, Hadewych Minis, Jeroen Perceval
Alex van Warmerdam was born in the Netherlands. He was cofounder of the theatre group Hauser Orkater, and in 1980 he founded the theatre group De Mexicaanse Hond with his brother Marc van Warmerdam. He made his first feature film Abel in 1986. He plays parts in most of his own movies, mostly performing as a lead character. Borgman was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
5:00pm
Keep A Tidy Soul
Joshua Moore . 2012 . USA . 11m .
TX Premiere
Flyn has lost her soul. Please help her find it.
Cast: Claire McConnell, Jean Walrand
Joshua Moore is a San Francisco based writer, director, producer, and San Francisco Jewish Film Festival curator. His "delightfully freewheeling debut" feature I Think It's Raining screened at many film festivals across the country.
Mood Indigo
Michel Gondry . 2013 . France . 94m
A wealthy, inventive bachelor endeavors to find a cure for his lover when a flower begins to grow in her lungs. Full of imaginative production techniques and whimsical humor.
Cast: Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Gad Elmaleh
Michel Gondry is a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as one of the writers of his acclaimed film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He is considered a representative of Metamodernism.
9:00pm
4th of July Blowout!
Join MFF and Everybody Else for a special celebration of American Independence! See our EVENTS PAGE for more information about exciting events at this year's Festival.
Saturday, July 5
9:00am
Boyhood
Richard Linklater . 2014 . USA . 166m
Filmed intermittantly over 12 years with the same cast, a groundbreaking story of growing up as seen through the eyes of a child named Mason, who literally grows up on screen. Both a nostalgic time capsule of the recent past and an ode to growing up and parenting, the film charts the rocky terrain of childhood like no other has before.
Cast: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke
Richard Linklater was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s. His work explores what he dubbed “the youth rebellion continuum,” focusing in fine detail on generational rites and mores. His better known works include Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Waking Life, and A Scanner Darkly.
11:00am at Marshall Auditorium
Honor The Treaties
Eric Becker . 2012 . USA . 15m
Overpass Light Brigade
Dusan Harminc, Matt Mullins . 2014 . USA . 6m
Above All Else
John Fiege . 2014 . USA . 95m
12:30pm
La Gallina
Manel Raga . 2014 . Spain . 15m
A child who is not a child anymore, a mother who is gone forever and a father who never stops to possessing her, beyond life. The Hen is a desire that persists over time, it is a devastating routine that gets sick until becomes death.
Cast: Arnau Gallén, Joaquín Ortega , Sílvia Sabaté
Manel Raga completed a MA in Filmmaking at ESCAC in Barcelona. Since 2010 he has worked as a filmmaker with La Fura dels Baus. He is currently studying for his PhD of Liberal Arts in Filmmaking at the Film Factory (Sarajevo), a school mentored by the Hungarian director Béla Tarr.
La Divanee
Jessica Mitrani . 2014 . Colombia . 14m .
N.American Premiere
Based on the true story of the Countess of Guell Palomba Matas Mujika de Pumeral y Santiago, who at the age of eighteen reclined on a chaise lounge and refused to ever stand again. Narrated by the iconic Spanish actress Rossy de Palma, muse to Almodóvar, Gaultier, and Mugler.
Cast: Rossy de Palma
Jessica Mitrani is a Colombian-born, New York–based artist who works in multiple media from performance and sculpture to film and video. Employing narrative, humor, and psychoanalytic tropes, she investigates the social and aesthetic construction of femininity and how it shapes identity
Cannibal Story
Sohan Ariel Hayes / Yonkurra Billy Atkins. 2014 . Australia . 7m
Cannibal Story brings to life the dangerous, carnivorous beings that live beneath Kumpupirntily (Lake Disappointment), a salt lake in the heart of the western Australian desert. Martu artist Yunkurra Billy Atkins’ paintings are brought to life through a unique collaboration with award-winning animator Sohan Ariel Hayes
Cast: Yunkurra Billy Atkins
Sohan Ariel Hayes is a Perth-based media artist working in the fields of expanded and interactive cinema, animation, pervasive games, systems theory, locative media. Hayes has exhibited widely throughout Australia, Europe, and Asia. Yunkurra Billy Atkinsis a Martu artist, lawman, storyteller, and knowledgable authority on important Martu places. He has worked as an independent artist since the early 2000s, painting and carving. The National Gallery of Australia has purchased his work.
La Ricetta
Jason Noto . 2012 . USA . 5m
A cooking lesson becomes imbued with dark imagination as a boy's grandmother teaches him how to roast a baby pig.
