24th Annual FREE Film Festival
Theme: GENERATE

AUG 29 - TUESDAY
7:30 The Girl Behind the Mirror Animation. Transgender girl is free to be who she is or wants to be by utilizing a mirror to hide her fears.

A transgender girl locks herself in her room for fear of the monsters that threaten her outside, until a new reality appears behind the mirror where these monsters do not exist and she is free to be who she is or who wants to be.

Director Biography
Iuri Moreno owns the production company Caolha Filmes, where he works as executive producer, director and animation scriptwriter. His first animated short film, “The Juggler”, was nominated for the Brazilian Film Academy and selected for more than 220 festivals in 47 countries, with a total of 37 awards won. Iuri currently works as creator, director and head writer of the animation series “347 Mission” and recently released a new short film, The Girl Behind the Mirror, awarded Best Children's Film at the 28th Encounters Film Festival in the United Kingdom , and selected for more than 50 festivals, 7 of them Oscar qualifiers. Iuri is also one of the creators of “Lanterna Mágica – International Animation Festival” and is producing his first feature film, “Armadillo Girl”, in addition to working on other projects of shorts, features and series that are in development.

8PM Once Upon a Time in Jinan: Some Ordinary People Educator in Shandong, China learns that the government declares her business illegal. Her team fights back.

If you have devoted half of your life to a career and suddenly find that the government has declared it illegal, and the large business institution you founded is facing a life-or-death test as a result, what would you do? Lu Yonghua is an ordinary middle-aged woman from Shandong Province, China, and she and her team are experiencing the aforementioned hardship - searching for opportunities to survive in the midst of despair.

Director Biography - Li Qing, a freelance writer. He is now engaged in the Creation and Research Project about Folklore Oral Literature Based on Daily Life, with his studio located in the Caochangdi International Art Village in Beijing, China.

Director Statement
What is history? Is the experience of ordinary people a part of history? In the torrent of time, ordinary people often find themselves involved in significant historical events due to their career choices. One night, their profession may be considered honorable, but the next morning, it could become illegal. Under the rigid policies, the efforts of ordinary people sometimes yield positive results, while at other times, they backfire. In July 2021, after China's education authorities introduced the "double reduction" plan, millions of practitioners in the education and training industry were thrown into professional confusion. Hundreds of thousands of training institutions faced the risk of closure. As a creator, I believe such events should be highlighted. Nearly all those entangled in this event are ordinary people. Clearly, at the national level, this is a significant event in the history of China's education. For the individuals involved, it represents a greater identity crisis in their lives.
I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to become involved in this historical event and engage in profound, candid, and effective dialogues with Lu Yonghua, the founder of "Dino Education" from Shandong, China, and her team, as they faced this unprecedented crisis. With the assistance of the PNSO team, we managed to navigate through the most challenging times by undertaking a business transformation. I am thrilled to record these processes and present them in a film to a broader audience.
The lives of ordinary people are also an indispensable part of history. I firmly believe this.

AUG 30 - WEDNESDAY
7:30 Noman Supernatural forces are at play during a livestream occult ritual.

To boost her online popularity, Youtuber Amber and her boyfriend Johnny set up an occult ritual for her upcoming livestream. Little did they know, supernatural forces are at play, leading to deadly results.

Director Biography - Matt Robb

Matt Robb is a South Florida-based actor/filmmaker looking to find and make artistic opportunities within the industry. Credits range from performances in over thirty credited short films, four directed shorts, and seven editor credits. His collaborations include working with both students and independent filmmakers ranging from Miami Dade College, New York Film Academy, and the University of Miami. He is a film graduate with a B.A. in Filmmaking.

Director Statement
In the era of social media, one could be familiar with or follow individuals referred to as social media influencers. These people have developed an online reputation and credibility in specific industry. They’re motivated in increasing their power in attracting and engaging followers, even

rewarded, through the use of product or brand endorsement. And some, by any means necessary. In this film, one shall see the consequences and darker side of escalating such a concept to dire, yet ignorant lengths.

8PM Science for Hire Gary Null exposes a world of pseudo-science and misinformation.

Science for Hire takes us on a journey through the most critical scientific issues that directly affect our health and well-being, shedding light on the hidden secrets of the scientific, pharmaceutical, and military industrial complexes. Following a long history of systemic corruption across medical organizations and schools, scientific publications and federal regulatory agencies, we enter a world where pseudo-science and misinformation rules.

Billions of dollars are spent to manipulate and buy the allegiance of elected officials and the media. Those who speak up against modern science's culture of corruption risk having their careers destroyed. Governments operate in lockstep with the pharmaceutical ambitions to erect an unregulated global regime, a "Great Reset," that will dictate what we can eat, what medical interventions are permitted and banned, and the rewards and punishments that legislate our choices. Science for Hire describes a broken system and offers hard hitting solutions to spark clarion calls to take heed of the realities facing humanity today.

Director Biography - Gary Null, Ph.D.
For more than 35 years Gary Null has been one of the foremost voices of the health movement. He has produced over 70 documentaries. Gary, along with leading experts, has examined a wide range of topics from food production, alternative healing, politics and our economic system. Gary has aired many of his documentaries on PBS.
Gary has continued to be a strong voice for the consumer, standing up against big corporations and big government. He has exposed the massive drugging of children in our schools, investigated industries such as pesticides, herbicides, artificial sweeteners, food irradiation, water fluoridation, unsafe ingredients in vaccines, nuclear power, the FDA, GMO's and the Gulf War Syndrome.

Gary Null has done an original investigative reporting series on a regular basis and has published over 100 original investigative articles. He has also published over 100 books.
He founded the web based Progressive Radio Network, with an average of 180,000 listeners weekly.
He has the longest running health radio program in American history.

AUG 31 - THURSDAY
7:30 Confessions Of A Name Dropper A Therapist helps middle aged man living life according to other people’s words.

Confessions of A Name Dropper is a dark comedy about a middle aged man named Cutter who lives alone on an island. He lives his life according to other people’s words and ideas that he stubbornly claims are his own. Seeking the help of an expert, if at times difficult therapist, he struggles to come to terms with who he really is and who his real friends are. Or, if he really has any.

Director Biography - Kevin G. Connolly
As an Actor/Director, Kevin G. Connolly (SAG/AFTRA) has worked in television, theater, film and voice-over. Kevin received his training at Second City Chicago and Dartmouth College and continues to train with James DuMont, Larry Moss and Tim Phillips. As an indie singer-songwriter he has released eleven albums (including 'Invisible' in 2020), been voted ‘Best of Boston’ and toured extensively in US and Europe. Confessions of A Name Dropper has been accepted at: Dublin World Film Festival, New Jersey Short Film Festival, Oakland Film Festival, Santa Barbara International Movie Festival, Somerville International Film Festival and The Direct Monthly Festival so far in 2023.

Director Statement
Confessions of A Name Dropper is a post pandemic story about isolation and insulation. Our protagonist lacks the skills and awareness to have real friends and original thought, so he makes them up. The humor lies in his defensiveness and ability to skillfully deflect professional insight, and tenacious rejection of authority.

8PM The Case Young boy escapes war with a dream & a violin case. Music in his heart guides him on his journey. Animation.

In an unknown time and place, a young boy escapes war with nothing but a dream and a violin case. Along the way he meets the beautiful Naila and a group of other travelers. He crosses deserts and seas during a long and dangerous trip. The music in his heart will guide him along the journey to find his path on the other side of the border and destroy prejudice.

Director Biography - Maurizio Forestieri is one of Italy's best known animation director. Two times in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and one time running for the Golden Bear at the Berlinale. Maurizio's work has been exposed at the MoMA in NY. He worked with the masters of Italian animation, such as Guido Manuli, Pierluigi De Mas, Giuseppe Laganà, Emanuele Luzzati and Bruno Bozzetto. In the past years, Maurizio directed successful TV series for Kids distributed around the world.

Director Statement
Telling the story of a trip is one of the most common things you can do. But this trip is different: it is a dangerous journey, with no assigned seats, no arrival time and above all the uncertainty of the destination.

9PM The Hidden Court A group of men from Westchester County bond over playing basketball in a hidden outdoor court during lockdown. Q&A

The Hidden Court is a heartwarming documentary about a group of 11 men from Northern Westchester, NY who, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when gyms were closed and rims taken off outdoor courts, found a sense of community and camaraderie by playing 'prohibition basketball' on a hidden outdoor court.
The film follows the men as they bond over their love of the game, providing a much-needed escape from the stress and isolation of the pandemic. The film is a time capsule of life during covid, reminding us and future generations of what life was like in the year 2020. Through their stories, the film explores the power of friendship and the resilience of the human spirit.

Director Biography - Walter Schloman is an award-winning filmmaker and founder of Heritage Media Group, a boutique company that produces video biographies depicting the extraordinary lives of ordinary people. His most recent documentary Ezra: May His Memory Be For A Blessing, delves into the issues of teen suicide and mental health. It is currently playing at festivals and has received numerous awards, including best film at Mental Health and Suicide Awareness film festival in Denver.
Walter has filmed around the world, extensively in South America and Australia. Rock stars such as Michael Stipe (R.E.M.), Rob Zombie, and Cyndi Lauper have collaborated with him on long form projects and music videos. From his first experience on an independent film shot on the graffiti strewn dark alleys of New York circa 1983, Walter has been passionate about communicating stories through film and video. For Walter, working on The Hidden Court has been immensely gratifying, not only because it is an uplifting story of the group’s passion for basketball and their camaraderie, but because it is a time-capsule of the Covid World of 2020 - a perfect film to be used in education, sociology, and contemporary issues classes. This merging of individual lives with world events is what continues to drive Walter’s passion for making films.

SEPT 1 - FRIDAY
7:30 Bare Metal Reducing carbon emissions through digital infrastructure industry’s effort.

Microsoft, Google, META, and AWS are some of the biggest single-power consumers in the world. Along with other digital infrastructure companies’ consumption, they make up 2.4% of the world's energy use. Bare Metal details the digital infrastructure industry's work to reduce their carbon footprint in an effort to lower carbon emissions and help save the world.

Director Biography - Brandon Robert Gries, Ryan Freng, John Shoemaker
Brandon Gries is an engineer. He works for an electrical contractor. For 10 years he's built data centers. He's aspired since childhood to be a filmmaker. This is his first film. Only due to the faith, trust, and collaboration with his friends in film, data centers (Google, Microsoft, Equinix) and industry (contractors, concrete, steel, aluminum) was this possible. He learned of your inaugural film contest at Bloomberg Green in New York City, April 2022. His first inspiration was to do a film with my wife Ashley, who works professionally in environmental conservation. He shifted to an even bigger story about his own industry in July 2022 instead. He dedicated this film to her.

Ryan Freng and John Shoemaker are seasoned veterans of the production world, running a commercial agency for 15 years and having produced both long form and short form films. Their previous documentary 'Power in My Hands' tells the personal stories of those majorly impacted by the power of the Rosary. Ryan and John have worked with Brandon for years on promotional work. Learning of Brandon's desire to make movies, John encouraged him to pick a film festival and punch the throttle. This is the result of that collaboration.

Director Statement
Filming occurred 07/20 to 09/14. The result was: 30+ people and hours of interviews, 6 states, funneled into this 10-minute film, a pilot for a docuseries we hope to create. We entered the film to catch industry leaders in their curiosity zone and compel them to act. What kind of positive impact could we have on embodied carbon if the largest companies on earth (digital infrastructure companies representing 30% of global GDP) partnered strategically with the heritage industries that have literally changed the face of the physical earth? How can we collaborate across companies to revamp the supply chain? It will take their collective brainpower, innovation, and coordination to solve the building component of the climate crisis. But is that enough? And can they do it?

8PM Firefly World famous Harlem Globetrotter enthralled fans with his “Curly” Neal inspired dribbling style. Q&A

Tay Fisher’s basketball and life journey is one of determination, inspiration, teamwork, and down right talent - developing into one of the greats in 4-point shooting history during his 10 years on the world-famous Harlem Globetrotters. As Firefly he enthralled fans around the world with his "Curly" Neal-inspired one-of-kind dribbling style and infectiously positive attitude. Today, Tay shares the challenges and guidance of his never-give-up story on and off the court, by mentoring kids and holding basketball camps in his hometown.

Director Biography - Christopher Nostrand

Chris Nostrand owns/operates Nostrand Productions LLC, is an award-winning independent filmmaker, and holds part-time faculty positions at both Marist College and SUNY Orange's film production departments. He earned a Master of Fine Arts in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College and previously earned undergraduate degrees from SUNY New Paltz and SUNY Ulster.

His films have earned over sixty official selections at venues such as DOC NYC, Woodstock Film Festival, GI Film Festival and NewFilmmakers New York. His twenty award wins include a CINE Golden Eagle, x5 Tellys, x3 Communicators, Director’s Choice at Black Maria Film Festival, Best Documentary/Best Cinematography at CUNY Film Festival and Best Historical Documentary at the International Doc Challenge.

9:30 Not on This Land Activist fights 600 mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline across W. Virginia, Virginia & N. Carolina via Black & Indigenous communities. Q&A

This film is about the citizen activists who spent 6+ years fighting the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline from destroying ecosystems and harming Black and Indigenous communities across West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. The pipeline, which would have carried frack gas, was seen as a done deal until communities came together across the region to fight it and, against all odds, won the fight. It’s a David & Goliath story that can inspire and inform others who are engaged in protecting their land and water from toxic infrastructure projects.

SEPT 2 - SATURDAY
7:30 A Girl Called Elvis 10 year old dresses as Elvis. When her estranged father, is back in town, she tries to find him. Q&A

A Girl Called Elvis is about two sisters growing closer through a family quest. Ten year old Ellie likes to dress as her idol Elvis Presley, much to the annoyance of her half-sister Carol. When Ellie hears that her estranged father is back in town, she enlists Carol and her boyfriend Dion's help to find him.

Director Biography - Lindsay Christopherson

Lindsay Christopherson has been writing and directing short films since she graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. She has worked in a variety of crewing roles in the film and TV industry in Australia and New Zealand.

Director Statement
A Girl Called Elvis is a project that was made on a tiny budget, which was successfully crowdfunded, and we are thrilled to bring you the resulting film!

8:15 Dear Audrey Canada activist weaves adventures, protests, hippie counter-culture movement with care & loyalty to wife with Alzheimers. Q&A

Acclaimed activist filmmaker Martin Duckworth has devoted his life to peace and justice. But now he’s put down his camera to fight for the most important cause he’s ever faced—caring for his wife, Audrey Schirmer, through the final stages of Alzheimer’s. Martin tirelessly embraces each new chapter with grace and resilience, demonstrating his unconditional loyalty as he finds new reasons to love her each day.
Dear Audrey intricately weaves together the couple’s gritty yet tender reality, and takes us back to their adventures, from the front lines of the anti-Vietnam War protests to the hippie counterculture movement, with excerpts from Martin’s films and Audrey’s stunning photography.

The film is a powerful testament to Martin’s love and devotion, which deepens over the decades.
While Audrey gradually fades away—and as their autistic daughter Jacqueline struggles with her mother’s illness—Martin commits everything he’s got to making their lives creative and meaningful.

Please visit www.dearaudey.ca to find reviews, and video extras.

AWARDS

Winner of the People's Choice Award
Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM), 2021

The Best Feature Documentary Award Winner
Indy Film Fest, 2022

The Cercle d’or for Best Feature Documentary Award Winner
Sherbrooke World Film Festival, 2022

Ted Rogers Best Feature Length Documentary Nomination
Canadian Screen Awards (Canada), 2023

The Excellence in Editing Award Winner
Docs Without Borders Film Festival, 2022

The Best Editing Award Winner
Brussels World Film Festival, 2022

Best Original Music in a Feature Length Documentary Nomination
Canadian Screen Awards (Canada), 2023
Composer Walker Grimshaw

Best Original Score for a Documentary Feature Film - Nomination

Canadian Screen Music Awards (Canada), 2022
Composer Walker Grimshaw

REVIEWS

"Truly a rare moment in Cinema... This film is a marvel"
Mélikah Abdelmoumen & Marc Béland, CBC Radio Canada

"An Exquisite Gem. Tenderness, wonder, & dignity...
a beautiful film about beautiful people"
Richard Propes, The Independent Critic

“Anyone who watches Dear Audrey will undoubtedly conclude
that Hayes is a masterful filmmaker”
Charlie Smith, The Georgia Straight

“Touching... luminous... truly magnificent"
Caroline Levesque, CBC Radio Canada

“Dear Audrey, a riveting documentary…
that stands as a powerful paean to passion and perseverance”
Evelyn C White, The Halifax Examiner

"...so many amazing lessons, stories, emotions with pain
and celebration intertwined"
Darren Wiesner, Hollywood North Magazine

“It's impossible to watch this documentary, (a People's Choice Award winner), without being overwhelmed by its sweetness and generosity"
Silvia Galipeau, La Press

“...an at once ethereal reflection on the enduring power of love,
and unblinking revelation of life’s steel-cold realities”
Chris Cook, Gorilla Radio

"Dear Audrey celebrates the very best the human heart has to offer, with such compassion, artistry and grace"
Terre Nash, Oscar-winning director

SEPT 3 - SUNDAY
7:30 The Line Jumper Comical satire of a pretty woman who works her way into the front of a long coffee line. Q&A

Would YOU jump the line?

The Line Jumper is co-directed by Hugh Oyake Murchison and Rob Underhill.

