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Program 1
Spellbound
Step right up! The show is about to begin. Phantoms of the dearly departed, female contortionists, history brought to life, and fruit turned into preserves right before your very eyes! Hurry, hurry step right in. With live music by Amber Asylum.

El Rio
Tues • Sept 11 • 8:30 pm • Rain or Shine
(Free BBQ @ 6:30pm)
3158 Mission St @ Precita in SF.
(415) 282-3325. www.elriosf.com

PROGRAM 1
Spellbound

PROGRAM 2
Frame by Frame

PROGRAM 3
At the Margins

PROGRAM 4
ID Docs

PROGRAM 5
A Tribute to Helen Hill

PROGRAM 6
My Daughter the Terrorist

PROGRAM 7
Close to Home

PROGRAM 8
4 Elements

PROGRAM 9
Between States

PROGRAM 10
A Hand Made Tale

PROGRAM 11
So Loud it's Silent

The Market
Ana Husman
2006 • 9:32 min • Color • Beta SP • Croatia
US Premiere
A stop-motion homage to locally grown produce and tight-knit communities. The ladies of this Croatian market gregariously share the art of growing the perfect piece of fruit and how to prepare traditional preserves. But do not dare cross the unspoken boundary and handle the goods--these jolly ladies mean business.

Testing the Undertow
Jennifer Proctor
2007 • 12:55 min • Color • Mini-DV • US
West Coast Premiere
Class, pride, and identity play out against the landscape of Marin County as one family rides the highs and lows of the region's economic topography.

Just Because You Can
Gracie Bucciarelli
2007 • 5 min • BW • Mini-DV • US
World Premiere • Filmmaker in Person
Between I-80 and the San Francisco Bay, a vulcanologist erupts for change. Part of a series titled, The Public Land Portrait Series.

Through These Trackless Waters
Elizabeth Henry
2007 • 12:30 min • BW/Color • US
West Coast Premiere
In this waking dream, all is juxtaposed and, as Russian montage filmmaker Kuleshov discovered, all is related. A film about nature, love, and loss.

Mister You Don't Look Good
Lauren Biller
2005 • 1:25 min • Color • Mini-DV
World Premiere • Filmmaker in Person
A humorous comment on sight, sound, subject, and audience.

Hocus Pocus ABRACADABRA
Kerry Laitala
2007 • 12 min • BW/Color • 16mm/Mini-DV • US
World Premiere • Filmmaker in Person
In the late 18th century, Etienne-Gaspard Robertson projected ghouls, ghosts, and other specters onto the walls of a Capuchin monastery in Paris. Called Phantasmagoria, these magic lantern shows were designed to spook. Using 16mm film loops, 35mm slides, and projected video, Laitala conjures modern-day phantoms who undulate to the madness of a glass harmonica.

5 Cents a Peek
Vanessa Woods
2007 • 6:33 min • BW • Mini-DV • US
World Premiere • Filmmaker in Person
Animation, archival circus footage, and distortions of the female body coalesce for a filmic interpretation of a poem by Sharon Olds wherein the circus becomes a metaphor for a woman's performance in the world. Presented with a live reading by Laura Rodriguez and a new original score by Amber Asylum.

a clear story
Katherin McInnis
2007 • 6 min • Color • Mini-DV • US
Filmmaker in Person
Digital snapshots survey Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village, a folk art installation in Simi, California, uncovering the relationship between artists and their environments. Presented with an original score by Amber Asylum.

 

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Program 2

Program 2
Frame by Frame
Travel through worlds of delicately painted glass, painstaking clay-mation, spare pencil-drawings, hand-manipulated sand, and innovative digital imagery to discover tales of imperfect love, unfulfilled dreams, righteous resistance, and the ironies of existence.