Cast: Helene Macaulay, Caden Swain
Jason Noto is a writer, producer, and director from Baltimore. He wrote an horror feature film called Son’s of Mayfield and was awarded the Panavision New Filmmaker Grant for his short film script, The Butcher’s Wife. In 2008 he produced El Camino, an independent feature film which garnered 3 stars from Robert Ebert.
Odyssea
Morrisa Maltz . 2014 . USA . 12m .
TX Premiere
A young woman returns to her idyllic hometown and embarks on a private venture that involves both real and imagined inhabitants from her past.
Cast: Amy Ferguson, Natasha Warner, Beth Grant
Morrisa Maltz is a Los Angeles based artist and filmmaker. She holds a BA from Columbia University where she majored in fine art and began working in video. Her work is crossdisciplinary between art, performance, product design, and film.
Le Mystére
Raoul Paulet . 2014 . UK / Italy . 3m
Music Video : song by Hugo + the Prismatics. A woman navigates a surreal world of shape-shifting objects and shadowy figures in a hypnotic mix of live action performance, simple props, geometries, and optical illusions.
Cast: Tiffany Tonel
Raoul Paulet is a visionary director and artist who works on a wide range of media projects. In his research he tends to focus on minimalism, simplicity, and a strong aesthetic combined with content and meaning. Raoul always applies a multidisciplinary approach, especially in the search of the perfect balance between image and sound.
Into the Silent Sea
Andrej Landin . 2013 . Sweden . 25m
A Soviet cosmonaut on an errant mission makes an intense connection with an Italian radio engineer.
Cast: Peter Arpesella, Tatiana DeKhtyar, Aleksandr Khachatryan
Andrej Landin was born in Sweden and moved to the US in 2008 to pursue an education in film. He Graduated with honors from Chapman University in 2013. Into The Silent Sea is his thesis film and has has screened at over 35 festivals and won more than a dozen awards. He is currently working as a commercial director in Sweden.
Madame Le Chat
Juliana Soreli . 2013 . USA . 15m .
WORLD Premiere
Three recently poverty-stricken sisters Kooky, Kitty and Klutzy, receive important news. They have been called to the reading of an estranged Aunt's will. Arguing over the money they might receive, they settle on visiting a psychic: Madame Le Chat.
Cast: Riley Keough, Daveigh Chase, Chelsea Schuchman, Myra McWethy
Juliana Soreli graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. Her movies combine old Hollywood with rock n' roll and evoke a sardonic and dreamy universe.
1:30pm at Marshall Auditorium
Book of Ruth
Pablo Veliz . 2014 . USA . 86m
3:00pm
Hotel Y
Geraldine Barón . 2012 . USA / Argentina . 14m .
N.American Premiere
Two strangers meet up at a motel in Buenos Aires during their lunch breaks.
Cast: María Alche, Patricio Aramburu
Geraldine Barón was born in Buenos Aires and resides in Brooklyn, NY. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature & French from UCLA and an MFA in Film Directing from Columbia University, where she also studied photography. The short films she had produced, written and directed have screened at international film festivals including Venice, Mar del Plata, and Austin.
Between Josie and Maria
Kristen Swanbeck . 2014 . USA . 12m .
TX Premiere
Josie and Maria share everything; they are the best of friends. They roam the city together endlessly in their teenage wonder. Then one cold winter night they decide to take a chance.
Cast: Amanda Hillsberg, Katie Nunez, Jared McGuire, Ian Temple
Kristen Swanbeck is a director and editor living in Brooklyn, New York. She is a graduate of New York University's Kanbar Institute of Film & TV - Graduate Film Division.
X/Y
Ryan Pierce Williams . 2014 . USA . 82m .
TX Premiere
A character-driven drama centered around four restless New Yorkers and their shifting sexual and romantic relationships as they search for a sense of intimacy and self-identity.
Cast: America Ferrera, Common, Danny Deferrari, Melonie Diaz
Ryan Piece Williams was born and raised in El Paso, TX. He attended the University of Texas at Austin and graduated from the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. He is known for his work on The Dry Land (2010), Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). Williams wrote and directed the feature film The Dry Land and produced the feature film Kilimanjaro.
4:00pm at Marshall Auditorium
Boyhood
Richard Linklater . 2014 . USA . 116m
5:00pm
The Voice Thief
Adan Jodorowsky . 2013 . Chile / France / USA . 26m
When an opera singer loses her voice, her husband embarks on an odyssey through a dark underworld to recover it through supernatural means.
Cast: Asia Argento, Cristobal Jodorowsky
Adan Jodorowsky is the son of film maker Alejandro Jodorowsky. Adan spent most of his childhood in South America before moving to Paris as a teenager. The music he records and performs under the name "Adanowsky" is popular in Europe and Chile, where he spends much of his time.