Hugh Oyake Murchison is a first time filmmaker. He is a second generation American: his mother was Japanese, and his father African American.

Winner!
BEST PRODUCTION, 8th Longleaf Film Festival
BEST COMEDY, 23rd 15 Minutes of Fame Film Festival
BEST FILM, Martini Shot Film Series
BEST COMEDY SHORT, 8th Focus International Film Festival
BEST MICRO-SHORT, Spring Lane Film Festival
OPENING SELECTION, 24th Woodstock Museum Film Festival

Director Biography - Rob Underhill, Hugh Oyake Murchison

The Line Jumper is co-Directed by Rob Underhill and Hugh Murchison.

HUGH OYAKE MURCHISON is a first time filmmaker. He is a second generation American: his mother was Japanese, and his father African American. After a lengthy stint in clinical research, Hugh launched a second career as a scriptwriter. He quit medical writing, once he figured out that movies and TV shows were more likely to be made from his scripts than from the technical documents he wrote for FDA drug approval. Film school soon followed, as did co-creating a web series, creating TV pilots and feature-lengths, and marketing his works.

ROB UNDERHILL is a film & media director, producer, cinematographer, editor, writer. His feature films & more than 50 short-films have received over 150 awards, showcased at hundreds of screening engagements worldwide, including CANNES & Academy-qualifying film festivals like ST. LOUIS & SEATTLE. Rob’s work has received rave reviews from top film critics, earned endorsements from major public figures like UN Ambassador Andrew Young & former NC Governor Beverly Perdue, & has been featured on the NPR programs, THE STATE OF THINGS with Frank Stasio & THE STORY with Dick Gordon. Rob earned a BA in English from NCSU & was honored to accept the invitation to serve as featured speaker at the 2015 NCSU English department graduation commencement. His work has aired on the ASPiRE network, ShortsHD, & other national & international outlets. Carolina STYLE Magazine recognized Rob as one of 25 "Most Stylish People" influencing positive change in the Carolinas. He is a RAWards Indie Art Award recipient for Best Regional Filmmaker. In 2022, he received the QUSAR award for lifetime achievement in filmmaking by the 10th Raleigh Film and Art Festival.
More at www.RobUnderhill.com

8:15 The Battle for Swan Lake Cats, a dog, and a fish perform the classical ballet Swan Lake. Animation.

Cats, a dog, and a fish head perform the classic ballet, Swan Lake.

Director Biography - Joan Carol Gratz

Joan Gratz is an Academy Award winning director of animated short films and commercials. Her films range in content through painterly expressions of poetry, improvised abstraction, and animated social documentary.
The technique she pioneered is “Claypainting.” Working directly before the camera, she applies bits of clay, blends colors and etches fine lines to create a seamless flow of images. Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase won the Oscar in 1992 for Best Animated Short Film.

8:30 Left Alone Rhapsody-The Musical Memoir of Pianist John Bayless Chronicles Leonard Bernstein’s protégé from childhood through 30 year career. Q&A

At 25, Leonard Bernstein protégé, John Bayless, debuted at Carnegie Hall, performing “Rhapsody In Blue” with full orchestra. His jaw-dropping technical prowess at the piano initiated a 30-year-long concert and recording career as a solo pianist, composer, and improvisor. At 54, a left-brain stroke immobilized his dominant right side. The music stopped. John’s magical ‘first act’ disappeared.

Left Alone Rhapsody chronicles John’s rise from four-year-old Texas musical prodigy to international star; John’s fall post-stroke and courageous struggle to transcend paralysis; and John’s determination to re-invent himself as a one-handed musician and storyteller.

As neurologists discuss his brain, rabbis his Jewish conversion, friends the loss of his husband to cancer, and Yamaha’s representatives their Disklavier piano technology which could allow him to play with ‘two hands,’ John embarks on an amazing journey. This is his musical story.

Director Biography - Stewart M. Schulman is a producer, director, writer, and independent filmmaker. He has written the feature screenplays: Both, Sister Bert, La Macha, and Beyond Measure. His earlier 43-minute film version of Beyond Measure has a score by pianist/composer John Bayless, which began their work as collaborators. That film was awarded the Silver Medal at The Houston International Film Festival. Stewart directed a full-length play version of Beyond Measure in its off-Broadway premiere. Stewart recently completed his feature documentary Left Alone Rhapsody - The Musical Memoir of Pianist John Bayless chronicling John’s amazing journey from performing, to paralysis, and back again. Stewart is also producing and directing an inaugural world tour of “John Bayless – One Hand One Heart – My Life & My Music,” a full-length one-man play with music, (co-written with and starring Mr. Bayless), that is part of the documentary. In addition, Stewart produces and directs short documentary and promotional videos for Montclair State University. He did his graduate work at New York University Graduate Film School.
Director Statement
John and I collaborated creatively early in our careers, with him as a composer, and me as a filmmaker. Then, not untypically, our paths diverged, with our work lives taking us on our respective journeys, though our friendship has lasted through the years. Tragically, in his fifties, John’s musical career halted when he suffered a debilitating stroke. Five years ago, when John said he was not only playing the piano again, but recording an album of his greatest hits reimagined for just his left hand alone, and using Yamaha’s Disklavier technology on some cuts to sound like he’s playing with two hands, I blurted out: “John, this is a documentary! We must tell your story!” And a truly amazing journey began—a journey that has taken us around the world collaborating on a film about a man’s art and his courage in the face of great adversity.

SEPT 4 - MONDAY
11:45 The Old Young Crow An Iranian boy befriends an old Japanese woman at a graveyard in Tokyo. Animation.

An Iranian boy befriends an old Japanese woman at a graveyard in Tokyo.

Director Biography - Liam LoPinto

Liam LoPinto is a filmmaker and animator based out of New York City. He graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts' UGFTV program. He also studied at Waseda University in Tokyo. He attended CalArts' Character Animation program from 2017-2021. He is an assistant manager at The Moviehouse in Millerton, NY.

Director Statement
The Old Young Crow tells the story of Mehrdad, a 10 year old Iranian boy who has recently moved to Tokyo. Mehrdad's story is narrated by himself as an old man, recounting one particular event through his own sketchbook. Using a combination of practical effects, animation, live action, and computer generated elements, The Old Young Crow tells a story of loss, immigration, familial love, and the beauty of nature.

12:15. The Sun Rises in the East Chronicles a pan-African cultural organization founded in 1969 by teens & young adults in Bedford-Stuyvesant, an epicenter for political contemporaries such as the Black Panther Party. Q&A

The Sun Rises in The East chronicles the birth, rise and legacy of The East, a pan-African cultural organization founded in 1969 by teens and young adults in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Led by educator and activist Jitu Weusi, The East embodied Black self-determination, building more than a dozen institutions, including its own African-centered school, food co-op, newsmagazine, publisher, record label, restaurant, clothing shop and bookstore. The organization hosted world-famous jazz musicians and poets at its highly sought-after performance venue, and it served as an epicenter for political contemporaries such as the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords and the Congress of Afrikan People, as well as comrades across Africa and the Caribbean. In effect, The East built an independent Black nation in the heart of Central Brooklyn.

The Sun Rises in The East is the first feature-length documentary to explore this inspiring story. The film also examines challenges that led to the organization’s eventual dissolution, including its gender politics, financial struggles and government surveillance. Featuring interviews with leaders of The East, historians and people who grew up in the organization as children, The Sun Rises in The East delivers an exhilarating and compelling vision, showing just how much is possible.

Director Biography - Tayo Giwa

Tayo Giwa is a filmmaker and co-creator of Black-Owned Brooklyn, a publication and Instagram account documenting local Black business, history and culture. His first film, the 2020 documentary short Soul Summit: Doin’ It in the Park, examined Soul Summit, a beloved open-air house music party based in Fort Greene Park. He lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Director Statement
In my home of Central Brooklyn, the legacy of The East is everywhere. But the pan-African cultural organization, which operated in Bedford-Stuyvesant from 1969 to 1986, doesn’t get talked about enough.

Notwithstanding the rapid march of gentrification, you can see The East’s influence in the numerous Black-owned businesses that grace our community (one of the highest concentrations of Black enterprises in the United States). It’s in the constant flashes of red, black and green: wrapped around trees, displayed in flags flying from brownstones, painted on neighborhood playgrounds and fire hydrants. Even the African-centered preschool that my daughter attends, designed to instill her with a positive self-identity, has roots in The East.

The organization arose from New York City’s 1968 community control experiment, in which members of the predominantly Black Central Brooklyn neighborhoods of Ocean Hill-Brownsville were given decision-making power in their children’s education, from school curriculum to the hiring of teachers. For decades, the Ocean Hill-Brownsville movement, with a narrative driven by a largely white teachers union and their campaign of fear, has been framed as a cautionary tale. Black parents and communities seeking a quality education for their children were cast as militant; the fight for community control mischaracterized as antisemitic.

When the experiment was subsequently dismantled, a group of young Black teachers and recent high school graduates formed The East to create their own institutions outside of the system. The Sun Rises in The East was made, in part, to help correct the record.

Through building not only its own school but more than a dozen institutions and businesses, including a food co-op, newspaper, publishing company, jazz cultural center, restaurant, clothing shop and even a farm in Guyana, The East provided an inspiring model for Black self-determination. Their activism was ahead of its time, providing an inspiring model for how ordinary people working together can build longstanding institutions and community for themselves. Their legacy reverberates in present-day Bed-Stuy through the neighborhood’s strong sense of community, unabashed love for our cultures, and Black joy that nourishes me on a daily basis.

As the leaders of The East, along with others from the Civil Rights and Black Power era, grow further into their senior years, there’s an urgency to illuminate all that they created. For The Sun Rises in The East, I sought to capture this story in the voices of the people who lived it. Theirs is a history worthy of reverence and a powerful legacy that should be known far and wide.

1:30 Solitaire As a small town minister’s life crumbles, he finds solace playing solitaire. Q&A.

A small town minister who presides over marriages doomed to fail finds solace in a game solitaire as the rest of his life crumbles. Solitaire is a loving, if imperfect, homage to short story writer Raymond Carver.

2:15 Ali vs. Ali Fulfilling a childhood dream, Iranian man travels to U.S. on a quest to meet his idol Mohammed Ali. Highly entertaining family film of a boxer who stood for peace and refused to fight in Vietnam. Surprise ending. Q&A with award-winning Iranian filmmaker Alireza Rofougaran.

4PM Yellow Dove Aftermath Surreal experiences of this character in his bunker with a world of fantasy. Animation.

The surreal experiences of Yellow Dove in his bunker within the world of Hour Blue

Director Biography - Rony A. Abovitz

Rony has been a technology and visual pioneer for a number of years, creating companies such as Magic Leap and MAKO Surgical. He is applying his blend of tech and creativity in Sun and Thunder, developing the Hour Blue Storyworld and animated films that express that world.

Director Statement
I love imagined worlds and animation. My hope is that each film I create and direct leaves the audience with a sense of new wonder, hope, and the desire to explore and search.

4:10 The Eye Begins in The Hand A tribute to campesino histories in rural California struggling between paying rent & creative endeavors.

The Eye Begins in The Hand (El Ojo Comienza En La Mano) is a tribute to campesino histories in rural CA through the artwork of an artist largely absent from critical conversations on Chicanx art, Ruben A. Sanchez, as well as an unsentimental reckoning with the fate of many cultural workers that struggle between paying rent and/or creative endeavors.

Director Biography - Yehuda Sharim is a writer, photographer, filmmaker, and poet. As the son of Persian immigrants to Israel, his work focuses on the relationship between the quotidian and poetic. Sharim’s films have appeared in film festivals, artistic venues, and universities across the world. Oscillating between fiction and documentary filmmaking, his work offers an intimate portrayal of those who refuse to surrender amidst daily devastation and culminating strife, offering a vision for equality and a renewed solidarity in a divisive world. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor in the Program of Global Art Studies, University of California, Merced.

4:25 The Stranger A bizarre dialogue begins in a cowering space between a woman and a handsome stranger.

On that day, as she enters the co-working space where she works, Anna notices the presence of a handsome stranger. A bizarre dialogue begins.

Director Biography - Veig Bassili

Veig graduated with a MA in Film Directing at the "Met Film School" (Ealing Studios London). The experience she gained in directing actors, summoned in her, the desire of a more committed exploration of acting. She then joined the "Cours Florent" in Paris, where she completed the Actor's Training Course.

4:30 Goosed A count has a soirée at his country home. He is interrupted by unwanted guests. He invites them to play a “Game of Goose.”

Clouseau meets Cluedo in GOOSED!, the latest short music film from I FAGIOLINI, based on the Venetian song IL GIOCA DELL’OCA (1595) by Giovanni Croce. Can you keep your eyes on the prizes?

A forlorn Count is having a soirée at his country house, but it is interrupted by a stream of unwelcome guests, never-the-less he decides to invite them to play a game… they play, the Game of the Goose.

Director Biography - Gregory Browning

Gregory Browning is an award-winning film-maker who has been working in music and the arts for most of his career. He has had the privilege of working across the world and with some of the world’s foremost classical musicians, in drama, documentary and music video. His short documentary ANTI-SOCIAL for BBC Ideas went slightly - and somewhat ironically - viral, while his screen version of HOW LIKE AN ANGEL was premiered at the Lincoln Centre New York as part of Dance On Camera. Gregory is an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Campus and best known as producer of celebrated music film THE FULL MONTEVERDI. He is a producer and director at Polyphonic Films Limited.

Director Statement
By Timothy Knapman - Writer

When Robert Holllingworth rang me up and asked me, “Can you write us a ten minute film farce to accompany a 16th century madrigal about people playing a board game?” my first thought was — understandably, I hope — “Umm.”

I’ve been writing bits and bobs for I Fagiolini for many years now, so I had a method for dealing with such requests: panic, hide under the table for 20 minutes and hope that some idea or other presented itself before he rang back. Thankfully, it did. Reading the text of the madrigal, I saw that there were various guests jockeying for position around a powerful nobleman, and that love was in the air. I’m a sucker for PG Wodehouse, Cole Porter and the lighter-than-air musicals of the 1920s and 1930s, with their silly toffs, adventuresses and jewel thieves getting up to romantic mischief in country houses. It didn’t take much to see that the Game of the Goose would fit rather nicely into that world.

I was very lucky in my cast. I Fagiolini are, of course, first rate singers, but they’re also very good actors and (with the wind in the right direction) deft physical comedians; I knew they could do anything I asked of them. What’s so pleasing about the finished film is that they did everything even better than I could have wished. Greg Browning assembled an amazing crew – this film looks beautiful – and, with their help, I fulfilled my ambition to write a farcical musical comedy about silly toffs, adventuresses and jewel thieves, set in a country house.

CLICK HERE FOR 8 MEG PDF POSTER FOR THIS YEARS FILM FESTIVAL

Click here to download a 4 Meg Printable PDF of this Poster

Woodstock Museum 23rd Annual Free Film Festival

SEPT 2 - FRIDAY

6:45PM Opening Ceremony Nathan Koenig & Shelli Lipton

7PM Daughter Father Food Forest When the pandemic forces Katie to make big changes in her life, she moves into her fathers home to start a backyard food forest.

Director Biography - Katie Kamala Haley
I am a graduate of the film program at Palm Beach College-2020. So far I have written, directed and produced 4 short films. To my amazement I have won several film festival awards which I consider to be an honor and a sign that I am progressing along my path.

7:06 Waiting in the Wings How will these two non-profit California theaters survive as they reopen during the Covid 19 pandemic?

A short documentary that follows Five Star Theatricals and Teatro Frida Kahlo, two non-profit theaters in southern California as they attempt to reopen amidst the Covid19 pandemic. With the threat of surging coronavirus cases and bureaucratic hurdles, how will they save the art form that has sustained them both financially and emotionally?

Director Biography - Josie Andrews
Josie Andrews is a third-year MFA candidate at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. A double Trojan, she graduated as the Salutatorian of USC's class of 2018, receiving her bachelor’s degree in Cinema and Media Studies while holding internships at Lionsgate, NBC Universal, London Alley Entertainment, and The Weinstein Company. The New Jersey Native began performing professionally at the age of eight, touring with Broadway musicals and appearing in countless Off-Broadway and regional productions before going on to write and record her own music. By thirteen, she was opening for Radio Disney acts including Raven Symone and the Naked Brothers Band. She is currently completing her thesis film, WANNABE which she wrote, directed, and created original music for to culminate her time at USC.
Director Statement
I fell in love with theatre when I was three years old. Growing up in New Jersey, my parents would take me through the Holland Tunnel every December to see a new show on Broadway. By the time I was eight, I was searching Backstage.com for open calls, begging anyone and everyone in our phonebook to take me and ultimately booking my first national tour. From there on, I was inducted into a diverse community that would raise me to respect, embrace and celebrate so many people different from myself. While the arts at large have served as a space for meaning-making, healing, and joy since the beginning of time, live theatre provides a unique kind of magic that can’t be recreated or replaced. It provides not just a living for hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, but a sense of purpose for countless others, myself included.
Facing this dark and uncertain moment in history, laden with death, isolation, and hardship, the future of theatre was the last thing on people’s minds. Some say theatre has been dying a slow death for the past five hundred years. After twenty years of performing for seas of silver-haired patrons, I couldn’t help but wonder who might fill their seats when they were no longer with us. And after eighteen months of Broadway sitting dark, I couldn’t help but fear that this might be the nail in the coffin. But while most wouldn’t give a second thought to theatre’s dwindling place in the world, for some it remains their entire world. This is the story of two communities who lost their work, identities, and purpose in the pandemic and their fight to get it back. This film is an ode to my first love, a celebration of coming back together, and a promise that no matter what tomorrow brings the show will go on.