El Rio
Wed • Sept 12 • 8:30 pm • Rain or Shine
(Free BBQ @ 6:30pm)
3158 Mission St @ Precita in SF.
Tix: $7-20. 21 and over.
Tix available in advance or at the door. Cash Only.
(415) 282-3325. www.elriosf.com

Co-presented by: ASIFA-San Francisco and BAVC


PROGRAM 1
Spellbound

PROGRAM 2
Frame by Frame

PROGRAM 3
At the Margins

PROGRAM 4
ID Docs

PROGRAM 5
A Tribute to Helen Hill

PROGRAM 6
My Daughter the Terrorist

PROGRAM 7
Close to Home

PROGRAM 8
4 Elements

PROGRAM 9
Between States

PROGRAM 10
A Hand Made Tale

PROGRAM 11
So Loud it's Silent

Nice Outfit
Ulla-Carin Grafstrom
2005 • 6 min • Color • DVD • Sweden
US Premiere
Ever since Eve reached for a leaf to cover herself, dress codes have defined us. But what if George W. were naked and Osama Bin Laden was only hiding under a hijab?

Sparx
Sally Pearce
2007 • 1:33 min • Color • Mini-DV • UK
World Premiere
When a man who needs a light meets a man who is alight.

God on Our Side
Michal Pfeffer and Uri Kranot
2005 • 7 min • Color • DVD • The Netherlands
Inspired by Picasso's 1937 painting Guernica about the bombing of the Basque city, this film is fundamentally about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But Some Are Brave
Grace Channer
2007 • 5:21 min • Color • DVD • Canada
Using oil paint on glass, Channer weaves cultural and political histories of communities under attack into a visually spectacular testament to the power of struggle and resistance.

Violeta
Marc Riba and Anna Solanas
2006 • 9 min • Color • DVD • Spain
CA Premiere
Violeta occupies a dreary blood-soaked world, fishing day and night in the murky waters that somehow team with fish.

Yarn…good light is essential
Reka Gacs
2006 • 3 min • BW • Beta SP • UK
US Premiere
A hand-drawn woman knits herself into a frenzy waiting for her dreams to come true.

Lovesick
Spela Cadez
2007 • 8:30 min • Color • Mini-DV • Slovenia/Germany
US Premiere
A clay-mation love story between a boy with a weak heart and leaky tear ducts and a girl whose body is on backwards.

Have You Seen The Duckalitos
Melinda Stone
2006 • 6 min • Color • Mini-DV and hand drawn cards • US
Filmmaker in Person
Sing along with barnyard images accompanied by a live squeezebox and robust audience participation. A lay farmer leads the audience in a contemplative tune.

Kujira
Reiko Murakami
2007 • 6 min • Color • Mini-DV • US
US Premiere
A girl leaves home to see the world. Even after encountering a flying whale and other intriguing creatures, she cannot resist her origins. Told with elegant movements and delicate lines, this hand-painted journey visits unexpected places.

The Mall on Top of My House
Aditi Chitre
2006 • 5:30 min • Color • Beta SP • India
US Premiere
All along coastal Bombay, the fish, the fisherman, the families, and their homes get buried under rubble to make way for progress. One fisherman lives under the rubble. Pale and wide-eyed from being underground, he emerges to cross the city, navigating blaring horns, monumental malls, and signs that tell him where he can and cannot step.

Leftovers
Chelsea Walton
2007 • 1 min • Color • Mini-DV • US
World Premiere • Filmmaker in Person
Animated paper cutouts illustrate a farm girl's peculiar aversion to four-legged animals.

The Guarantee
Jesse Erica Epstein
2007 • 11 min • Color • Mini-DV • US
West Coast Premiere
A documentary about a dancer with perfect form and a nose that gets in the way of his career is drawn before our eyes. Even though his arabesques are superb he cannot escape the shadow of his jutting proboscis.

 

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Program 3

Program 3
At the Margins
Exiles, migrants, the homeless, and the oppressed move from the margins to take center stage in these surprisingly hopeful docs.

Artists’ Television Access
Fri • Sept 14 • 7:30 pm
992 Valencia Street at SF.
(415) 824-3890
Tix: $7-20. Cash Only. www.atasite.org

Co-presented by 3rd I South Asian Film Festival and Center for Asian American Media


PROGRAM 1
Spellbound

PROGRAM 2
Frame by Frame

PROGRAM 3
At the Margins

PROGRAM 4
ID Docs

PROGRAM 5
A Tribute to Helen Hill

PROGRAM 6
My Daughter the Terrorist

PROGRAM 7
Close to Home

PROGRAM 8
4 Elements

PROGRAM 9
Between States

PROGRAM 10
A Hand Made Tale

PROGRAM 11
So Loud it's Silent

Tales from the Margins
Kavita Joshi
2006 • 24 min • Color • Mini-DV • India
US Premiere
Twelve women strip themselves naked on the streets of Manipur in protest. A young woman has been on a fast demanding justice; she is forcibly nose-fed and kept under arrest by the government for more than six years. Why are the women of Manipur, a state in northeastern India, using their bodies both as their last weapon and a battlefield?