The Color of Pomegranates Original Live Score Performance by CocoRosie
Sergei Parajanov . 1968 . USSR . 88m
A biography of the Armenian and Georgian poet Sayat-Nova, which portrays the poet's life visually and poetically rather than literally. Scenes take the form of static tableaux depicting the poet's coming of age, discovery of the female form, falling in love, entering a monastery and dying, all framed through both Sergei Parajanov's imagination and Sayat Nova's poems
Cast: Sofiko Chiaureli
Sergei Parjanovwas a Soviet film director and artist who made significant contributions to Ukrainian, Armenian and Georgian cinema. He invented his own cinematic style, which was totally out of step with the guiding principles of socialist realism (the only sanctioned art style in the USSR). This, combined with his controversial lifestyle and behavior, led Soviet authorities to repeatedly persecute and imprison him, and suppress his films, which nonetheless became regarded as classics.
CocoRosie
is an American musical group formed in 2003 by sisters Bianca "Coco" and Sierra "Rosie" Casady. Their music incorporates elements of pop, blues, opera, electronica, and hip hop.
9:30pm
God's Got His Head In The Clouds
Gianluca Sodaro . 2014 . Italy / Lithuania. 14m .
TX Premiere
In a small country chapel, an elderly local priest converses with an inquisitive 11-year-old.
Cast: Franco Pistoni, Silvia Sodaro
Gianluca Sodaro was born in Sicily on Christmas Eve. He is a graduate of Milan’s Academy of Fine Arts and Design (NABA) and has worked in film and advertising. Gianluca's first feature film Cuore Scatenato (Raging Heart) premiered at the International Miami Film Festival in 2004. His short films The Paladins of The Holy Providence and The Voice of My Beloved! have been screened and won awards at a large number of film festivals.
La Grande Bellezza
Paolo Sorrentino . 2013 . Italy . 142m
Jep Gambardella has charmed and seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades. Since the legendary success of his one and only novel, he has been a permanent fixture in the city's literary and social circles, but when his sixty-fifth birthday coincides with a shock from the past, Jep finds himself unexpectedly taking stock of his life, turning his cutting wit on himself and his contemporaries, and looking past the extravagant nightclubs, parties, and cafés to find Rome in all its glory: a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
Cast: Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli
Paolo Sorrentino was born in Naples in 1970, and is considered one of Italian cinema’s most distinctive and stylish filmmakers.
Sunday, July 6
10:00am
The Fragile Balance
Jem Goulding . 2014 . UK / Russia . 6m .
TX Premiere
An intimate and uniquely candid portrait of notoriously elusive russian ballet prodigy Sergei Polunin, shot entirely on super 8.
Cast: Sergei Polunin
Jem Goulding graduated from Goldsmith's College in 2008. She has produced a varied body of experimental poetry, photography, and film.
Art and Craft
Sam Cullman . 2014 . USA . 89m
Follows the true escapades of a socially awkward expert forger who donates his extremely convincing forgeries to unsuspecting art museums, including some of the world’s most prestigious institutions.
Cast: Mark Landis
Sam Cullman is an Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker with over a decade of experience as a cinematographer, producer and director. The founder of Yellow Cake Films, Sam has worked in a wide range of settings - from presidential campaign trails, delivery rooms and refugee camps, to Bollywood soundstages, prisons and post-disaster zones. He is a graduate of Brown University (1999), where he majored in Urban Studies and Visual Arts. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
11:00am at the Rangra Theater
X/Y
Ryan Pierce Williams . 2014 . USA . 82m
12:30pm
Child Bride
Emma Freeman . 2014 . USA . 4m
A young girl struggles with involuntary matrimony and repressive cultural norms.
Cast: Imogen Verrocchi, Jasper Bagg
Music Video : song by CocoRosie. Emma Freeman is a commercial director who lives in Australia. She has produced a number of CocoRosie music videos.
Amani & Rae
Ellie Parker . 2014 . USA . 5m .
TX Premiere
Amani and Rae have spent the summer traveling by bus and discovering new landscapes. Rae's memories unfold through intricate images of their bodies covered in flowers and lit by the colors of a summer daydream.
Cast: Amani Lauriston, Rae Pellerin
Ellie Parker is a Los Angeles and Montreal based artist who organizes film workshops and teaches Super 8mm filmmaking to youth and programs at the Echo Park Film Center in LA. She is currently pursuing a BFA in Film Production at Concordia University.
Book of Ruth
Pablo Veliz . 2014 . USA . 86m .
WORLD Premiere
When Ruth loses her father, love, and her faith, she embarks on a treacherous journey north and unknowingly loses herself in the desert. Surrounded by silence and a vast emptiness, she meets a friend.