7:30 Nurture Animation of an infant's first nourishment of milk provides love & sustenance between mother & child.

Director Biography - Ying-Fang Shen
Ying-Fang Shen is a Taiwanese independent filmmaker with advanced training in ink painting and digital art. Her work reflects experiments in painting, illustration, digital filmmaking and animation that are heavily influenced by the handmade aesthetics of traditional East Asian art and Taoist philosophy.

7:40 Town Band A personal tribute to a small town story of a woman’s childhood and vanishing rural life in Sullivan County, NY. Q&A

Director Biography - Alice Elliott
Alice Elliott is an Academy Award nominated documentary director for The Collector of Bedford Street, an advocate for people with disabilities through inclusive media, and Area Head of Documentary Studies at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts.
A Guggenheim Fellow award recipient, Ms. Elliott makes training films and branded content that use high quality visuals and people with disabilities to tell their own stories. As a media diversity and accessibility consultant, she develops programs for corporations, governments agencies and non-profits.
She and Emmy Award winner Jason DaSilva are co-directing a feature film, The Dismantled. Her PBS Award winning documentary Body & Soul: Diana & Kathy is now being made into a musical.
Recently she completed Miracle on 42nd Street, a documentary about affordable housing for artists for that won a 2020 NY Emmy Award for Best Documentary. Through her social media presence, she tweets regularly on topical disability news. Currently she is developing an app on the history of disability rights.
Director’s statement: Although I’ve been coming to rural Sullivan County, NY for 37 years, in some ways I’m still an outsider. This is the place where my husband grew up, went to high school and moved away from, only to be drawn back every summer by the beauty, memories, and his small-town heart. I was born in North Carolina and raised in a small town in Pennsylvania. My husband and I share a respect for the lessons we learned in these towns and it has been one of the foundations of our marriage. Community, respect, privacy, humor, and self-sufficiency are some of the values we share. My husband always said he learned to get along with everyone because, coming from a small town, you couldn’t afford to go around making enemies. There was nothing disposable about the people you lived near. They were your neighbors and that made them important.
This film is a highly personal tribute to the small town of my childhood and the vanishing rural life some of us remember. As a child, I was also a musician and learned to play the flute. Making music, theatre and film is something I still cling to and pass on. As a teacher at New York University in the Film School, I’m able to continue working with young artists, encouraging them in new story-telling traditions. Art, artists, and community are bound together since the beginning of mankind. They flourish together and make each other possible.

8:15 Searching for Zachary Richard Singer, songwriter, environmentalist with musical roots in Louisiana Cajun culture.

Director Biography - Crocque / Hoffman
After a stint in Fine Arts and English studies. Stéphane Crocquey was for two years a French-language assistant in Dublin and then in London. On his return to France, he was a radio host for the Ferarock network. It was then that he crossed paths with authors passing through Lille and developed his talent as an interview leader in the company of Howard Butten, Michel Onfray, Pascal Brückner, Amélie Nothomb or Charles Aznavour...
At the same time, he scored the music scenes with two rock song groups : Cépheïd's and Vereeck. Caught up by his passion for the image, an audiovisual diploma in his pocket, he freelances and signs many subjects on culture, environmental protection and the social and solidarity economy in the region. Trained in documentary writing by Pictanovo, the image community of the Hauts de France region, he directed in 2013 a documentary on the question of origins in a village in the Pas-de-Calais that hosts a migrant camp. In 2015, he wrote and co-directed the documentary "Les enfants de la dune".
In 2017, he signed the transposition for the web of this walk-movie that goes to meet the inhabitants of the coast of the North Sea. In parallel with his work as an author, he is, since 2018, head of audiovisual projects within Volutes Media

9PM Globes The bond between humans and bees. "We don't live to work. We work to live," says a beekeeper.

While dancing, bees tell each other stories about the world around them. People also claim a role in those stories, sometimes very close and intimate, sometimes distant and on an industrial scale. Nina de Vroome's thoughts also swarm with the bees: from the smallest cell in a honeycomb to the global economy, her essayistic nature documentary Globes charts the bond between humans and bees. As accomplished storytellers, they both give shape to their lives under the sun.

Director Biography - Nina de Vroome
Nina de Vroome (1989) is an independent filmmaker. She studied film at KASK / School of Arts in Ghent. Her graduation work Waves (2013) is a reflection on sound and the way it influences senses of community. In 2016 she completed A Sea Change, a feature documentary film about a maritime boarding school near the Belgian coast. The short documentary A Dog’s Luck (2018) is a portrait of a group of police dogs during their training. Her films were shown at international festivals like Visions du Réel and International Film Festival Rotterdam. She is a writer and editor for Sabzian, a Belgian magazine on cinema. As a teacher she is involved in various educational projects. She makes collages and engages in collaborations as a sound engineer and editor.
Director Statement
The title refers to a notion of ‘worlds’, of which the earth comprises many. The documentary considers our globalized economy, but also the landscapes around the beehive. The microlevel is thus always connected to the macro-level, the local to the global. In Globes, bonds are forged between culture and nature and the ways in which the concept of 'ecology' can be given meaning are explored. Through these encounters, the film both wanders and always returns to its core, much like the bees which fly around on the hunt for flowers return to their hives laden with nectar.

SEPT 3 - SATURDAY

7PM A Tumba Abierta Animated retrospective of The Beatles myriad transformations.

An introspective fable about a musical and artistic movement, where the figure of Alfredo Calonge (1961-2014), one of the greatest exponents of this genre, being the leitmotiv of the same, and at the same time introduces us to an urban subculture in which a group of multifaceted artists developed; musicians, painters, editors and publishers of fanzines, record labels, recording studios, music venues, promoters, illustrators, or DJs, in addition to the public, who attended all the events and who animated for more than a decade this city, consolidating the bases that led in the mid-nineties to coin the term 'Swinging Barcelona' for that time and that community.

7:20 Digital Champions Leading the Fight Against FGM in Tanzania Gender based violence monitored with smartphone app.
Girls at risk of FGM in Mara, Tanzania live in very remote villages, far from the rule of law. Digital Champions help map these villages to ensure girls can be found quickly, especially in the middle of the night when most calls for urgent help are received, particularly during the “cutting season”. They also educate their communities and report cases of Gender Based Violence using a free smartphone app.
Director Biography - Steven Hervieu
Stephen Hervieu is a producer/director at Tigervision. He has extensive experience producing inspirational video content for a wide range of commercial, government and NGO clients.

Director Statement
I like to give back where I can and am proud to have contributed my services FOC to this very worthwhile campaign.

7:25 Veral Is understanding possible between city slickers & this reclusive community? Urban/rural divide takes a newspaperman to High Plains, CO.Q&A

Haze, “big-city” newspaperman, searches the High Plains for a “country-flavor” story for the Post. The urban/rural divide is palpable the moment he arrives. Is understanding possible between city slickers and this reclusive community? His search leads him to the Veral "Wax" Museum, presided over by solitary teen Alicia. The basement houses the town’s mummified dead, preserved through her forebears' formula, dating from the Homestead Act. Alone in this stark tomb, Alicia seeks to transfigure the irrevocable law of life and death while Haze's deadline hangs in the balance.

Director Biography - Erin Lane Harper
I make films about the High Plains of Colorado where I grew up. My first collaboration was with award-winning (and neighbor across county lines) Colorado author Gregory Hill. In development is EAST OF DENVER, my adaptation of his first novel. VERAL is a short based on one of Hill’s short stories.
These cinematic explorations have inspired my new original work, LAST CHANCE, an episodic fantasy-fable connecting a bloodline of women that spans 150 years within a blasted outpost town on the brutal High Plains. The roots trace back to Native women and ends in the future with their matriarchal revelations to sustain life through preservation on land that is depleted of all its water.
As a one-woman band, I make short observational films about women farmers across the country. I teach film workshops with a rural group of high school women, Las Estrellas, and am developing, with collaborator Erin Greenwell, a four-year cross-country film exchange for youth.
I recently co-directed and edited the feature documentary, MY WILD HEART, worked as a cinematographer with the acclaimed and late filmmaker Barbara Hammer and produced the award-winning Sundance Film, MY BEST DAY, in 2012.

Director Statement
I was always drawn to the young female character in the story of VERAL. I named her Alicia (depending on the geographic origin the name means “truth” or “noble”). Naturally, I compared my life experiences to hers and discovered there were little to no parallels. But I interpreted an attitude that she possessed and that I could relate to, or maybe envied.
When I grew up in Colorado, I remember the heaviness of tragedy that wove throughout local families’ lives, whether it was a horrible farm accident, total-yield-destroying storms, terminal illnesses, or suicide. But the day-to-day wasn’t dismal. Families seemed genuinely happy and functional. I imagine it was because we didn’t speak of these tragedies. Maybe it was a tactic for forgetting and/or for surviving.
I, too, was a happy kid most of the time. But restless. I would act out embellished fantasies of buried stories upon the never-ending stage of a dirt road to an audience of curious (probably uninterested) herds of cattle. Kicks, spins, loud singing, soliloquies – whatever it took to get them to single-file it and nose-up to the barbed wire. This grand theatrical display that expressed all truths to inconversant creatures was a benign way for me to purge my angst. And this front-row performance may have laid the foundation for the superpowers I longed for and would later transpose onto Alicia in her solitary world.
While building up Alicia’s grand-champion-caliber 4-H arts and crafts exhibit (her inherited “wax” museum), I also indulged her stretched reality with a grounded, relatable work ethic. I imagined that she might keep herself busy crafting phenomenal companions (preserving the townsfolk with a family recipe tanning formula)in order to cope with loneliness. She remains content with the world she creates because she has nothing to compare it to, but the darkness has to emerge eventually.
By the end, Alicia’s world, teeming with “life” as she has created it, is exploited by a cheap shot, a push of a shutter button. Haze breaks the rules of the museum by sneaking a photograph of Alicia’s prized collectible, her mother. The resulting bland photographic simulacrum of her tangible life’s work will likely be put on display in a section of a newspaper that will line a cat’s litter box.I conclude by coming back to Alicia, the female character. As one may guess, she does not descend into despair but unleashes a repressed internal state that transcends her creative capabilities.

8:08 Hidden Wounds Compassionate film on importance of mental health for patients & caregivers with CNN anchor Richard Lui, his mom, & others.

It is a film that shows us how mental health is not what we think it is. It is not only the polar extremes of what the movies or media have made it out to be. It often comes in shades of grey and in places we do not expect or notice.
In this raw and inspiring documentary filmed over the course of six years, three families find triumphs when tested challenges of the body and mind like never before.

Director Biography - Richard Lui
Richard Lui is an award-winning veteran network anchor (MSNBC, CNN). He’s produced investigative stories on human trafficking, civil rights, the military, and politics. Lui is an AARP Caregiving Champion, Alzheimer's Association Celebrity Champion, Hidden Heroes ambassador, and BrightFocus ambassador. He is a caregiver for his father.
Director Statement
Seven years ago, I learned my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I knew I may have to leave the career I worked for and loved so much, journalism. But my company did the unexpected. I could work part-time so I could fly from New York to California weekly to care for my Dad.
I am one in three Americans who is touched by caring for an ailing loved one. And I’m part of the half a trillion annual dollars in work me and 53 million others do for loved ones. I'm proud to do it — and I'm proud to share the stories of others doing it, too.

9:45 The Adventures of Saul Bellow Celebrated novelist turns life into art. Features his wives, offspring, Phillip Roth, Salman Rushdie, & other writers.

The film traces Bellow's rise to eminence and examines his many identities: reluctant public intellectual, 'serial husband', father, Chicagoan, Jew and American. Interviews with the novelist's family and friends will shed new light on Bellow's personality and the way he turned life into art.

Director Biography - Asaf Galay
The film's director, Asaf Galay, uses the documentary medium to rethink Jewish and Israeli relationships with modern culture. His recent films include Army Of Lovers in the Holy Land, which follows a Swedish pop singer from his sexually provocative art to his decision to move to Israel; The Hebrew Superhero, which examined the development of comic-books in Israel, and The Muses of Bashevis Singer, his documentary about the female translators who transformed the career of Nobel prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer, and which was chosen to open the 2015 New York Jewish Film Festival. Galay also has a film currently in production: Cartooning America, about the Jewish cartoonists who brought us Betty Boop.
Director Statement
I was born in Chicago in 1978. Like Saul Bellow, I too can say, “I am an American, Chicago born.” For me, as for Bellow, that claim would be both the truth and a lie. My family came from Israel to the United States only for a short period of time, while my father completed a PhD at the University of Chicago. Growing up in Israel and moving back to the U.S. in my late thirties, I have always felt both fascinated and alienated by American culture—a contradiction that Bellow vividly explores in his work.
I realized I had to make a film about Bellow while working on my last project, The Muses of Isaac Bashevis Singer. That film told the story of how Singer used English language translation to transform his Yiddish writing into an American voice. As Singer’s first translator, Bellow was the bridge between the world of Jewish particularity and American, Anglophone universalism. I began to look for the ingredients in Bellow’s work that allowed him to become the missing link between these two worlds.

My affinity for the writer has deepened and developed over the years, stretching beyond questions of Jewish and American identity. I have come to admire the author’s bold insistence on humanism, how he cleaves to unfashionable notions like ‘culture’ and ‘personality.’ At the same time, I am troubled by Bellow’s racist and sexist imagery. I believe that these qualities make his work difficult to teach and study today. In my film, I am determined to let both of these sides of the author come to life. I seek a cinematic language that can bring out all the layers of his work for a new generation—the humorous, the spiritual, the profound, the American, the Jewish, the lowbrow, the highbrow, the just, and the unjust.

SEPT 4 - SUNDAY

7PM East Belfast Boy Street-sharp poet pumps techno and pulverizing moments into cliché-free zone. Meet Davy. The things he sees. His streets, His mates, His girl and...The Boys.

Director Biography - Emma Jordan
Prime Cut’s Artistic Director has directed a strong body of critically acclaimed plays for the company, most recently Fionnuala Kennedy’s Removed (Young At Art Belfast Children’s Festival, Dublin Theatre Festival, Baboro Children’s Festival and IPAY, Philadelphia. Winner Best Theatre Script- Irish Writers Guild Awards and Allianz Arts & Business Creative Communities Award, ), Fintan Brady’s East Belfast Boy (The MAC, Edinburgh Fringe and Island of Ireland Tour 2018-19), Red by John Logan a Prime Cut-Lyric co-production (Winner of 4 Awards at the 2017 Irish Times Theatre Awards including Best Director and Best Production. Nominated for Best Director 2017 UK Theatre Awards), Stacey Gregg’s Scorch (winner of 7 international awards including a Scotsman Fringe First, Adelaide Fringe Best Theatre Award and the 2015 Irish Times Theatre Award for Best New Play) Belfast, island of Ireland and UK Tour, the Adelaide and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, Sweden and Germany tours. Directing credits also include After Miss Julie (Patrick Marber), God Of Carnage (Yasmina Reza), The Conquest of Happiness (Co-created & directed with Haris Pasovic) I Am My Own Wife [Doug Wright], Blackbird (David Harrower), Shoot The Crow (Owen McCafferty), Scarborough (Fiona Evans), Woman and Scarecrow (Marina Carr), After The End (Denis Kelly).
In 2020-21 in response the ongoing theatre lockdown Emma has directed a series of digital productions for Prime Cut including East Belfast Boy (Edinburgh Fringe and Eastside Arts Festival), Father The Father (The MAC) and Removed (Traverse 3 Online: Edinburgh Festival, SEODA Culture Ireland Showcase and Imaginate Festival 2021). Other digital work includes Wake Cake by Stacey Gregg BBC, and Modern Myths by Clare Dwyer Hogg for the MAC.
Emma has also directed One Good Turn by Una McKevitt for the Abbey Theatre, Dublin as well as Educating Rita, Lovers and A Streetcar Named Desire for the Lyric Theatre Belfast and Lord of The Flies for Sherman Theatre Cardiff and Theatr Clwyd.
In 2014 Emma was the recipient of the Paul Hamlyn Cultural Entrepreneurship Breakthrough Award and the Spirit of Festival Award at the Belfast International Arts Festival 2015. She won the Best Director Award for Red at the 2017 Irish Times Irish Theatre Award and has been nominated consecutively for Best Director at the UK Theatre Awards for Red and Lovers (2017-18) She was nominated for Best Director at the 2020 Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards for Removed and A Streetcar Named Desire.

Director Statement
East Belfast Boy in its original conception as a stage show was a story that was very close to my heart, I loved the visceral experience of the pumping techno and the open-ended nature of the brilliant script by Fintan Brady. The script invited a choreographic language, multiple ways of exploring Davy’s world through word, movement and music. When the pandemic hit Prime Cut had to put on hold all theatrical endeavours, the live aspect of our work needed to be reassessed and it gave pause to consider what might we make that would be true to our companies ethos but which could reach new audiences. It seemed to me that of all our 30 year catalogue of plays that East Belfast Boy provided the best opportunity to explore what was for us a new medium. It is an experiment - a transference of theatrical aesthetics in digital form - an exploration of movement on camera complemented by voice-over. We learned a tremendous amount, our learning curve was steep with both Ciaran Bagnal and myself experienced theatre-makers but pure rookies in the film making process.We trusted our instincts and with the skill of a great editor Conor Maguire and talented composer Phil Kieron we got East Belfast Boy over the line.