Between Girls
Kaja Leijon
2007 • 10 min • Color • Mini-DV • Norway
World Premiere
A group of girls are sitting in the dark, their faces lit only by the light of the movie screen. What are their hopes and dreams?

El Otro Lado
Anne Wallace
2006 • 13 min • Color • Mini-DV • US/Mexico
West Coast Premiere
The eye follows the hypnotic rhythm of a seemingly endless steel wall being built along the US-Mexico border from the Rio Grande to the deserts of Arizona and California. The voices describe border residents' creative responses to the problems this barrier poses.

Golden Kitchen
Valerie Berteau and Philippe Witjes
2005 • 5 min • Color • DVD • Belgium/India
West Coast Premiere
Every day at the Free Kitchen, Sri Guru Dass Sahib II serves 30,000 meals in the Golden Temple of Amritsar, India. An observational video of the free meals in full swing-cooking, eating, cleaning, long lines, and lots and lots of flatware.

Niko
Lesya Kalynska
2006 • 10 min • Color • Beta SP • Ukraine
West Coast Premiere
A former freedom fighter with the Georgian National Liberation Movement now struggles for daily survival as an illegal immigrant in New York City. Through sculpting and painting, he finds another kind of freedom in the creative process.

The Days and the Hours
Kristine Samuelson and John Haptas
2006 • 8:15 min • Color • Beta SP • US
Filmmakers in Person
At a church in the middle of San Francisco, homeless people are allowed to sleep in the pews during daily services. Filling row after row, more than a hundred exhausted men and women find relief from filthy sidewalks and dangerous city shelters. Their voices describe their lives before they slipped off the tracks.

Ãgtux
Kaja Leijon
2006 • 22 min • Color • Mini-DV • Brazil
US Premiere
Ãgtux is the Maxakali Indian word for telling stories. These native Brazilians have rich traditions of art and music and once roamed the breadth of Brazil from the mining state of Minas Gerais to Bahia on the northeast coast. Now reduced to merely 1,200 in number, they live in misery on a tiny reservation in the Valley of Mucuri. Using experimental documentary techniques and animation, this film restores the Maxakali to their former glories.


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Program 4

Program 4
ID Docs
Identity cannot be reduced to stats on a badge. It is both personal and public, elusive and fixed. Using a patient camera and lyrical imagery, these filmmakers gently probe how society, biology, place, and even appliances play a role in who we are and how we think of ourselves and others.

El Rio
Tues • Sept 18 • 8:30 pm • Rain or Shine
(Free BBQ @ 6:30pm)
3158 Mission St @ Precita in SF.
(415) 282-3325. www.elriosf.com
Tix: $7-20. 21 and over.
Tix available in advance or at the door. Cash Only.

PROGRAM 1
Spellbound

PROGRAM 2
Frame by Frame

PROGRAM 3
At the Margins

PROGRAM 4
ID Docs

PROGRAM 5
A Tribute to Helen Hill

PROGRAM 6
My Daughter the Terrorist

PROGRAM 7
Close to Home

PROGRAM 8
4 Elements

PROGRAM 9
Between States

PROGRAM 10
A Hand Made Tale

PROGRAM 11
So Loud it's Silent

Miriam, Impression of Light
An Coenen
2005 • 11:50 min • Color • Mini-DV • Belgium
US Premiere
An adopted albino girl and her boyfriend talk about her identity and appearance. How does it feel to be different in a world that strives for uniformity and perfection?

Lost Without You
Fiona McGee
2006 • 5:22 min • Color • Mini-DV • Australia
World Premiere
Girls and their mobile phones. How attached can they get?