Cast: Casandra Canales, Marycarmen Lopez
Pablo Veliz graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio with a degree in Communication. At 22 he wrote, directed, produced, and edited his first feature film, La Tragedia de Macario, which was selected in the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and several other festivals.
1:30pm at the Rangra Theater
Buttercup Bill
Émilie Richard-Froozan, Remy Bennett . 2014 . USA . 94m
3:00pm
Phantasm
Markus Hofko . 2014 . USA . 4m
Music Vidieo : song by Flying Lotus. A stranger wanders in the desert, followed by a psychedelic creature.
Markus Hofko studied Communication Design in Augsburg, Germany and worked at several design studios as a graphic designer and art director before he moving to Auckland, New Zealand in 2007. He has worked independently as a designer for local and international clients in the fields of art, culture, music and advertising. Markus’ focus lies in conceptual image making and experimental narrative. In early 2012 he co-founded Public Works Media, a film company dedicated to high quality documentation of public sculptures and events.
YAKONA
Paul Collins, Anlo Sepulveda . 2014 . USA . 85m
A visual journey through the crystal clear waters of the San Marcos River and its headwaters at Spring Lake, which follows the river from source to sea through the changing seasons, documenting the relationship between the natural world and man.
Cast: Tony Two Hawks Molina, Jacqueline Claire, Jacqueline Claire, Tina Rodriguez
Paul Collins graduated with a BFA in Art and Design from Texas State University and collaborated with Anlo Sepulveda to help produce Otis Under Sky. He has produced shorts, music videos, and commercial videos.
Anlo Sepulveda started making films in High School. His first feature was Otis Under Sky.
4:00pm at the Rangra Theater
BFE
Shawn Telford . 2014 . USA . 98m
5:00pm
Great Moments in Rock n' Roll History (That Never Happened)
José Luis Gonzalez . 2014 . USA . 4m .
WORLD Premiere
A hand-drawn animation featuring bizarre "what-if" encounters between rock & roll luminaries: Texas cult favorites Daniel Johnston and Roky Erickson, soul superstars Little Richard and James Brown, and folk singers Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan.
José Luis Gonzalez is an award-winning cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker born in Monterrey, Mexico and raised in Del Rio, Texas. As a child he taught himself to draw by studying MAD Magazine. A graduate of the University of Texas, he wrote and co-produced the play “Luces de la Frontera,” has made dozens of short films, and works as a freelance illustrator for numerous animation projects. His art has been seen in galleries and publications throughout Texas, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, and New York. His animations won a Best Animated Short at SXSW Film Festival, a Telly Award, and an Emmy (Lone Star). He lives in Austin, TX and is currently producing his first animated feature, The History of Magic.
Peppermint
Noah Harris . 2014 . UK . 3m
A hypnotically effervescent combination of stop-motion animation, 3D printed props, and computer modeled elements dance in a surreal world where birth, death, war and the beauty of the feminine form interact.
Noah Harris is a versatile director focused on creating film and design work with a focus on seamlessly combining live-action performance with large-scale animation techniques. Alongside his directing work, Noah has lectured in design at Chelsea School of Art, Nottingham Trent University and UCA Epsom and has written about the arts, design and typography for Grafik magazine. His short films ‘Anomaly’ and ‘Quietus’ garnered international attention and have led him to speak at events around the world.
PULP: A Film About Life, Death, and Supermarkets
Florian Habicht . 2014 . UK . 90m
A visually compelling chronicle of Pulp's triumphant last performance in Sheffield, England.
Cast: Jarvis Cocker, Candida Doyle, Nick Banks
Florian Habicht is a director and producer, known for Woodenhead, Love Story, and Kaikohe Demolition.
9:00pm at the Golf Course
Black Orpheus
Marcel Camus . 1959 . Brazil . 100m
Based on the play Orfeu da Conceição by Vinicius de Moraes, which is an adaptation of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, set in the modern context of a favela in Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval. The film is particularly noted for its soundtrack by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfá, whose “Manhã de Carnaval” and “Samba of Orpheus” have become bossa nova classics.
Cast: Breno Mello, Marpessa Dawn
Marcel Camus , educated as an art teacher, spent most of World War II as a prisoner of war, after which he entered the film industry as an assistant and technical adviser to directors Jacques Feyder, Luis Buñuel, and others. He directed nearly a dozen films, including Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus), which won the Golden Palm at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival and the 1960 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 1970 Camus had moderate success with a World War II comedy, Le Mur de l'Atlantique (The Atlantic Wall), starring the well-known French comedian Bourvil. He ended his career working primarily in television.