7:30 Over My Dead Body Jewish Persian-American woman and muslim fiancé conflict with parents.

Director Biography - Meital Cohen Navarro
Meital Cohen Navarro is an award-winning filmmaker, whose films often feature notable moments of womanhood from unique and unexpected perspectives.

Her most recent short film, the critically acclaimed Over My Dead Body, which she wrote, directed, produced, and edited, has screened at numerous film festivals in 2021. The film, a devastating drama about a family at war over love versus religious tradition, has been nominated for best-scripted series for the CTA at the Television Academy and nominated at the American Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival. As well, won Best Narrative Short at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival, The Grand Jury Prize at the Richmond International Film Festival, Best Short Film at the Valley Film Festival, the Audience Award at Pittsburgh Shorts, and an Honorable Mention at Dances With Films and many more. as well as receiving nominations at the Atlanta Jewish FF, Cordillera International FF, Julien Dubuque International FF, and the UK Jewish FF.

The prolific Cohen-Navarro is currently filming and in post-production on three new documentaries, with planned debut in late 2023, as well as being in pre-production on a narrative feature film and two new short film projects. Elizabeth’s Survival Story follows Holocaust survivor and artist, Elizabeth Mann, as she is completing her final painting at 95 years old. Elizabeth paints the images and faces she can never forget from what she endured in the concentration camps. The film incorporates Elisabeth’s stories from her time as a teenager in Auschwitz and explores her thoughts on her final painting and how it reflects on the life she lived and the hardships she survived. Cohen-Navarro is currently filming a documentary in The Democratic Republic Of Congo, a story of the African leader who defied all odds by becoming one of the most influential businessmen in Africa, and a beloved politician that changed the face of the Congolese political map with only one goal in mind - to better the lives of his people.

Her past two shorts from 2019 films were, The Cake is about a woman who discovers a 40-year-old secret about her husband and best friend and what happens when she confronts that friend, and In It Together is about two immigrants struggling to maintain their relationship while at the breaking point in their efforts to support themselves.

Cohen-Navarro previously worked at the Israel Broadcasting Authority on documentary TV and feature films and the renowned weekly investigative documentary show “Mabbat-Sheni". Her passion for diverse cultures led her to live in Africa, where she wrote and reported for the Israeli newspaper Maariv. Her stories depicted social conflict, and daily life in countries like DR-Congo, Mozambique and South Africa. Her background in documentaries and journalism imbues her narrative filmmaking with a detail-oriented realism. Her films tell stories of ordinary people and life’s unassuming moments that contain a deeper resonance with a specific focus on the unique challenges that women face in their daily lives.

Cohen-Navarro earned an MFA in Filmmaking from the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles and holds Bachelor’s degrees in Business Management and Communication from the Open University of Israel. She currently resides in Los Angeles.

Director Statement
“Over My Dead Body”
Director’s Statement
I am a grandchild of Yemenite and Moroccan immigrants who moved to Israel in the early 50’s. As a youth, I felt the clash between the two different worlds, the traditionally conservative world and the modern liberal world. I did not understand the reasons or dynamics or implications of this gap. I simply rebelled against all the traditions and values that informed my parents’ lives. Filmmaking has allowed me to explore the clash between the tradition and the contemporary, the values of each world, and how to demonstrate their effects on individuals.
The move to Los Angeles introduced me, an Israeli Jew, to the Persian Jewish community. Their kindness, warmth, support, and, of course, rich cuisine and hospitality reminded me of where I grew up. The more I associated with the Persian Jewish community, the more I began to ask questions: “Why does the younger generation tend to get married to people within their community, when we’re in such diverse city?”; “Since Jews can marry Jews from any culture, why do most of the younger people within the Los Angeles’ Persian Jewish community tend to marry within their community?” I subsequently learned that the community endeavors to maintains its identity, values, and language through traditional marital practices.
In creating “Over My Dead Body,” I was eager to examine the familiar and often complex elements of my own culture. I decided to go on a journey exploring more details by interviewing members of the Los Angeles Persian Jewish community. I focused on what was considered as socially and religiously taboo and why the younger generations find themselves marrying within their community. My research revealed to me their attitudes toward marriage, tradition, and the meaning of family.
At a certain stage during my many interviews, I did not believe what I was hearing when modern and successful young people who were born here explained why marrying within the community made sense to them. At first, I thought their decisions were arrogant or even racially motivated. As I interviewed more people, however, I began to look at it from a different perspective. The reason for their choices in marriage were rooted in something deeper than I had originally thought, and this revelation touched me profoundly. It also made me understand their worldview. My interviews helped me formulate an authentic Persian Jewish family drama and helped me establish a protagonist based on the personalities I met on my journey and my personal experience.
In this film, I wanted to represent a younger generation trapped within the conservative traditions that the community maintained in its transition to the United States, a country of more freedom and diversity. When I started writing, it was an easy choice for me to present the parents and the family in a rigid manner and make them look like the bad guys and the protagonist as the one who needs to be saved. But as I researched and developed the characters, I began to feel the disappointment of the parents, the brother's desire to protect them, and the pain of the sister who chose the conservative path of her parents rather than to follow her heart. Each member of the family had his or her own reason for why the protagonist should give up her choice. From their point of view, they were trying to protect her and protect the supreme value in Persian Jewish culture: family.
The protagonist, Isfahan, thinks that her parents have softened over the years and that living in the United States might have changed them. She hopes she can live within an American cultural identity, but she finds herself struggling between choosing to please her family and living her own life.
Isfahan, 31, falls in love with a Persian who is Muslim. This is the greatest and most unforgivable taboo in Judaism, especially within the Persian Jewish community.
Even though this story focuses on a Persian Jewish family, the narrative of Isfahan and her family can be considered a universal story that people from different cultural backgrounds can identify with and relate to their own potential personal and/or political conflicts.
The principles and beliefs behind these conflicts are set in stone, but the ending remains open. Should Isfahan go with the love of her life? Or should she choose her family’s traditional values? I needed to represent both sides fairly and sympathetically. My goal was for viewers to understand the parents' point of view but also identify with and understand the difficulty of Isfahan’s dilemma.
I hope the film will help families with generational rifts to understand the other side of their own stories: the parents will see the toll it has on their children through Isfahan’s devastation, and the younger generation will see the parents’ equally heartbreaking cultural challenges.

8:02 Pessoas Photographer & daughter seek unknown woman whose picture he captured in a parade after the death of Fidel Castro.

Arturo travels to Santiago de Cuba just after the death of Fidel Castro to find an unknown woman whom he photographed in the parade on May 1 10 years ago. He is accompanied by his daughter Greta, from whom he has been estranged for some time.

Director Biography - Arturo Dueñas Herrero
Arturo Dueñas (Esguevillas de Esgueva, Valladolid, Spain, 1962). Bachelor of Arts, Qualified in Cinematography and Filmmaking Course at the New York Film Academy. Full member of the Academy of Arts and Cinematographic Sciences of Spain. Actor, director, producer, editor and scriptwriter in several short films, he has produced and directed the feature films Amateurs (Aficionados, 2011), selected and awarded in over 30 international festivals, Corsairs (Corsarios, 2015), Mission: Sahara (Misión: Sáhara, 2016), Built lands (Tierras construidas, 2019) and Pessoas (Pessoas, 2020).

9:23 Taste of the Indigenous Discover the history, tradition, and culture of the Indigenous Native Americans through their food.
Director - Josephine Lilla Bono

9:45 The Coronation In this wordless, experimental film, a powerful goddess meets her match. For mature audience.

Director Biography - Emily Penick
Emily is a writer / director with a background in directing and choreographing stage plays. In NYC, she has worked at Playwrights Horizons, 2nd Stage, New Dramatists, The Tank, and elsewhere, developing new works for both stage and film. Before Covid, Emily was also a member of Frost Productions, responsible for producing large-scale events like the MET Gala, Tonys red carpet, and film premieres. In addition to her own projects, Emily assists Tony-award-winning director and MacAurthur Fellow, David Cromer.
Emily is passionate about creating community, fostering positive change, and sharing career-development resources with young artists. During her time as Literary & Artistic Manager at ACT – A Contemporary Theatre, Emily lead the charge to make the institution a Deaf-friendly space, managing artistic programming, inclusive casting, meaningful community partnerships, and capital improvements which included the implementation of closed captioning in both main stage spaces. Also at ACT, Emily founded and managed the Kenan Directing Fellowship, which generously supported emerging directors with mentorship and financial resources.
Through her efforts with RED STAGE, which she founded, Emily has produced the world premiere Worse Than Tigers, and commissioned emerging female playwrights. RED STAGE also shares funding and career development opportunities with artists across disciplines, through their resource library at redstage.org.
With over a decade of experience in clown, nouveau vaudeville, and physical theatre, Emily is passionate about stories which showcase either subtlety or overtly, the modern clown. Two of her upcoming short film projects, The Coronation and Cuffing Season, showcase such work. As an educator, Emily has adjudicated new play festivals at universities, taught play submission workshops, taught graduate courses in directing, acting, and movement technique, and guest-directed and choreographed university productions.
Recent directing credits include AN ILIAD (Brick Monkey Theater Company), THE WOLVES (Bucknell University), CORIOLANUS: Fight Like a Bitch (Rebel Kat Productions), A Christmas Carol (ACT- A Contemporary Theatre), the world premiere of Worse Than Tigers (RED STAGE), Gregory Award-winning Romeo & Juliet (Seattle Immersive Theatre), Pilgrims (Forward Flux), Snowglobed (Playing in Progress) and Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s The Other Woman, Wandering and their world premiere of the devised play Pot of Gold. Emily has choreographed at Book-It Repertory Theatre (Slaughterhouse Five), Café Nordo (Don Nordo Del Midwest), ACT Theatre (A Christmas Carol), and for the UMO Ensemble's Resistance Cabaret - Resistance is Fertile!
Emily was born in California, raised in New Jersey, attended Bucknell University, and earned her MFA in Directing from Ohio University.

Director Statement
Emily is a writer / director with a background in directing and choreographing stage plays. Also an intimacy and fight choreographer for both stage and film, Emily believes in the power of physical relationship and non-verbal story-telling. She enjoys deeply collaborative projects which explore the absurdity of the human experience, with all of its humorous, loving, and disturbing connotations. Monty Python meets Pina Bausch.

10PM The 2nd Act A drama based on a true story about a young actor who was sexually assaulted by a talent agent. For mature audience. Q&A

A short film based on a true story about a young actor who is harassed by a talent agent and decides to take matters into his own hands.

Director Biography - Victor Fontoura
VICTOR FONTOURA is a Brazilian queer director, writer, actor and producer based in NYC. He graduated in Theatre Directing from the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. He studied film at SVA - School of Visual Arts, MNN - Manhattan Neighborhood Network and AIC - Academia Internacional de Cinema. He is an artvist for Human Rights and LGBTQ+ community. "The 2nd Act" is his first film as a director and screenwriter.

If you wish to Download and Print this years Poster in PDF Click HERE

AUG 31 - TUESDAY
2:00 & 8:00PM Opening with Shelli Lipton & Nathan Koenig

2:30 & 8:30PM Behind My Eyes
September 11, 2001 began as a beautiful summer day, with a pleasant heat, a diaphanous light, and the bustle of thousands of New Yorkers commuting to their activities, to fulfill their civic duty to vote, and to drop off their children in schools and daycare centers in all four counties. It ended with smoke-blackened skies over the iconic World Trade Center skyscrapers being fatally attacked by a terrorist group; plus the anguish of millions not knowing where or how their loved ones were. Iván M. Acosta witnessed it all from his balcony in Hell’s Kitchen in West Manhattan. He took out his Super 8 camera and recorded the worst attack in the history of the city that welcomed him when he emigrated from Cuba. The film remained in storage for almost two decades and today it links together the first-line first responders, and all the people who supported and helped each other. Q&A
Director Biography - Ivan Acosta

Ivan Acosta Santiago de Cuba (Cuba) is a playwright, composer, film and theater director. In August 1961, he escaped from Cuba with his parents on a boat to Jamaica. In the United States he served 6 years in the army as a paratrooper. He studied film at New York University, and Social Studies and Film Marketing at the New School for Social Research University, and television production at New York TeleVariation TV Academy. He made his debut as a playwright with the Rock and Roll musical, Grito 71, which was also acclaimed by the English language press. In 1976 he wrote and filmed "The Coffin", a 16mm short, and made his debut as a director of fictional feature films in 1985 with “Amigos”, a film that tells the adventures of a Cuban (marielito) in Miami, who entered the United States as part of the exodus that occurred in 1980 from Cuba to this country. However, it is his play El Súper (premiered on November 5, 1977) that gave him celebrity, which is considered the most important theatrical work and film shot by Cubans in exile. It won more than 30 awards in the international arena. He is the founder of the Cuban Cultural Center of New York.
His documentaries has frequently dealt with Cuban musical rhythms, as do his films.

4:00 & 10:00PM The Accident
An accident happened on her way home and disrupted Shuying's then-peaceful life. As the burden from her family collided with her inner moral condemnation, she felt tangled, helpless and painful. Standing on the crossroad, which way will she go?

5:00 & 11:00PM The River Man
Day after day, a simple man punctuates his life between fishing, his garden and his fantasies, when an intruder comes to shake it all up.

Director - MARC DESSUP

SEPT 1 - WEDNESDAY

2:30 & 8:30PM Infected
"How late is too late?"
A dystopian glimpse into the fall of contemporary western society by Madrid punk band A.C.T., animated and directed by Madrid/Minneapolis artist, Alfonso Cronopio.

Director Biography - Alfonso 'Cronopio' Moreno

Alfonso is a multifaceted artist from Madrid, Spain, who moved to the US in the XXI century.
He's known for fronting the seminal hardcore punk band TdeK (or TDK) in the 1980s & playing in lesser-known rock bands The Mezquinos and Los Garduños in the 90s. Today he collaborates with Chano & Germán, from the SoMad band NOUS, in A.C.T., when he travels to Madrid to visit family. This video is about the last song they recorded.

2:35 & 8:35PM Formless Form
Our world. Our lives. Both inner and outer are in a state of change. Sometimes imperceptible yet always knowable.
Director Biography - Ben Ridgway

Ben is a CalArts graduate and a games industry veteran. His career has spanned through both the industry and academia since 1998. While in the games industry he helped create games for Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft console systems. More recently he assisted in the production of a virtual reality experience, IO Moon for the Oculus Rift - http://www.headtripgames.com/iomoon/
Ben’s animations have been showcased at film festivals worldwide including Sundance, Cannes, The Ann Arbor Film Festival, and Anima Mundi. He has been invited numerous times to present at the SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference. His work has been published in “History of Animation” by Maureen Furniss. Ben has won numerous animation festival awards and has received the Vimeo Staff Pick Award for his films “Cosmic Flower Unfolding”, “Tribocycle”, and “Inner Space Artifacts”.
In addition to creating animated abstract cinematic experiences for the movie screen, Ben uses virtual reality, sculpture, and digital art as part of his growing body of work.
Director Statement
“I am an inner space excavator. My goal is to dig deep into the inner spatial worlds and ideas we engage with in our minds and bring them into physical form. Where words fall short, visual language, sound, and all of the senses can be used to communicate worlds of abstraction in a universally understandable manner."

2:38 & 8:38PM Recycled Verses
Cyclical nature of life, art self-expression.

Randy Kelly is an award-winning film and television director, editor and cameraman based in the Ottawa/Gatineau area in Canada. With over 24 years of experience, Randy has worked on dramatic TV series, lifestyle series, documentaries, short and feature-length films, cinepoems and music videos in both English and French.

Recycled Verses is a cinepoem (video for a spoken word poem) about the cyclical nature of life and art and self-expression.

Director- Randy Kelly

2:45 & 8:45PM Nine Point Mesa Ranch
West Texas has become a desolate desert. Nine Point Mesa Ranch, a swath of unforgiving territory, drew the interest of Chicago businessman Jon Nau. His vision was to restore the land and build back the wildlife populations. The proficiency of his plan became the litmus test for restoring earth and species including blue quail, bighorn sheep and desert mule deer. These animals now thrive on the high mesa of Terlingua, TX. One man dreamed big dreams and they have come true.

Philip Wages is an awarding winning director/DP and still photographer. He frequently films commercials, features and documentaries. Currently, Philip is in preproduction for two different movies and in post on another movie expected to premiere later this year. He shot a documentary, "Hear Us", which premiered on PBS throughout the country last year. He also filmed the feature “Still,” which is currently available on Hulu and Amazon Prime.
Philip has filmed all over the country and the world for major commercial brands. His heart is in telling stories whether in narrative, documentary or photo essay. His naturalistic lighting style lends itself readily to narrative and documentary work.
Philip currently lives in Atlanta, but he is often on the road shooting both motion and stills.