Benidorm
Carolin Schmitz
2006 • 19 min • Color • Mini-DV • Germany
US Premiere
In high tourist season eager sunbathers flock to Benidorm's concrete coast on the Mediterranean for its endless sun and cheap amusements. Off season, its residents are largely pensioners. Winner of the 2006 German Short Film Prize, this documentary examines the changing age structure of our society and its obligatory clichés through the lens of this small Spanish town.

Portraits & Testimonies #3: Cris Sequeira
Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson
2006 • 1 min • BW • Mini-DV • US
West Coast Premiere
Part of a series of animated interviews, this film features Brazilian Cris Sequeira discussing her beliefs on life, death, and life after death.

The Widows' Coast
Janina Lapinskaite
2006 • 25 min • Color • Mini-DV • Lithuania
US Premiere
A poetic portrait of the residents of a Baltic seacoast village whose lives are marked by painful loss. The heroes of the film are widows who face their seemingly tragic destiny with the strength and vitality usually reserved for the unscathed.

I Am Me
Kathrin Resetarits
2006 • 30 min • Color • Mini-DV • Austria
US Premiere
Twin ballerinas Olga and Anastasia can be made to dress alike and look identical. But when they dance the part of the dying swan, their movements demonstrate two individual personalities. Following two sets of twins, the filmmaker explores the meaning of individuality in uncommon and everyday routine.

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Program 5

Program 5
A Tribute to Helen Hill
An evening of handcrafted 16mm films by the late, the great, Helen Hill.

Do-it-yourself and make it fun. Those were the watchwords of experimental film artist Helen Hill. A South Carolina native and graduate of both Harvard and CalArts, Hill had most recently been living in New Orleans with her husband Dr. Paul Gailiunas and their young son Francis Pop. After Hurricane Katrina destroyed their home in Mid-City, the family moved to Faubourg Marigny to start again, when, on January 4, 2007, Helen was shot and killed by an intruder. She was 36 years old. Known for her warm and funny depictions of the world around her, she was generous with her knowledge, sharing what she learned about handcrafted filmmaking with students and fellow filmmakers in the sourcebook, Recipes for Disaster: a handcrafted film cookbooklet. A meticulous artist, she was never precious about the work, once saying, "It's fun to handle film as a celluloid canvas rather than as a fragile carrier of images only to be handled by lab technicians. You can experiment and create the most beautiful images ever." MadCat is proud to pay tribute to this special artist and her work, with films restored by the Harvard Film Archive, many of which were damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Helen was working on The Florestine Collection, inspired by a collection of 100 hand-sewn dresses she found in a garbage pile in New Orleans, when she died. The film, like her life, remains unfinished.

Copies of the Cookbooklet are available for sale during the Festival. All proceeds benefit the Francis Pop Educational Fund.

El Rio
Wed • Sept 19 • 8:30 pm • Rain or Shine
(Free BBQ @ 6:30pm)
3158 Mission St @ Precita in SF.
Tix: $7-20. 21 and over. Tix available in advance or at the door. Cash Only.
(415) 282-3325. www.elriosf.com

Co-presented by: Kino 21


PROGRAM 1
Spellbound

PROGRAM 2
Frame by Frame

PROGRAM 3
At the Margins

PROGRAM 4
ID Docs

PROGRAM 5
A Tribute to Helen Hill

PROGRAM 6
My Daughter the Terrorist

PROGRAM 7
Close to Home

PROGRAM 8
4 Elements

PROGRAM 9
Between States

PROGRAM 10
A Hand Made Tale

PROGRAM 11
So Loud it's Silent

Rain Dance
1990
Inspired by a novel by Elijah Aron and featuring an accompanying song written by Elijah and Helen's husband Paul.

Vessel
1992
Silhouette puppets reminiscent of Helen's favorite filmmaker Lotte Reiniger depict a poem Helen wrote, which was published in 1991 by Harvard's The Rag.

The World's Smallest Fair
1995
A cotton candy machine and 12 cans of Flossine become an artistic medium.

Scratch and Crow
1995
Cats hatch eggs; watermelons fall from the sky; chickens become angels and fly out of tombstones. Helen's homage to her farm animal friends.

Tunnel of Love
1996
Featuring the photo-booth images that Helen collected, this film captures the carnival atmosphere of the South Carolina State Fair.

Your New Pig Is Down the Road
1999
Hand-processed at Phil Hoffman's Film Farm in Ontario, and introducing baby pig Daisy with her little sister.

Film for Rosie
2000
Pet pig Rosie's pigeology with all her relatives.

Mouseholes
1999
Helen memorializes her beloved grandfather, Pop, with a tea party in heaven. Helen's own funeral was modeled after Pop's, and she was buried next to him.

Madame Winger Makes a Film: A Survival Guide for the 21st Century
2001
Film is more important than the technology used, Helen believed, and Madame Winger describes inexpensive ways to create one, including hand-processing and drawing directly onto the emulsion.

Bohemian Town
2004
An illustration of Paul's song "Bohemian Town" expresses the couple's love of the North End of Halifax, where they lived before moving to New Orleans. Paul's Canadian band Piggy performs the song.

Cleveland Street Gap
2006
Made with Courtney Egan. Following Hurricane Katrina, Helen spent months cleaning her flood-damaged films. Egan used some of the pre-hurricane home movies that Helen cleaned, and added video footage of the same Mid-City neighborhood after the flood.

Films by artists inspired by Helen Hill and her handcrafted style will also screen.

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Program 6

Program 6
My Daughter the Terrorist

Artists' Television Access
Fri • Sept 21 • 7:30 pm
992 Valencia St. @ 21st, San Francisco
(415) 824-3890. www.atasite.org
Tix: $7-20. Cash Only.

Co-presented by 3rd I South Asian Film Festival and Center for Asian American Media

PROGRAM 1
Spellbound

PROGRAM 2
Frame by Frame

PROGRAM 3
At the Margins

PROGRAM 4
ID Docs

PROGRAM 5
A Tribute to Helen Hill

PROGRAM 6
My Daughter the Terrorist

PROGRAM 7
Close to Home

PROGRAM 8
4 Elements

PROGRAM 9
Between States

PROGRAM 10
A Hand Made Tale

PROGRAM 11
So Loud it's Silent

My Daughter the Terrorist
Beate Arnestad
2006 • 52 min • Color • Mini-DV • Norway/Sri Lanka • US Premiere
The Tamils have agitated for independence from the Sri Lankan government since 1972. LTTE, or Tamil Tigers, is the political and military arm of the unrecognized nation, called Tamil Eelam. Black Tigers is the suicide brigade of the LTTE who have inspired freedom fighters such as the PLO. Two close friends, Dharsika and Puhalchudar, are members of the Black Tigers, and have been eating, sleeping, training, and fighting side by side for seven years. They now strap themselves to an American-made Claymore mine. My Daughter the Terrorist looks at what life is like inside a guerrilla organization, and the way the world appears in the eyes of the alleged terrorist. It's about unthinkable acts and trying to understand people who are firmly committed to doing the unthinkable.

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Program 7

Program 7
Close to Home
These daring short narratives explore the psychology of families, from penis envy and cultural clashes, to humorously hot-tempered fathers and a meditative child content to contemplate his rural, timeless world.

Artists' Television Access
Fri • Sept 21 • 8:30 pm
992 Valencia St. @ 21st, San Francisco
(415) 824-3890. www.atasite.org
Tix: $7-20. Cash Only.

Co-presented by: CounterPULSE


PROGRAM 1
Spellbound

PROGRAM 2
Frame by Frame

PROGRAM 3
At the Margins

PROGRAM 4
ID Docs

PROGRAM 5
A Tribute to Helen Hill

PROGRAM 6
My Daughter the Terrorist

PROGRAM 7
Close to Home

PROGRAM 8
4 Elements

PROGRAM 9
Between States

PROGRAM 10
A Hand Made Tale

PROGRAM 11
So Loud it's Silent

Something Rubber, Something Glue
Jennifer Schneider
2006 • 14:32 min • Color • Beta SP • US
West Coast Premiere • Filmmaker in Person
For two sisters, the bathroom is a private theater for confused romantic role-playing, mirror confessions, and monologues in the tub. Something Rubber, Something Glue charts the savagery of sibling warfare and the impact when one girl discovers the other's secret.