SEPT 2 - THURSDAY
2:30 & 8:30PM George Floyd: Say Their Names
When will the "last" time be the LAST time? Chris Oledude's single "George Floyd" has now been re-presented in the powerful video, "George Floyd: Say Their Names." America's struggle for equality and fairness throughout law enforcement parallels those struggles faced by minority groups in every society where the majority feels empowered to disregard civil and human rights. The powerful protests that erupted worldwide after George Floyd's murder in May, 2020, are celebrated here. The enduring power of Black women as determined healers of a torn community is celebrated here. The victims had names. We honor their lives by saying their names.
The pressure for change must continue. No justice? No peace!
Director Biography - Christopher R. Owens, Alyssa Dann (Student)

ALYSSA DANN
Alyssa Dann was a quiet and reserved child raised in a very musical household. Her father is a highly-regarded bass and guitar player and her mother is a singer. For Alyssa, music has always been her voice. She started lessons at the age of five and songwriting by seven. By 13, Alyssa was playing bass on her father’s gigs at clubs in New York City. Fast forward to 2018, and Alyssa, while still in high school, was performing in New York City and Boston and releasing her own recordings.
During high school, Alyssa was introduced to the power of storytelling through film. She directed, filmed, and edited two of her own music videos, and fell in love with video editing. In a "Media as Service" program with Woodstock Travels, she visited India and Nepal, working with NGOs to create promotional content. After high school, she taught video editing and recording media arts to 8th Grade kids -- in her old classroom!
Alyssa's decision to direct and edit “George Floyd: Say Their Names” during her transition to college has opened her eyes and changed her life -- and she is not looking back.
Alyssa recently started attending Sarah Lawrence College (US-NY), Class of 2024, and sees herself majoring in Psychology, Public Health and Music.

CHRISTOPHER R. OWENS / CHRIS OLEDUDE
As a singer-songwriter and performer, Chris Owens has been musically active for nearly 55 of his 62 years. He studied piano, cello, recorder, and African drums, and also sang in numerous choruses. Owens had been in bands and school musicals, but no videos or films.
With a family to support and a career to sustain, Chris Owens put his passion for music aside until his father, Nelson Mandela and family friend Pete Seeger all passed within three months of each other between October, 2013 and January, 2014. As a result, Chris and his two brothers formed OBB - The Owens Brothers Band and started performing original music live. Then, in 2017, Chris' wife was diagnosed with cancer ... and music was again put on hold.
In 2020, a year after Sandra's death and at the start of the COVID pandemic, Chris Owens decided to create the artist known as CHRIS OLEDUDE to serve as the full outlet for his creative energy and the burning desire to speak out during challenging times. Focused on music, Owens never really thought about "videos". He really knew nothing about video production or editing.
Chris Owens founded CESO ENTERPRISES, INC. in May, 2020 to manage the work of CHRIS OLEDUDE and the intellectual property past, present and future from Chris and his two sons.
On June 14, 2020, Owens recorded the vocal tracks for the song "George Floyd". During that session, studio musicians, singers, and the recording engineer's young daughter gathered outdoors around three microphones to record the chants heard in the song. That young woman was Alyssa Dann, then a high school senior, who also served as the "voice over" towards the end of the video. Alyssa is a singer-songwriter herself and was so inspired by the song, that she asked Owens if she could work on a video for the song. And Owens consented.
The result was an inter-generational, cross-cultural, and geographically diverse urban/rural relationship. Owens had worked in local politics for a few years, including campaign management. He had overseen production of some short videotaped candidate messages for voters, but never a musical production. Dann had worked on high school video projects and her own music videos. But this video was much more complex and nearly seven minutes in length.
Between June and October, Owens' company, CESO ENTERPRISES, INC., produced the video, "George Floyd: Say Their Names," with Owens and Dann co-directing and Dann handling the editing. Owens had a small singing role, and singer Wendy Ward had the lead role, along with the community church-based Angels of Transformation Dancers.
The production was "low-budget," technically challenging, and emotionally draining. But, in the end, everyone involved with "George Floyd: Say Their Names" was moved by the experience. Now, audiences are moved as well.
Director Statement
CHRIS OLEDUDE:
The murder of George Floyd focused attention on police brutality against people of color, and racism in general, in a way that few moments have in American history. As an artist, I had to speak out in my way, right away, because I was just as angry as everyone else.
We need stability and a focus on "people first" in order to rejuvenate our nation! If you know economic justice, you will know peace. If you know health care justice, you will know peace. If you know education justice, you will know peace. If you know fair and equal justice under the law, you will know peace. If you know human and civil rights, you will know peace. And, as one of humankind's most powerful communication tools, music brings us closer to feeling these issues in our bones and saving our collective soul.
I was also blessed and honored by the strong interest of the talented Alyssa Dann in making the video. GEORGE FLOYD: SAY THEIR NAMES is a unique statement in large part because Ms. Dann brought the energy and perspectives of younger people to the project -- as well as her excellent aesthetic sense.
It is a tribute to her commitment and fortitude that Alyssa was able to complete her good work on her first 'professional' video while simultaneously starting her freshman year at Sarah Lawrence College during the COVID pandemic here in New York State. I don't know if I could have done that.
ALYSSA DANN:
When I was a background vocalist for the Chris Oledude song, "George Floyd," I was caught up in the passionate frustration and determination embedded in the music. In the aftermath of the recording session, I kept visualizing aspects of the song. I knew I wanted to create this video. When I asked Chris for the opportunity to do this, he gave me a strange look, but he agreed right away and we embarked on a wild journey into unknown territory. After all, we are both strong-willed songwriters. What could be more perfect, right?
As we completed "George Floyd: Say Their Names," however, it became so clear that we had created something special -- more of a short film than a simple music video -- more of an "experience" than a "moment." When someone whispered the phrase "film festivals," we paused and agreed to explore some more. Wow! Neither Chris nor I had any idea that there was a world of music video and short film festivals where GEORGE FLOYD: SAY THEIR NAMES could be shared. Now, we are truly grateful for the opportunity to be part of these events.

2:55 & 8:55PM Too Late
The protagonist of the animation is a model, actress, star of Andy Warhol's films and his partner, Edie Sedgwick. The main axis of the film, however, is not her relationship with the American artist, but the relationship with her toxic father. Difficult childhood has cast a shadow on her adult life, soaked with alcohol and filled with drugs. The protagonists look like silhouettes cut out of paper or puppets from a shadow theatre; their character traits are embodied by animals, frequently appearing in the film; due to that the story becomes extremely universal. Not only in case of famous people, sometimes it is too late to reverse the fate. "Too Late” - is a tribute to the „Princess of the Underground” for the 50th anniversary of her death.

Director Biography: Kinga Syrek (born in 1995) is a Ph.D. candidate at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, Poland. She was the recipient of the prestigious “Diamond Grant” in 2019, which is awarded by The Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland for her project “Immersion in an animated film”. In the same year she received a “Ministry of Culture and National Heritage’s scholarship for her artistic works. She has created and directed a fully visual first ever animated film about the life of Edie Sedgwick, entitled “Too Late”, which is her debut film.

Director Statement: ”Too Late" is an animated short film based on the life story of Edie Sedgwick - a tribute for the 50th anniversary of her death. The film’s soundtrack was produced by Robert Margouleff - a Grammy Award-winning American record producer and co-producer of „Ciao! Manhattan” (the last Edie Sedgwick’s film).
Edie Sedgwick was one of the greatest of Andy Warhol’s muses, but also, what is the most important, an artist in her own right. Unfortunately, her life’s path was not strewn with roses, even though she did come from a wealthy and historically renowned American family. Her far-too-brief life was beset with chaos, depression, and suffering.
The film not only tells her story with a new and original perspective; it also makes one of Edie’s dreams come true.

3:15 & 9:15PM Anagnorisis
A new doctor has just arrived at a nursing home, where he meets a patient tormented by a past which he cannot remember. This doctor will help him do it, without anticipating the consequences.

Director Biography: Arturo Dueñas Herrero (Esguevillas de Esgueva, Valladolid, Spain, 1962). Bachelor of Arts, Qualified in Cinematography and Filmmaking Course at the New York Film Academy. Full member of the Academy of Arts and Cinematographic Sciences of Spain. Actor, director, producer, editor and scriptwriter in several short films, he has produced and directed the feature films Amateurs (Aficionados, 2011), selected and awarded in over 30 international festivals, Corsairs (Corsarios, 2015), Mission: Sahara (Misión: Sáhara, 2016), Built lands (Tierras construidas, 2019) and Pessoas: the shortest path (Pessoas: el camino más corto, 2020).

3:30 & 9:30PM Perfect Strangers
Two strangers meet during COVID quarantine

Director Biography: Ana Barredo has always been fascinated by Hollywood, touting that she learned to speak English watching American TV shows, growing up in the Philippines. In 1986, she immigrated to the US with her family.
In 2001, she wrote, directed and produced her first indie feature "A Real Job." This modest $15K-budget movie went on to gain glowing reviews, a Best Director nomination for a 2003 DVD Premiere Award and most importantly, a distribution deal with Image Entertainment and a recent streaming deal with Shout Factory.
Barredo followed it up with a short film titled "The Plight of the Angelenos," which screened in numerous film festivals such as the LA Shorts, Moondance, Oxnard and Rotterdam Film Festivals.
While working as a DVD Special Features Producer, she met Twilight Zone Companion author Marc Zicree. This led to her documentary feature "The Table," which won the Best Feature Award at the SoCal Film Festival and a distribution deal with Cinedigm.

4:00 & 10:00PM Wisdom for the Future
How can we get into sync with nature when powerful corporations rule and natural law has no mercy? Explores Iroquois principles of individual freedom and community consensus. “Wisdom for the Future” is Episode 1 of a 7-part series. Q&A

Producer/Directors Shelli Lipton & Nathan Koenig

Director’s Biography: Nathan Koenig combines a broad background in many facets of theatrical and video production: directing, scripting, editing and marketing. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Denison University, where he studied theatre and filmmaking, winning awards for both. He then went to Los Angeles and went from understudy to actor to producer of three successful plays at the Gallery Theatre in West Hollywood. Then he was drafted.

In the 1970's he used Super 8 film and 35mm slides to document West Coast counterculture. He documented the traditional beliefs of indigenous cultures through interviews, photography, film and video. His dedication to the preservation of traditional cultures has given him access to places and individuals not usually within reach of the general public.

In 1972, he founded White Buffalo Multi-Media, Inc. That was when "multimedia" combined performance with films, video, slides and, special effects. Between 1973-74, he managed the WOW Hall, a community performing arts center in Eugene Oregon (formerly a meeting place for Woodsmen of the World). Between 1972-1976, he traveled around the west, doing shows in countercultural and Native American communities. Between 1978 and 1985, the repertoire of multi-media shows were featured at the Mind-Body-Spirit Festivals, Whole Life Expo's and planetariums in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and London. Some titles include: “Ancient Prophecies Future Visions", "The Mystique of Ancient Mexico", "I Am Universe", and "Esoteric Egypt". At the Expos, Koenig alternated his works with other producers of human potential A/V media. In 1987, Abbie Hoffman asked Nathan to direct the light show for the "Great '60s Ball," at the old Fillmore East, where the projection screen was a planetarium dome. Performers included the Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, Buffy Sainte Marie and Country Joe.

White Buffalo Multimedia's goal is to edit documentaries from vintage footage gathered over the years and to transform the entire multimedia repertoire into digital formats. These include best-selling author Dr. Bernie Siegel, human potential pioneer Dr. Jean Houston, Mohawk educator Ray Fadden/Tehanetorens, herbalist Susun Weed, and “Lifestyles of the Solar Famous”. Nathan Koenig and Shelli Lipton are in production on a documentary series "Iroquois Power for the 21st Century" and “Woodstock DownUnder,” a series about Woodstock’s sister city Nimbin, Australia.

From 1985-2005, Nathan founded and directed Upstate Media Enterprises, offering video production services including promotional videos and events. Clients included The American Ballet Theatre, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, Ecofest in NYC, Woodstock Youth Theatre, and Catskill Ballet. Mr. Koenig and his partner Shelli Lipton produced 4 years of TV promos for The Clearwater Festival with Pete Seeger. When the festival asked why they videoed 20 hours for a 30 second promo, Nathan replied “Because it’s history. You’ve got Pete Seeger and many activist folk singers empowering the generations.”

Mr. Koenig is co-founder and President of the Woodstock Museum, chartered by the New York State Board of Regents. Woodstock Museum events include workshops on renewable energy resources such as solar hot water and photovoltaics. Also, workshops with Native Americans and Siberian shaman & author Sarangerel, multi-image shows on the 1960s, Woodstock Art Colony, and Sister City exchanges of art and culture with Woodstock New York and Nimbin, Australia. Nathan Koenig and his wife/partner Shelli Lipton are Woodstock Ambassadors and filmmakersover the last two decades. Says Nathan Koenig, “It’s where we go to discover what could’a would’a should’a happened if the 1960s culture had taken root and evolved.”

Director’s Statement: The Iroquois or Haudenasaunee and other native people are like “the canary in the coal mine” They warn us about the current crisis of existence. They advise us to challenge the destruction of our grandchildren. Chief Oren Lyons says, “When we go, you too will go.” This 7-part series reveals the untold story of America's oldest democracy. Exclusively narrated by Iroquois chiefs, clan mothers, and scholars, the story shows the strong Iroquois influence on the U.S. Constitution.

This series shows what was left out by the U.S. founders and must be implemented to reverse the brutal desecration of a failing society. The Haudenosaunee Tree of Peace ceremony is a bridge between people. Since encountering the Iroquois at the end of The Longest Walk in 1978, I have documented their message over the years until it told a story I think we need to know. I could think of no better project than to convey the message of native people who are one with the earth.

Co-Producer Statement: Shelli Lipton is a multimedia artist with a discipline in Journalistic Illustration. Her early career in film followed traditional art studies in New York City: High School of Music & Art which the movie "Fame" was based on; a Saturday high school scholarship program at Pratt Institute; a full talent scholarship to School of Visual Arts where she taught "How to Go Into Business on Little or No Money." Ms. Lipton also founded the Alumni Society. As the first woman art director in a Mad Ad (Madison Ave.) agency, she created one-take thirty second commercials for fashion accounts. Ms. Lipton was the first woman admitted to the Art Director's Club. Her fashion TV spots were praised as ornamental messages. Shelli Lipton was the youngest owner of a recognized advertising agency revamping the National Audubon Society from a bird society to an environmental organization in 1972.

Warner Brothers, Inc. granted Ms. Lipton money to produce a promotional film on "The Children's Art Collection”, a greeting card and licensing business in the 1970s-1980s. That film, “A Purple Tree is Fine with Me”, went on tour in Japan in the early seventies. Later works were documentaries with White Buffalo Multimedia, Inc. starting in the late eighties when Ms. Lipton also founded Woodstock Museum, Inc. is now an international venue for tourists and researchers into the sixties era of consciousness raising, sustainable living and future environmental development.

Often behind a camera, Ms. Lipton takes liberties to experiment as a paintbrush or palette knife. You wouldn't want to hire her as camera one to film a straight documentation. Ms. Lipton says, "for me to communicate as an artist I see process as giving me freedom to create. The camera is just one of many tools. Our brain is the source to play out the vision."

"Wisdom for the Future" features Iroquois orators and scholars offering solutions to make a better world through a system of government given by "The Peacemaker". America's founders used Iroquois government structure while leaving essential elements out. "I am fully aware that change must take place to prevent extinction. The seven part series is a preparation to bring you into a new paradigm, solving the problem of the power of the people vs. the power of corporate agenda. It's a must see, must learn film series to learn cooperation, not competition and be free people.

SEPT 3 - FRIDAY
2:30 & 8:30PM I'm So Tired
Comedy about new parents whon attempt to plan their evening...

2:36 & 8:36PM The Pageant
One person's questioning throws a young couple into a state of crisis.

Director Biography - Kasey O'Brien

Kasey has worked and trained as an actor both theatrically and on camera. Always fascinated with human stories and a beautiful image, she has begun to tell her own stories through film.
MFA 2020 The New School, New York
from kaseyobriennyc.com

2:45 & 8:45PM Grounders
An inside look at The Prospect Park Women’s Softball League which was formed in 1981 with a radical vision to welcome all women to play regardless of prior experience. It remains a place where women meet across differences of race, economic class, sexual orientation, education, religion, and gender identity to play softball. Q&A

Director - Melanie Hope

3:50 & 9:50PM Who's a Good Man?
Girl meets boy. Or does she?

Director - Rhonda G. Robinson

4:00 & 10:00PM Recalling
A young woman named Emma leaves the city for the countryside during a pandemic. She is escaping from the virus, but she is also attempting to leave behind painful memories of her husband, Johnny, who was recently killed by a police officer. Emma arrives in the rural setting of her childhood only to run into Lorenz, a strange vagabond who claims to have access to powerful magic that can help her. Connecting through loss and music, the odd pair overcome their differences to form a unique bond that will alter her life drastically, though not in any way she could have imagined. Q&A

Director Biography: Ariel Glenn and Edoardo Nicholas Bianchi

Ariel Glenn is originally from a small town near Buffalo, NY. A graduate of the Shakespeare School in ON, Canada, SUNY Fredonia and the Stella Adler Studio, she is currently a stage and film actress based in NYC. Her most recent on-camera credits include the feature length film, Ascension, and the Web Series, the Realm. She originated the role of Dr. Angeri in Goodville at the Hudson Guild Theater, New York Theater Festival, Winterfest 2020 and played Alice in A Sex Thing at HERE Center for the arts. She had begun producing and directing her own work, Recalling being her first film directing credit.
Edoardo Nicholas Bianchi s a bilingual actor, writer and director born in NYC and raised in Milan, Italy from the age of five. After coming back to New York, he was admitted at the prestigious Stella Adler Studio Of Acting where he attended first the Summer Conservatory and then the 2 year Evening Conservatory. Edoardo has also written, produced and directed his own play, Goodville, accepted at the New York Theater Festival, Winterfest 2020. He’s currently working on producing his own short and feature films.