Penis Envy (Peniskateus)
Marjo Viitala
2007 • 4:10 min • Color • Mini-DV • Finland
US Premiere
For a moment, a little girl wants to be a boy.

A Quiet Man (Un Hombre Tranquilo)
Arantzazu Gomez Bayon
2007 • 12 min • Color • Mini-DV • Spain
US Premiere
Manuel has practically kidnapped his family and is imposing his paternal love and rules inside the car, his exclusive domain. His captives see the world passing by outside, reaffirming the possibility of a free universe just beyond the car windows. Through the memories of a young Spanish woman, this surrealist comedy depicts familial relations in Spain during the ‘80s, when the country experienced a certain open political and cultural mentality but maintained outdated and grotesque notions about the family.

The Staring Girl
Sarah Lewis
2007 • 10 min • Color • Mini-DV • Australia
US Premiere
A young girl has a powerful desire to break free from the traditional and wildly inaccurate views of what means to be female. Dream and reality collide in this meditative story, which exposes the enormous gap between adult expectations and children's desires.

A Moment to Breathe (Un attimo di respiro)
Sara Colangelo
2007 • 12:45 min • Color • Mini-DV • Italy
West Coast Premiere
A young pig slaughterer dreams of escaping from his suffocating life in the Italian countryside. In a moment of panic, he makes a break for the big city, bringing along his girlfriend's teenage sister for the ride. Starring Francesco Calabrese, a student of Lina Wertmuller, Giancarlo Giannini, and Alice Teghil.

Boreas (Poyraz)
Belma Bas
2007 • 13:25 min • Color • Mini-DV • Turkey
SF Premiere
Living with elderly relatives in a remote old house in the mountains, a child reticently observes the daily routine of rustic life and glimpses the mysteries of life and death. A poetic short film, shot on 35mm, about childhood visions of love and death.


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Program 8

Program 8
4 Elements

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Sun • Sept 23 • 7 pm
701 Mission Street at Third in San Francisco
(415) 978-2700
Tix: $9. Cash or Credit Cards.
Tix available in advance or at the door.
www.ybca.org

Co-presented by: The Exploratorium

PROGRAM 1
Spellbound

PROGRAM 2
Frame by Frame

PROGRAM 3
At the Margins

PROGRAM 4
ID Docs

PROGRAM 5
A Tribute to Helen Hill

PROGRAM 6
My Daughter the Terrorist

PROGRAM 7
Close to Home

PROGRAM 8
4 Elements

PROGRAM 9
Between States

PROGRAM 10
A Hand Made Tale

PROGRAM 11
So Loud it's Silent

4 Elements
Jiska Rickels
2006 • 89 min • Color • 35mm • The Netherlands/Germany/Russian/Siberia
CA Premiere
An immense curtain of smoke suddenly rises out of the forest, a glimmering rocket blasts through the night sky, two mineworkers crawl like ants among gigantic machinery, fishermen haul in traps heavy with jumbo crabs. Dutch director Jiska Rickels follows Siberian forest fire-fighters, king crab fishermen on the Bering Sea, German mineworkers, and Russian cosmonauts in their daily struggles with one of the four basic elements of nature: fire, water, earth, air. The images tell their story without words, and are accompanied by a musical score barely distinguishable from the ambient sounds in the film. Beyond the struggle, Rickels shows the men in tender moments, harnessing these very same elements in their daily rituals--in the shower, scrubbing each other's backs, silently drinking coffee before heading off to work, hoarsely singing melancholy songs around the campfire. From the darkest depths of the mine to the lift that transports space travelers to their shuttle, 4 Elements not only shows man's awe of nature, it shows how they are inextricably linked.


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Program 9

Program 9
Between States
Traverse the rough terrain of border control, brutal dictatorships, and the aftermath of war in tonight's innovative hybrid documentaries.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Sun • Sept 23 • 8:30 pm
701 Mission St. @ Third in San Francisco
(415) 282-3325. www.ybca.org
Tix: $9. Cash or Credit Cards.
Tix available in advance or at the door.