Director Statement: Inspired by the painful events of 2020, this film is an imagining of a world in which trauma caused by brutality and disease could be healed by the magic of strangers.

SEPT 4 - SATURDAY

2:30 & 8:30PM Seeking a Lost Age
Mystical journey to ancient Lemuria with art, montage, sculpture & dance. Q&A’s

Director: Atsuko Mu Yuma (????? is a self-taught multi-media artist from Japan who has lived in New York for 50 years. Yuma earned her degree in design from Musashino Art College in Japan.
For decades, she has been painting oil continuously, performing and has often been told that she is
“Married to Art”
Through her encounters with the eastern and western world, she created natural, spontaneous images and a unique vision of life. Her work is simultaneously futuristic and primitive.
Yuma has exhibited in group shows and solo exhibitions throughout New York, Las Vegas, China,
North Korea, Ecuador and Japan and completed a residency in Morocco.
Most of her creation are based on the harmonic waves of love, strength, great universal power, mystery
of life and death, ancient myth story and culture. Those elements are her impulse of creation.

Statement: I am a Japanese multi-media artist living in New York City for the last 50 years.
My work is an environment warning, a call to us all to recognize the importance of earth and its elements.
Through my creations, I remind people of the peace, unity and beauty of the world.
The universe is a most amazing being with much to teach us and we must maintain this beautiful and powerful earth. These lessons inspire my creation. I will continue to create until the last day of my life.

3:00 & 9:00PM Mississippi Turning
When your state flag contains an emblem that’s been used as a symbol of hate, how do you engage those who consider it part of their heritage? Artist & activist Genesis Be, after her controversial protest against Mississippi's Confederate Heritage Month, heads down to her home state of Mississippi to have an honest discussion with people on both sides of the debate, including her childhood friend, a proud descendant of Confederate soldiers. Q&A

Director Biography - Adam Grannick

Adam Grannick is a New York-based filmmaker whose projects, ranging from documentary to experimental, have won awards in festivals across the country. “Nashwa,” which he directed,  won 1st Place, Women’s Rights category at the 2015 My Hero International Film Festival and won 3rd Prize at the 2015 Reason Media Awards. "American Quartet," which he co-wrote and produced, won 5 awards, including Best Experimental at Coney Island Film Festival.
Director Statement
In a country that's profoundly polarized, is there a more polarizing symbol than the Confederate battle flag? And yet that same symbol, attached to the flag of Mississippi, shows the way to how Americans can converse with one another again. This documentary short demonstrates the purpose -- and promise -- of risking outreach to the other side.

When your state flag features an emblem of hate, how do you engage with those who treasure it as part of their heritage? In 2016, Genesis Be launched a no-holds-barred protest against Confederate Heritage Month. Provocative images from her protest went viral. Death threats poured into her social feeds. But rather than double down in defensiveness, Genesis headed to her home state of Mississippi for an honest dialogue with a childhood friend, the proud descendant of Confederate soldiers. She got more than she bargained for.

By choosing to be vulnerable with each other, the stars of this film reveal a blueprint for how the rest of us can seek common ground even when we stand our ground. Far from compromising their values, these young Mississippians prove that life need not be a zero-sum game and that hearts can change. It turns out that flags do, too.

4:15 & 10:15PM The Album
An independently produced documentary about the record industry, told from the perspective of the art department. With over 40 interviews comprised of 3 generations, top creators of their day talk about the development of the art synonymous with the music you know and love. From Abbey Road, Hotel California, and Dark Side of the Moon to Breakfast in America and Nirvana’s Nevermind, you’ll hear the stories behind the most memorable art in music history. These art directors and photographers shaped pop culture of their day, and reflect on the delicate balance between art and commerce, rebellion and status quo, and the consequences of digital disruption.

Directed by music industry veteran Kevin Hosmann, with 20 gold records to his art directing credit, including NWA’s Straight Outta Compton.
Director Biography - Kevin Hosmann

I started my career analogue, designing album covers. Twenty-two gold and platinum records later, I found the internet in its infancy. I created the first official Nirvana site for Geffen Records and designed the first Lexus site (the first major automotive site) for Team One the same year. I was at Geocities, the first social network as Art Director for advertising when they were bought out by Yahoo! for 5,700,000,000, we thought at the time there was nothing but up!
Throughout the dot bomb I always searched for the next wave. As an Innovation Creative Director my group continued to create prototypes of the future for AOL, Motorola, Microsoft, and Nickelodeon (among others).
In 2007 I joined Warner Bros. during their digital renaissance where my art department designed (UX and visual) for each of their digital touch points, from front-end to backend.
I continued in advertising as a User Experience Director plotting the consumer’s path to conversion, all the while seeing that digital disruption and the wave it created would continue to play a part in my work and the world around me. Change is constant.

Director Statement: There was an ice breaker at a company I was working at which asked us all to put a Powerpoint presentation together (20 slides on a 5 second timer) to tell us something about ourselves that the group doesn’t know. I was an Art Director in the record industry early in my career. None of the knew that.
I did my presentation on 20 of the gold records I had done, quick stories. What was so cool is that by the end of the presentation everyone was one their feet clapping laughing. They had no idea that this balding middle aged man that the worked with everyday had such a crazy past. And that I had created covers that they collected and listened to as teenagers.
That got me thinking: What if I got together all the art directors and photographers I knew and put the best stories into a documentary? Five years and 50 interviews later, THE ALBUM is a collection of the best “I never knew that” stories about the music industry you’ll ever hear.

SEPT 5 - SUNDAY

2:30 & 8:30PM She Had a Dream: Eula Johnson's Fight to Desegregate
"She Had a Dream" is based on the personal account by Eula Johnson - in her own words - of what it was like organizing the 1961 Fort Lauderdale Beach Wade-Ins 60 years ago this summer. Created as a digital resource to accompany History Fort Lauderdale's educational presentation "Civil Rights in Fort Lauderdale," this film juxtaposes historical events with a powerful message that democracy requires active practice of civil duty.

Director Biography - Janay Joseph

Janay Joseph is a filmmaker based in South Florida. Her professional interests include historical studies, documentary filmmaking, film studies, and communications. She is a life-long Broward County resident, and hopes to create more films in the future. She is currently studying for her undergraduate degree at Nova Southeastern University.

Director Statement: While updating a K-12 curriculum on Black History as part of a semester-long academic internship with HISTORY Fort Lauderdale, I first learned about Eula Johnson and her work as a Civil Rights activist in Broward County. I decided that for my main internship project I would produce a short documentary project focusing on her work with the Wade-ins.
Act I of the film focuses on both Eula’s background, and the history of Sistrunk. This section also provides context of the legacy of racial discrimination in South Florida. Act II introduces the Wade-ins and the racial backlash of the protests. The risks that Eula Johnson took to stand up for her community and the fearlessness that she brought with it becomes the main focus. The climax of the film details the lawsuit that the city filed against Johnson and the verdict. Act III focuses on both the aftermath of the verdict, and the legacy of Eula Johnson and the Wade-ins from the perspective of today’s social, political and economic realities.
There were several other events that informed the direction of our work as well. After visiting the Old Dillard Museum, Tara and I grabbed lunch at Smitty’s Wings (which were excellent, by the way). Everyone in the neighborhood kept running into each other while they came out to support this new Black owned business. I saw people chatting with their friends, the landscapers, and others in the community. On the walls of the restaurant, I saw a collage of images that detailed the Civil Rights history in South Florida. Suddenly, I realized that they were the same images we had just seen at the museum only an hour before. I found the famous picture of Eula Johnson at the courthouse on the wall, surrounded by a mural of other Civil Rights figures, with Marvin Gaye playing in the background. It was at this moment when I realized the importance of sharing her story and the weight that her legacy continues to have in the Sistrunk community and around the world.

2:45 & 8:45PM The PRATT in the HAT
Beneath the brims of hundreds of colorful hats is a woman who shares her wisdom, humor, and personal experiences about being black in America, then and now. Frances Pratt’s hats make a bold statement as does her southern charm and pithy expressions which she garnered through a lifetime of service to her community fighting for racial equality, voting rights and education. Q&A

Director Biography - Susan Hillary

Susan Hillary aka Susan Hillary Shapiro has been making independent feature films and documentaries since the 1980s. Some of her films have premiered at the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals. The documentary “Studio 54” on which she was the archival cinematographer is streaming on Netflix.
Link to Studio 54 film: https://www.netflix.com/title/81004511

Director Statement: I was inspired to create this piece when I spotted Frances across a crowded political event. Pratt was adorned in one of her striking hats and she was a beacon of color in a sea of grey. I asked her if she would allow me to photograph her in her hats. She agreed and I found what lay beneath her large-brimmed bonnets was a woman whose personal insight and firsthand knowledge into racial equality is one that is relevant, now more than ever.

3:30 & 9:30PM The Cost of Denial
From 1981 to 2021, the world has confronted a terrible scourge that has impacted countless individuals with fear, pain and death. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent
on our war against AIDS. The medical industry has focused on antiretroviral drugs to combat the
HIV virus. All efforts to develop a vaccine have failed.
This is the story of the earliest successful treatment for AIDS. If the mainstream scientific community had paid attention, tens of thousands of lives may have been saved. Ignored and forgotten during the AIDS crisis this is the heroic struggle by a small group of physicians, nurses and healthcare professionals who succeeded in treating 1,200 patients with advanced AIDS. Eighteen of these patients reversed all of their AIDS-related conditions, regained full health and converted to HIV negative. In other words, the HIV virus was no longer present in their bodies.
These are the voices revealing the pain, profit and politics of AIDS.
Director - Huw Christi

SEPT 6 - MONDAY
12:30 & 8:30PM Bestial's Passage
A Computer generated animation project incorporates motion capture technology and performance data. Conceptually the visual esthetic combines an experimental character design language, geographical terrain data and an overall monochromatic color theme.

12:35 & 8:35PM Peacetime: A Royal Frog
A meditation exercise for kids age 3 to 99 and then some.

Director Biography: A New Jersey native, Steve Moore has enjoyed a 37 year career in the animation industry. You've seen his work in films such as "Despicable Me", "Coraline", and "A Goofy Movie" to name a few. He directed the Oscar nominated short "Redux Riding Hood" as well as the Emmy nominate special "Olive, the Other Reindeer". He is currently a director on the Disney Junior series "Puppy Dog Pals".

Director Statement: I initially created "PeaceTime" as part of a TV series pitch. I was looking to do a show that was calming, but still fun, amid the relentless barrage of high energy programs for kids. After striking out with the studios, I decided to complete it as a short - the first of many such shorts, I hope.

12:40 & 8:40PM Calf Rope
During the summer of '66, a former rodeo champion and cattle auctioneer from Oklahoma bonds tightly with his young grandson from suburban Pennsylvania while teaching him a few tricks from his previous trades. Shot entirely in rural Pennsylvania, Calf Rope captures the intense love that grandparents often share with their grandchildren and the legacy that lives on long after they have gone. Q&A

Director Biography - Bradley Hawkins

Actor/Director, Bradley Hawkins, made his directorial debut for the big screen in 2015 with his award-winning comedy short, ROLLER COASTER. After starting a career as an actor in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1990s, Hawkins and his family moved to Lancaster, PA where he taught film studies, and humanities courses at the high school level, and directed several stage productions. Now retired from teaching, Hawkins has picked up where he left off 25 years ago, and his recent acting credits include the lead role in LOBSTER CAGE, and supporting roles on television in, COLD CASE, UNUSUAL SUSPECTS, MURDER BOOK, and DEADLINE: CRIME. As a film director, screenwriter, and producer, Hawkins won 10 awards for his comedy short, ROLLER COASTER, and 21 awards for his comedy-fantasy short, FILLING IN.

Director Statement: Loosely based on my childhood memories of the tight bond I had with my Grandad Mac, CALF ROPE focuses on the legacy that he unknowingly left behind that influenced me as to what it means to be the playful, connected, and active grandpa that I strive to be with my own two young grandchildren today. CALF ROPE means more to me on a personal level than any other creative endeavor I’ve ever embarked on. It truly feels like my entire life has led to this moment in time for the purpose of telling this story of the importance of leaving a long-lasting legacy for the generations beyond through the wonder and magic of cinema.

1:40 & 9:40PM 8000 Paperclips
When Israeli artist and TED Fellow, Raffael Lomas turned 50, he knew he wanted his new work to have meaning. So when he learned about a group of South Sudanese children who had been raised in Israel and were then deported to South Sudan, he jumped at the chance to go make art with them and “see what would happen.”
What happened was that over the course of several days during the summer vacation of 2014, Raffael and the students built a house made out of 8000 paper clips – 8000 points of connection - symbolizing the meaning of home. But he also learned the children’s complex stories and heard tales of their arduous journeys – escaping the horrors of war, fleeing militias, crossing borders under fire. The connections he forged with them would mark the beginning of a longer quest to make the “project count.”
Feeling that the children’s deportation was still an open wound, Raffael brought the house sculpture back to Israel to afford the children a way to look back and connect to those they had left behind. With an exhibition of the sculpture in Tel Aviv and a Skype call, the children are able to traverse space and time and connect to the people who had once been part of their home.
That event led to more connections – and Raffael begins to think about how to forge a connection between the Abayudaya, the Jewish community of Uganda, and the South Sudanese refugees who are Christians but once lived in Israel and speak Hebrew. If the refugee students can teach the Jewish children Hebrew, then perhaps they can earn a living? And what else can an art object do for the children? Raffael travels back to Kampala to take the South Sudanese students to meet the Abayudaya and sends the house off on a journey to meet the art world. As the sculpture travels, maybe it can accrue more meaning , create awareness about the plight of refugees, and make their humanity tangible. Maybe it will even sell and imagine what that money could do for the kids!
In a complex and layered story, 8000 Paper Clips explores the value of art, Raffael’s own history with depression and struggle, and what humans need – no matter their national status. It follows a group of extraordinary young people as they overcome adversity and build hope for their future – with the support of a team of people whose hearts they have touched.
When resources are limited and the need is great – what is the real value of art? No matter how much Raffael tortures himself with that question, ultimately it is the children who are best able to answer it. Q&A

Director Biography - Nitsan Tal

Nitsan Tal was born and raised in Israel, in a Kibbutz.
Her grandfather, an avid amateur photographer, gave her her first SLR camera together with Dark room equipment, and sparked her first interest in photography.
Nitsan studied veterinary medicine in Israel and moved to the U.S. in 1998. The proximity to New York City allowed her to take classes in photography while practicing as a veterinarian. She studied at the New York Institute of Photography and the International Center of Photography.
In 2008 Nitsan established her photography studio in Closter, New Jersey.
Nitsan’s personal work is documentary in style with emphasis on the human condition. She has special interest in the work of nonprofit aid organizations and donates her time and services to NGO’s around the world.
In 2013 Nitsan filmed her first documentary film “It Takes Balls”, the story of an actor who likes to portray women. The film was shown in several festivals in the U.S.
She since completed two more documentary films: “Writers Matter”, about a non profit organization working with inner city school children in Philadelphia, and “8000 Paperclips” about an artist working with refugee children in Uganda.
(Nitsan’s work has been shown in the following venues:
The Center for Cuban Arts NYC
Umbrella Arts NYC
25 CPW Gallery NYC
Scott Hill Gallery Closter New Jersey
Next Gallery NYC
World Affairs Council Global Visions exhibition
Cinemadiverse - Palm Springs Gay and Lesbian Film Festival
Big Apple Film Festival
The Three Minutes Theatre, Manchester, UK
New Hope Film Festival
Impact Docs
The New Americans Museum -San Diego
Firstglance Film Festival - Philadelphia
Chicago International Social Change Film Festival)

Director Statement: In November of 2015, I got a text from a friend. Someone is looking for a camera person to document a project in Uganda. Would I be interested?
Two days later I spoke to Raffael, an Israeli artist, on the phone. He told me about his project with a group of deported South Sudanese refugees and sent me a link to a TV program about them. Five minutes into watching the program, I got up to look for a box of tissues.
By the time I learned that there was very little budget for the project and that I wouldn’t be paid, I was already hooked on the story and set on going.

3:20 & 11:20PM The Boy and the Mountain
Hernán is a child who likes to daydream, but in his studies he is not doing well at all. His father constantly urges him to improve, advising him that he must reach very high to succeed in life. Hernán dispenses with his dream, gradually forgetting it to devote himself to his studies. After becoming a successful entrepreneur, Hernán achieves the dream that his father instilled in him, reach high, until one day he realizes that he has not really achieved what he always longed for. Then he makes the crucial decision to fulfill his dream, but fate plays tricks on him. Hernán will have to face a new challenge that will change the meaning of his life.
Director Biography - Santiago Aguilera, Gabriel Monreal

Since 1996 Santiago is VXF Artist, or Visual Effects Artist6 trained in 3-D modeling, animation & compositing. He is Animation Director for several Audiovisual productions, long & short films, and also TV advertising. "The Boy & the Mountain" is his first film.

3:33 & 11:35PM Duet
Duet is the story of one fateful day in the lives of 8-year-old girls May and Shadmit, who dislike each other but learn that their lives have become oddly intertwined forever.
Duet is a multidisciplinary project, uniquely integrating film and music. The story raises questions about loneliness, regret, subject memory and fate that ties two children together for a lifetime.
Director Biography - Mika Orr

Mika Orr started her career as a film director at the age of 15. She served as a lead cinematographer for the Israel Air Force’s film unit and was the documentary DP, or Director of Photography, for award winning feature films (“Chronicle of a Kidnap”, “Stains”). Mika was the director of a short documentary BTS of Academy Award winner Natalie Portman's directorial debut as well as for Academy award winner Alexander Dinelaris’s film.
In May 2017, she earned a master's degree with honors from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her short film "Professional Cuddler", was selected for over 35 film festivals and won 7 awards.
In 2008 she established her own production company, Mikooka Productions, and directed hundreds of marketing videos, commercials and documentaries for clients like Google, Coca Cola, Spin Master, Yad Vashem, The European Union, The Israel Museum and Tel Aviv Municipality.
Mika’s latest documentary project #AMiNORMAL is planned to go in production in 2020. It is supported by the French/German channel Arte as well as the Israeli Public Channel. In addition, these days Mika is working on her first feature-length documentary, already fully funded, which will take place in multiple refugee camps around the world.

Director Statement: ‘Duet’ is a semi-autobiographical and very personal project for me.
As a child of divorced parents, I experienced quite a few encounters with new romantic partners of my parents. When I was eight, the girl I hated most in my class moved into our home as a result of her mom and my dad becoming a couple.
That was the inspiration behind the story of ‘Duet’. The gap between reality and fantasy is an area that I enjoy exploring and what gave rise to ‘Duet’ being a love story.
In reality, the fierce hatred between me and the other girl turned into rivalry and mounted difficulties that eventually led to the separation of our parents.
Feelings of guilt and remorse deeply shaded the encounter with her, and it took me many years to realize that these precise feelings sometimes are the ones powerful enough to generate very strong connections between people.
On the other hand, I remember how, as a child, I hoped and fantasized that one day that girl would turn out to be my soulmate later in life. A common fate that bonds two people in an early stage of their lives has always made me very envious and is a notion I explored throughout the film's making. Other topics stemmed from it, such as parental neglect, bonds formed by loneliness, nostalgia, and subjective memory.

For PDF Poster of "Drive-In" CLICK HERE

For PDF Poster of  "TV Channel 23" CLICK HERE

Woodstock Museum 2020 long descriptions

01. "R1514,The Waiting" Overview of refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria.

The Sahrawi refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria began at the end of 1975 in one of the toughest places in the world, the Hammada, the devil’s garden. We give an overview of how they live. Thanks to their determination, Sahrawi have made a home under extreme conditions, a desert with frequent sandstorms and temperatures over 50 °C (122 Fahrenheit) in summer, with no water but rare heavy flash rainfalls that flood the camps. With the camp’s 43rd anniversary, we wanted to highlight a situation that began with the decolonization process.

"R1514, the Waiting" starts with a black screen and the sound of sea waves, a reminder of what Sahrawi have lost. Images will show us their hard work in order to live with dignity and the importance of education and the position of women, both key factors in Sahrawi's surviving in such a hard environment.The solution to end the camps should be peaceful and all nations can work toward it.

Director Biography - Salvador Alemany

Salvador Alemany is a news producer at the Catalonian public TV. He has worked on-site during the independence of Kosovo, Ukraine orange revolution, Venezuela coup d’état, and has covered many other breaking news events.

Director Statement

We did two short trips. In the first, the temperature was so high that we had to stay at midday inside the adobe houses and jaimas. I felt constantly the camera at the verge of burning. The second time, we went through a sandstorm. Lenses were affected. Moreover, the battery charger collapsed. Two batteries were damaged. The original project was impossible to fulfill.

But it was not dramatic. We had the joy of living with the Sahrawi, in their homes, eating their food, just being with them. We tell the story of Sahrawi resistance and of women and education as key factors.

02. "Educate Girls" Making education more accessible for girls from India.

In India, the majority of girls do not complete their primary education. "Educate Girls" is working to make education more accessible to girls by partnering with public schools, training local champions for girls’ education, and mobilizing communities to help girls achieve their full potential.

Director Biography - Gabriel Diamond

Gabriel Diamond started working in video at age 13 at KDOL-TV in Oakland, CA. Now he travels the world making films about people who make things better.

Along with Ken Ikeda he co-founded The Factory, a filmmaking lab for Bay Area youth. Works created under his mentorship won top prizes at dozens of national festivals including an Emmy. His first feature "Less", follows and idealistic and troubled man who has chosen to live on the streets in San Francisco. It received honorable mention for the grand jury prize at Dances With Films Festival.

He shot and acted in "How To Cheat" which premiered at the LA Film Festival, and won best acting ensemble and best narrative at Bend Film Festival.

In 2011 he shot a short documentary in Nepal entitled “We Are In The Field: Adventures of a 3rd World Environmental Activist.” It’s now being developed into a feature length film “All Living Things” with Jane Goodall.

He’s now the staff filmmaker & photographer at the Skoll Foundation in Palo Alto.

03. "Human Applications" Reflecting on the algorithmic patterns and architectures behind biological and artificial intelligence.

Are the latest innovations in Artificial Intelligence worthy of our fear or celebration as we stride into a more technologically reliant future?

MareNostrum 4, the supercomputer harboured underneath a deconsecrated chapel in Barcelona, provides the perfect backdrop to the opening sequence. In the 19th century, when the church was erected, western societies broadly believed we were originated and governed by a single, divine creator.
In the final sequence we meet our protagonists, a real computer scientist and his two humanoid AI agents (played by actors) in God’s house. They are the conduits for our exploration of a paradoxical world in which it is humans, not God, playing the role of divine creator.
But will our creation, Artificial Intelligence, eventually come to govern us? And does this necessarily have to be a bad thing?

Dialogs are based on interviews with prominent voices in the field of AI (including Chris Boos, (CEO of Arago), Prof. Stuart Russel and Prof. Kevin Warwick (Professor of Robotics and the first ever self-professed human cyborg)

Director Biography - Marina Landia

Marina is a video and performance artist based in Berlin and London. She was a lecturer at the Institute for Art in Context, Berlin University of Arts.
Main focus of her artistic work is on the exploration and critical evaluation of major economic and technological shifts. Her recent project “Regular Crisis: Cantata on the Global Economy" has been presented in different countries and screened at Barbicain, London.

04. "Out Loud" Trans Chorus of Los Angeles makes history with talent extraordinaire.

The documentary film chronicles the ups and downs of the first season of the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles -- the largest group of transgender and gender non-conforming people anywhere in the world who come together regularly to sing. As the choristers gear up for their 2016 public concert debut, they share their inspiring life stories and reveal what it means to be trans in America. This extraordinary chorus makes more than music. It’s making history.

Director Biography - Gail Willumsen

Director-producer-writer Gail Willumsen began her career at National Geographic Television, and went on to produce documentary programs for PBS (NOVA, Nature), Discovery, A&E and other outlets. She has earned two individual Emmys for writing (“Volcano!” for National Geographic Television, and “The Mummy Who Would Be King” for NOVA), an Emmy for producing and directing (“RX for Survival: A Global Health Challenge” for WGBH and Vulcan Inc.), and a Peabody award (“Black Sky: a Race for Space” for Discovery ), as well as many other accolades for her work. But the real reward, says Willumsen, “is the work itself: the incredible generosity of strangers who allow us into their lives, and trust us with their amazing stories.” Willumsen is a graduate of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television with a BA and MFA in film production.

In 1999, Willumsen founded Gemini Productions with producer Jill Shinefield. Gemini’s documentary and non-fiction productions have explored the kaleidoscope of human experience and achievement, from the building of Stonehenge to the marvels of spaceflight, from the burial practices of ancient peoples to the development of advanced medical technologies.

Director Statement

In late 2015, I spotted an article in a local newspaper announcing the creation of the first chorus for transgender and gender-nonconforming people in Los Angeles. This would be a chorus with a mission: to give voice to people who have been too long silenced. It sounded glorious, and it fairly cried out to be documented. With my producing partner Jill Shinefield, I contacted the chorus’ founders and offered to chronicle the first season of this extraordinary project.

We were not the only filmmakers interested in the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles, and we considered it a great privilege when the chorus opened its doors to us. For half a year, we (myself on camera, Jill recording sound) filmed every weekly rehearsal as the singers were pushed to their limit by chorus founder and artistic director Lindsey Deaton, a trans woman with decades of classical music training. The stakes were high: at the end of the season, the chorus would have their public debut in a performance at UCLA. Over time, outside the rehearsal space, Jill and I would also compile portraits of choristers who shared their personal stories with us. The experience was transformative: it brought me close to some of the bravest, strongest and most self-realized individuals I have ever had the honor to know.

The sad truth is that more Americans claim to have seen a ghost than to have met a transgender person, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. Most people get their information about the trans community from film, television and other media –where trans people are most often depicted as freaks, deviants and criminals. Is it any wonder that trans individuals suffer daily discrimination and harassment, as well as disproportionate rates of violent assault, murder and suicide?

With the advent of stars like Laverne Cox and shows like "Transparent", it seems the tide, ever so slowly, is beginning to turn. I hope that in some small way, our documentary "Out Loud" can add to that momentum. I like to think of "Out Loud" as an invitation to viewers everywhere to get to know a vibrantly diverse group of singers –some younger, some older; some musically trained, some not- all united by a desire to passionately change the way others see the transgender community.

Full disclosure, I don’t identify as LGBT, but I am an ally, close friend, sister, niece, and godmother to many beloved individuals who do. I’ve lived three decades in the rainbow city of West Hollywood, through the AIDS holocaust, and the fight for marriage equality. I marched for trans rights in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. I never want to lose another brilliant friend to HIV. I dream of a day when I won’t worry for my sister’s safety because she is married to a woman. I want to help create a future in which the trans people I have come to cherish can flourish without fear of discrimination or violence. That is the heart and soul behind the making of Out Loud.

05. Survive After a planetary cataclysm, a man struggles to survive.

Director - MARC DESSUP

Screenings & Awards

7th Indian Cine Film Festival-19
Mumbai
India
September 8, 2019
Best sceenplay
Cinekasimanwa: Western Visayas Film Festival

Philippines
November 25, 2019
Best Actor
Officiel sélection
Eurasia International Monthly Film Festival

Russian Federation
November 25, 2019
Best Actor
Copper Coast International Film Festival
Royaume-Uni
January 15, 2020
Officiel sélection
Direct Monthly Online Film Festiva

United States
February 4, 2020
WINNER OF THE MONTH
Ichill Manila Film Fest
Manille
Philippines
April 11, 2020
Officiel selection
The Scene Festival

United States
Officiel sélection
End of Days Film Festival
Orlando
United States
April 22, 2020
Officiel sélection
Copper Coast International Film Festival
Swansea
Philippines
May 15, 2020
Officiel Selection
Euro Fest" European International Film Festival
Saint Pétersbourg
Russian Federation
May 16, 2020
Best Director

06. "Walter Treppiedi" Con artist keeps tricking people until challenged not to lie for two minutes.

Walter, a con artist, drives around the city with his sick guard dog in the back. Sometimes successful, other times less so, Walter keeps tricking people, until an acquaintance dares him to go two minutes without telling a lie.

Director Biography - Elena Boiuryka

Since her first approach was as an actress studying Strasberg’s Method in 2003 with Francesca de Sapio. She become a member De Fazio's CREASTUDIO, focalising in writing and directing. In 2004 was her debut with Fausto Brizzi "Night before Exams." In 2012, she made her first directorial short "Better You Shut Up". The second,in 2019, is "Walter Treppiedi”. She also collaborates in casting and participated as acting-coach in Daniele Luchetti's films “I Am Tempesta" (2017) and "Moments of Negligible Happiness"(2018).

07. "Uprooting Addiction: Healing From The Ground Up" Six recovering addicts from varying walks of life.

Six recovering addicts from varying walks of life, each affected by childhood trauma, come together to share their stories, emerging from darkness through community, connection, and compassion. Interweaving these stories with up-to-the-minute accounts of collective action from an equally diverse group of activists, officials, volunteers, caregivers, and experts, "Uprooting Addiction" is a mosaic-like portrait of a single community coming together to take on one of the most urgent public health challenges of our times.

Director Biography

Tory Estern Jadow is a 20-year veteran of the New York City film industry. She began her career working crew on feature films, commercials, music videos, and documentaries throughout the '80s and '90s. After receiving an MFA in fiction writing, Jadow moved to Connecticut where she freelances as a director, cinematographer, writer, and editor. "Uprooting Addiction" is her first feature-length project as a director.

08. "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" Music satire on prejudice these days.

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! is a music video that uses social satire to comment on prejudice in the Trump era.

Director Biography

Caeser Pink is a multimedia artist best known for his work with The Imperial Orgy artist collective. Caeser is also the founder of the Arete Living Arts Foundation.

09. Panic Attack! Animation explores anxiety, obsession, and one person's slippery hold on reality.

Director Biography

Eileen O'Meara is an American artist known for her hand-drawn films “Agnes Escapes from the Nursing Home” and “That Strange Person”. She received the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and Women in Film Foundation’s Hollywood Film & Video Grants.

She has produced and directed commercial animated spots for clients including Warner Home Video, Motown, HBO, and WEA Latina.

Director Statement

“Panic Attack!” is a hand-drawn animation from the point of view of a woman having a panic attack. I wanted the transitions between reality and her imagined fears to be seamless, so there are no edits -- it is one continually transforming drawing.

010. "Duet" Youngster living with uncle thrives on passion for music.

Jacob, a kid with a tragic past is forced to move in with his uncle. Jacob attends a new school where he struggles to fit in until he meets Damien. Damien helps Jacob find his true passion through music and friendship.

Director Biography

John Theissen Jr. is a Long Islander born and raised. Ever since his childhood he was fascinated by film. His favorite movies are "Dark Knight", "Big Lebowski", and "Drive". He won best movie and director at the Scott Bogel Film Festival (2017) which was his first film. John Theissen continues to write, direct, and act in films.

Director Statement

Duet was the first feature film I've directed. This film was a High School project that was for our advanced film class. I consider it my first proud achievement as a filmmaker!

011. "New Hampshire: Live Free and Fly" An aerial tour of the Granite State set to Redbird's Wing by New Hampshire folk singer Bill Staines.

Director Biography - Jen Hosker fell in love with drones while working as an engineer and quickly made the transition from industrial equipment test flights to aerial photography and videography. Her passion led her to start Elevated Optics LLC in 2018. Jen’s favorite part of flying is demonstrating that ordinary locations can be breathtakingly beautiful when captured from the right angle. She can often be found driving around her home state of New Hampshire, looking for interesting locations to fly.

Director Statement

I grew up listening to the music of New Hampshire folk singer Bill Staines on long car rides through the Granite State. His song "Redbird’s Wing" is the embodiment of what flying feels like for me. It is both the ultimate freedom of being airborne as well as the humbling realization of how small we are in nature. I had "Redbird’s Wing" playing in the background one day, while planning my next drone adventure. The combination of the lyrics and the fact that my drone is red inspired this film, capturing the different beautiful locations in my home state to share with others.

012. "Sing You A Brand New Song: The Words & Music of Coleman Mellet" Dizzy Gillespie's daughter & others complete music of jazz guitarist who died in airplane crash.

"Sing You a Brand New Song: The Words and Music of Coleman Mellett" is a testament to the power of love and music. When jazz guitarist Mellett died on February 12, 2009 at the age of 34 in the crash of Continental Airlines Flight #3407 outside Buffalo, he left behind a remarkable legacy of love and of artistic passion. He also left behind a dream in the form of an unfinished album of original songs, many written for his wife, jazz singer Jeanie Bryson. Bryson, the daughter of jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie vowed, along with “Coley’s” brother Zeb, to finish the project. Through a combination of painstaking and masterful digital extraction of thousands of musical files, and an all-star cast of musicians who lent their talents and their hearts to the project, they not only brought Coley’s vision to life, they shared with the world an unforgettable love letter of a story that shows how love and music can find light even in the darkest of times.

013. "The Seahorse Trainer" A lonely man's passion for training seahorses.

Enter the surreal and nautical world of Seamour. A lonely old man with a passion for training seahorses. Desperate to have his most prized seahorse perform the highly ambitious “Triple Back Flip”, the final day of training has come, and it’s up to his knowledge, preparation and the seahorse’s determination to see the trick come to life. But when the hourglass turns, Seamour realizes it is even harder than he thought and he must overcome his troubled past before the magic fades or the trick will never be achieved.

Director Biography - Ricardo Bonisoli and Babak Bina are VFX artist based in Vancouver, Canada. They have been part of projects like Star Wars: the last Jedi, Captain Marvel, and Aquaman. In 2017 both decided to dive into the filmmaking world and started directing their first short film "The Seahorse Trainer", a surreal narrative film with over 100 homemade VFX shots. The film premiered at the 45th Seattle International Film Festival (2019) where it received the grand jury award in its category, making the film Oscar qualified for the 2020 edition. The film has also received other awards including "best fantasy film" at Filmquest Festival and most recently, "best VFX" at the SPARK animation festival 2019.

014. "The Extractive Gaze" Nuero-marketers learn to read customer's thoughts.

Neuro-marketers learn to read customers’ thoughts. Our sensitive genetic data go into central data banks available to insurance companies. Software now recognizes us by our gait and our typing pattern as well as world-wide facial recognition. Increasingly, marketers extract data thought to be private or personal, and use it to shape our experience. This film is not limited to straight journalistic reportage. Rather it seeks to generate curiosity and discussion regarding these matters, as well as to entertain.

Director Biography - Steve McGuireis Professor Emeritus at Muskingum University, with a Ph.D. in Sociology from SUNY/Stony Brook. He is co-author of Community on Land (Rowman and Littlefield) and a Past-President of the Association for Humanist Sociology.

Director Statement - I used to comprehend the subject of this film as "surveillance marketing." Increasingly I'm focusing on the way the marketing apparatus shapes and defines human experience. In producing films, I favor the arty/experimental over the straightforward and non-partisan. And for me sociology and film should aim for discussion rather than proofs designed to end discussion.

015. "Phoney Sights" Satirical critique of current social & political changes in Slovenia, Europe, and the world.

A reflection of contemporary society through modified moving images.

A satiric critique of the current social and political changes that are happening in Slovenia, in Europe and in the World aesthetically explored through (de)formation of landscapes and cityscapes. Phony Sights considers social and political issues, and even science when searching for an answer to the questions: Where are we? and Where are we going?

Director Biography - Ana Čigon (1982) is an artist from Slovenia that creates films, video art and performances. Her projects tackle social issues, such as under-representation of women in history, LGBTIQ+ topics and marginalised social groups, pursuit of happiness, the effects of neo-liberalism on society and such. Her works often contain elements of humour and irony.

She is a winner of OHO Award, finalist for the Slovenia Henkel Award and finalist of Vordemberge Gildewart Foundation Award. Her films have been presented on international film festivals worldwide, for which she received numerous nominations, two audience choice awards and three jury awards.

Director Statement - I feel that important changes happened in the world since the last economic crisis. For a long time I have been wanting to make a project that would reflect this. It seems hard to know which information is important and which is not. News broadcasts and newspapers many times are not helpful either. This experimental film is my attempt to make sense of the current political affairs and construct an imagery that could represent it in a global sense.

016. "Night & Day" Marionette show tales the yarn of an uncle and nephew who never knew they were kin.

Night and Day is a story of two lives, an uncle and his nephew. Neither has ever met. In fact the nephew never knew of his uncle's existence until his own coming out to his family. These two men lived very different lives due to the time periods in which they were born. The story is uniquely told via a puppet stage and marionettes.

017. "Digits of Pi" Transcendental film inspired by Duchamp's "Anemic Cinema."

Pi meets Duchamp in a transcendental film! Inspired by Marcel Duchamp's “Anemic Cinema,” I set out to create a film composed within a circular frame. This circular composition led directly to using the number pi for the underlying structure. Having the digits of pi sung on the soundtrack is an homage to “Einstein on the Beach” by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson.

Director Biography - Tom Bessoir , Joshua Pines - Born in New York City in 1957, Tom Bessoir attended The Bronx High School of Science and studied electrical engineering and mathematics at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. While at The Cooper Union, he studied filmmaking with Robert Breer, Joshua Pines, and Sandy Moore.

Tom Bessoir’s experimental films often use mathematics to explore perception and the structure of film. In the arts, Tom Bessoir is best known for "Microfilm" (1979), "Digits of Pi" (2019), and his photography documenting downtown NYC. Tom and Josh met when they were both studying electrical engineering, mathematics and art at The Cooper Union. Recently they co-authored the mathematics paper "Scrabble Seven-letter Words."

018. "Chumbak" Gal uses magnets from junk to fish coins from the sea.

On the verge of losing hope of ever returning home, a young heartbroken girl finds an unorthodox way to make an income; but when she finds out her father is about to go flat-broke she must make ends meet before their fate is sealed in the city.

Director Biography - Tobias Worrall, Isabelle van Hoorn

We are a filmmaking couple from England (Liverpool) and Holland (Amsterdam). We met 13 years ago backpacking in Cambodia. Since then we’ve worked all types of jobs. We taught English in Thailand, planted trees in Canada, and crewed on sailboats in the Pacific. A few years ago we moved to California to study. Tobias studied filmmaking and Isabelle studied Physics. We tend to occupy opposite sides of the brain but come together creatively when we make films. Tobias was granted several scholarships during his film studies and he also received several awards for his short films in different festivals across the state California and in France. The experience we gained while traveling helps us immensely during production. We are used to things not going to plan and we are super adaptable.

Director Statement - The making of our film "Chumbak" took us literally to all extremes. We wanted to challenge ourselves by combining our passion for filmmaking with our desire for adventure and traveling. We completely self funded this film and left for India with just our camera gear and our last bit of money. Before we left we had a rough idea for the narrative for the story, but we wrote the script on location. We got help with the translation as we both don’t speak a word of Hindi and the children actors do not speak any English either.
We traveled to India before and in Varanasi we met some children using magnets from old speakers to fish for coins from the river Ganges. We were told that a lot of pilgrims make wishes by throwing coins in the holy river. To us, symbolically, it was like the children were ‘catching’ the wishes of these people.
Another aspect we really wanted to cover in our film was the contrast of city and jungle. Even though these two locations were 1300km apart from each other, we really wanted to film both, which made logistics and casting very hard. It took us nearly a month to find the younger version of Aarna in the remote villages of Meghalaya.
Trough the process of making this film, we got a unique chance to connect and work with wonderful families from both the jungle and the city and we felt so overwhelmed by all the hospitality that we received along the way. Indians love the art of film and it was such an incredible experience to work together. We learned so much.

019. "The One and Only Jewish Miss America" The surprising story of Bess Myerson, talented beauty queen from the Bronx.

“The One and Only Jewish Miss America” is the surprising story of Bess Myerson, the talented beauty queen from the Bronx, and how she won the world’s most famous beauty pageant 75 years ago, at the tail end of World War II. The film follows Bess, the middle daughter of poor Russian immigrants, from her childhood in a one-bedroom Jewish housing project apartment through the suspense-filled pageant. Impressed by the college-educated musician, the judges chose her in spite of anonymous threatening phone calls and sponsor disapproval of a Jewish pageant winner. On her 1945 Miss America tour, Bess faced antisemitism and closed doors at race-restricted venues which did not allow Jews. It is also a story of courage as her disappointment turned to determination, leading Bess Myerson to start her own tour to teach tolerance at high schools and colleges around the country -- a tour which launched her lifelong passion for justice.

Director Biography - David Arond

Starting as a sound effects editor in Hollywood, David mentored with an award-winning post-production team and discovered the power of sound and music to turn visual imagery into an emotional and visceral experience. David segued into non-fiction, story telling, creating documentaries for PBS, including "Mother of the Year," a MacArthur Foundation Award Winner. Other award-winning include "Houseboat Philosopher" and "Those Who Came Before." His PBS TV work includes producing/directing the weekly series "On The Internet" with Leo LePorte, of Tech TV. David's extensive international film and journalism work includes a stint in Moscow as bureau chief and broadcast journalist for Worldwide Television News, London, and Public Broadcast’s Nightly Business Report, and projects in Mexico, Brazil, Europe, Central Asia, and Australia where he worked with some of the world’s top film crews and journalists.

Director Statement - I wanted to release this film on the 75th anniversary of the landmark moment when Bess Myerson, daughter of poor Jewish immigrants, rocked Atlantic City in September 1945 when she was crowned Miss America against all odds. I have been intrigued with the surprising story of how Bess -- a tall skinny girl who grew up thinking she was ugly -- became “The One and Only Jewish Miss America.” The story starts with Bess, growing up speaking Yiddish in the 1920s in the Bronx with her two sisters, gentle father, and very complicated mother who was determined her daughters would be educated and musical. As a concert pianist and one of the few college graduates in the 1945 Miss America pageant, Bess wowed the crowd with her talent and poise. Viewers will see how Bess's background shaped her ambition and her passion for racial and ethnic equality. That childhood -- and the crushing crucible of antisemitism -- made her a leader, both during the pageant and in her later life.

020. "In the Same Direction" Story of a jazz band and what jazz can be today.

From the inception of a musical idea, through the recording process and live performance, this short documentary tells the story of Jeff Pifher and his band "Socrates' Trial", and their idea of what jazz can be today.

Director Biography - Alexander Craven's passion for film began at a young age, watching black & white movies while his grandfather, a jazz musician, practiced every night. His credits include narrative films, commercials, tour management, and helping start a nationwide independent IP-TV network. Heavily influenced by pre-sixties and international cinema, he's interested in cross-genre suspense stories which explore modern identity and relationships.

Director Statement - Music has an intangible quality which is better experienced than explained, and Jazz is by nature improvisational. It can be among the most collaborative of mediums - one in which leaders become followers, and back again. While many documentaries have sought to capture the lifestyle of being a musician, I felt few have shown the moment-to-moment nature of playing in a band. With strong storytelling elements already present in the music of Jeff Pifher and Socrates' Trial, whatever its genre may be, I sought not to explain but to allow the audience to celebrate in this creative musical process. The journey is in the music.

021. "Whale People: Protectors of the Sea" A Native American tribe protects whales and water.

"Whale People: Protectors of the Sea" tells the story of today’s environmental emergency through the figure of the orca.

Killer whales, or orcas, are a “miner’s canary” for the ocean. Their health indicates the health of the seas, the salmon stocks, the ancestral waters and lifeways of coastal Indigenous communities, and the well-being of future generations.

The orca is among the most contaminated and critically endangered marine mammals in the world. From the Lummi Nation to the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest are sounding the alarm, exposing the many threats orcas face, from outdated dams and depleted salmon stocks they depend on for food, to toxic pollution, sound pollution, and the proposed Trans Mountain Pipeline that would bring 800 new oil tankers annually to the Salish Sea.

This short, experimental film features spectacular underwater footage of the orca, and the voices of Indigenous elders who communicate a message that was at the heart of the totem’s journey: what we do to the waters we do to ourselves. From the Pacific Northwest to the Gulf Coast, fossil fuel pollution and industrial development places at risk our collective natural and cultural heritage. Native communities coast to coast enjoin us all to protect, restore, and pass on to future generations a respect for each other, the sacred waters, and all our relations.

Originally produced for an exhibition featured at the Florida Museum of Natural History, Whale People: Protectors of the Sea was projected as an immersive 90-foot wide floor-to-ceiling video installation. At the center of the installation was a 16 foot, 3,000 pound orca totem carved by the House of Tears Carvers of the Lummi Nation. Members of the tribe have transported the totem across the country to raise awareness about the plight of killer whale–one of the Lummi’s most revered relations. For the Lummi and many other Coast Salish tribes, killer whales are kin. Qw’e lh’ol mechen, the Lummi word for killer whale, translates to “our people that live under the sea”. In the exhibition, museum visitors were invited to lay hands on the totem, as thousands of others have on its journeys across the country. This festival will be the first occasion to bring this moving short film and the message it carries to a broader audience beyond the museum.

Director Biography - Jason Jones / Not An Alternative, and The Natural History Museum.
Jason Jones has worked as an artist, organizer, curator, and media producer for the last 20 years. He is the co-founder of Not An Alternative, a collective that works at the intersection of art, activism and theory. Named in The New York Times and ArtNet’s “Best in Art in 2015” round-ups, the collective's work has been widely exhibited in museums, including including Guggenheim, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, PS1/MOMA, Queens Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Tate Modern, Victoria & Albert Museum, and Museo del Arte Moderno. Not An Alternative’s latest, ongoing project is The Natural History Museum (NHM, 2014—), a traveling museum that highlights the socio-political forces that shape nature. NHM's pop-up exhibitions and video installations can be seen in a range of venues including art museums, natural history museums, universities, the NHM mobile museum bus, and in the desert under the stars. Jason is a graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Halifax) and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. He hails from Canada and is currently based on Vashon Island in Washington State.

022. "Journey to the Moon's Navel" Animation inspired by the Monarch butterflies journey through three countries.

This project was inspired by the Monarca butterfly species which, in order to survive the winter, these insects have to travel through three countries and connects them year after year. Making their departure from the canadian forests, the butterflies travel between two and three months so they can spend winter in the mexican forests to reproduce during spring and continue their life cycle.

Director Biography - Diana Cruz González.
I'm mexican. I studied Fine Arts at Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro.
Studied Classical Animation at Vancouver Film School.

​After returning to Mexico, I started an animation studio, IREKANI, with a small crew of talented artists that were part of the development of the studio's first project "Viaje al Ombligo de la Luna" (VAOL) or Journey to the Moon's Navel.
Director Statement

Our studio wants to develop projects concerning cultural, educational and environmental issues that are very important to modern society.

Download hi-res PDF to print HERE or a low-res PDF to Print HERE

Or a hi-res PDF in Black and White HERE or a Small PDF in Black and white HERE


Independent movies submitted from around the world, music, light shows with Jim C.,
Bonfire and Q&A with many visiting filmmakers on the theme of “Hope”, set under the stars and tents, and simultaneously in two,
air-conditioned,  indoor theaters from Wednesday August 30th to Monday September 4th 2017
at
Woodstock Museum,
13 Charles Bach Rd., Saugerties, NY 12477.
Those attending Woodstock Museum tours on weekend afternoons from noon till 4PM are welcome to stay,
picnic and dine at the Woodstock Museum. Café opens 6PM with homemade food refreshments, many of them organic.
Full schedule: http://www.WoodstockMuseum.org Tel: (845) 246-0600
Directions at http://www.WoodstockMuseum.com/directions.html or GPS Woodstock Museum.
All are welcome to bring instruments.  Handicapped accessible. 
CONTACT: Shelli Lipton or Nathan Koenig, 845 246-0600  or email  hello@woodstockmuseum.org

CALENDAR LISTINGS

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30
7PM  “Parade” de Satié Animation mixing quotes from French composer Erik Satié  with the music of Parade.

7:30  The Way of My Life  After chasing his dream for over 10 years, a musician  discovers that he has no talent.

8PM  Mining the Unconscious: Jung & the Artist's Journey  Artists excavate stories & revelations of transformation & healing born from dreams, myths & archetypes.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 31
7PM  Super Chef A nerd conquers food allergies when concocting with creativity. Q&A

7:30  Mwah  Five pregnant women in a doctor's waiting room. The embryos engage in conversation.

8PM  Stone Story looks back on successes, dreams and family bonds of a family raised as hippies. Q&A

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1
7PM  Roll Call: A Dance Story  Ballroom dance students on wheelchairs dance with non-wheel-chaired partners sharing passion & uncanny talent. Q&A

8PM  Nocturnality Linda Diamond Dance troupe in a mixed media video from Memory's Labyrinth. Q&A

8:30  Bride of Frankie  In this feminist nod to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a not-so-mad scientist builds a mate for her lonely creation.

9:00  The Bullish Farmer   Investor trades Wall St. for a farm; becomes a lobbyist for GMO labeling, animal rights, crop diversity & organic fertilizers. Q&A

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2
7PM  Fix Animation for a Danish, hard core punk band.

7:15  Calabash and Durian  Explores universality no matter how the world is separated & fragmented via 3 women in distinct worlds & time periods. Q&A

7:45  Woes of a Lotus  Dreams & nostalgia collide in a collage. Explores themes on the fleeting nature of time & fragility of life. Q&A

8:30  Search Engines  Sanity & relationships are tested when mysterious circumstances force a family to survive a holiday without their phones.

10:15  A Whole World for a Little World  As a mom conveys a prince & princess story to her child, the unthinkable occurs.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 3
7PM  Shoot Me Nicely  Photographer searches for a lucrative celebrity photo to re-launch his career. Q&A

8PM  Sacred and Profane Faceless Jacks   An experimental, anti-narrative, cinematic tone poem for those of us lost, unsure and comfortable living within the dialectic...

8:15  Coney Island Dreaming  A young girl finds respite from the harsh realities of life in magical Coney Island when she finds some lost money. Q&A

8:45  Saving Place, Saving Grace  Trappist monastery’s struggle for reformation of their home by embracing an intense sustainability initiative. Q&A

10PM  Do You Like Peacocks?  A group of  autistic adults and their dedicated instructors convene everyday to make art.  Q&A

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
11AM  The Art of Aping  Imperialism has left a deep Western imprint on India. Animated satire.

11:06  Gardeners of the Forest  How the Chinese market, deforestation, and tourism all play a role in the imminent extinction of elephants in Laos.

11:23  Gonna Be a Soldier   Joey wants to be a doctor when he grows up but his parents tell him he must be a soldier.

11:30  Close Your Eyes..Well  Precocious younger sister fulfills brother's dream of being a concert  violinist while living in a Bagdad dumpster.

11:45  Lone Survivor Gravedigger plays dramatic role when his village is going to be flooded by a newly constructed dam.

12:15  Birthday  Marine husband is wounded. Wife discovers life is going to be an overwhelming and amazing journey.

12:30  Invisible Walls: Tales of Insecurity  Factors that generate invisible walls between people; our different characters share their stories.

12:40  Tokri (The Basket) Two insignificant lives lost and found in time. Animated.

1PM  The Mars Interrogation  A scientist tries to save this dying planet only to find out that Mars is the problem.

1:30  Tapette  Michael is about to move in with his girlfriend but starts to be very anxious about it.

2PM  What the Hell!  In the middle of the desert, a man and a woman, disagree about what cinema is. Their story unfolds.

2:10  A Meditation: Women the Power Paradigm  Six talented women on a quest for professional & artistic fulfillment.

3:30  Doppelganger  Man meets prostitute online on condition it's a one time date.

4:15  The Karamazoffs  '70s SoHo boom of open studios, conceptual art, happenings, performances & video art includes a group from Barcelona.

Challenges from burning an image of the American flag as opposed to burning a real flag. Q&A.

SEPT 1-THURSDAY

SEPT 2-FRIDAY

SEPT 3-SATURDAY

SEPT 4-SUNDAY

SEPT 5-MONDAY