Co-presented by: SF Cinematheque

PROGRAM 1
Spellbound

PROGRAM 2
Frame by Frame

PROGRAM 3
At the Margins

PROGRAM 4
ID Docs

PROGRAM 5
A Tribute to Helen Hill

PROGRAM 6
My Daughter the Terrorist

PROGRAM 7
Close to Home

PROGRAM 8
4 Elements

PROGRAM 9
Between States

PROGRAM 10
A Hand Made Tale

PROGRAM 11
So Loud it's Silent

Stranger Comes to Town
Jacqueline Goss
2007 • 28 min • Color • Mini-DV • US
San Francisco Premiere
Re-working animations from the Department of Homeland Security, Goss combines them with stories of six immigrants crossing the US border, impressions from the online game World of Warcraft, and journeys via Google Earth to tell a tale of bodies moving through lands familiar and strange.

The Small Ones
Lynne Sachs
2007 • 3 min • Color • Mini-DV • US
San Francisco Premiere
During World War II, the United States Army hired medical doctor Sandor Lenard to reconstruct the bones of dead American soldiers. This antiwar cine-poem is composed of highly abstracted battle imagery and footage of children at a birthday party.

We Will Live to See These Things, or five pictures of what may come to pass
Julia Meltzer and David Thorne
2007 • 47 min • Color • Beta SP • US/Syria
West Coast Premiere • Filmmakers in Person
A documentary video in five parts about competing visions of an uncertain future. Shot in 2005-6 in Damascus, Syria, each section--the chronicle of a building in downtown, documentation of an equestrian event, an interview with a dissident intellectual, a portrait of children learning the Qur'an, and the recitation of a vision beheld by a US policymaker--offers a different perspective on what might come to pass in a place where people live among the forces of a repressive regime, a growing conservative Islamic movement, and shifting pressures from the United States.

 

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Program 10

Program 10
A Hand Made Tale
Stories of disappearing rural communities, fragile filial relations, modern alchemists, and life's ineffable moments are revealed as if in bas-relief by these virtuoso filmmakers who use optical-printing, hand-processing, bleaching, and scratching-on-film techniques to share worlds rarified and unsung.

El Rio
Tues • Sept 25 • 8:30 pm • Rain or Shine
(Free BBQ @ 6:30pm)
3158 Mission St @ Precita in SF.
Tix: $7-20. 21 and over. Tix available in advance or at the door. Cash Only.
(415) 282-3325. www.elriosf.com

Co-presented by: SF Cinematheque


PROGRAM 1
Spellbound

PROGRAM 2
Frame by Frame

PROGRAM 3
At the Margins

PROGRAM 4
ID Docs

PROGRAM 5
A Tribute to Helen Hill

PROGRAM 6
My Daughter the Terrorist

PROGRAM 7
Close to Home

PROGRAM 8
4 Elements

PROGRAM 9
Between States

PROGRAM 10
A Hand Made Tale

PROGRAM 11
So Loud it's Silent

Miss Rose Fletcher: A Natural History
Laska Jimsen
2007 • 17 min • BW/Color • 16mm • US
World Premiere • Filmmaker in Person
Combining interviews and archival research with the lyricism of experimental film processes, Jimsen investigates the histories of several generations of residents living in Oregon's once idyllic Willamette Valley, which is now giving way to industry and suburbia. Through a series of lyrical vignettes, two iconic figures emerge: Darrel Ebbert, a trapper and sheep farmer, and Vida Bullis, a dahlia breeder.

Where you are is not where you are going
Jennifer Hardacker
2006 • 2:5 min • Color • 16mm • US
CA Premiere
In two and a half minutes the filmmaker deals with the lifelong conflict, should I stay or should I go?

The Magician's House
Deborah Stratman
2007 • 6 min • Color • 16mm • US
Bay Area Premiere
The supernatural is secret only in so much as its trace goes unnoticed. Both a letter to an alchemist-filmmaker friend and a quiet tribute to the vanishing art of celluloid, The Magician's House is full of ghosts, like that of Athanasius Kircher, the inventor of the first Magic Lantern, also known as a Sorcerer's Lamp.

The Passenger
Kathryn Ramey
2006 • 16 min • BW/Color • 16mm • US
West Coast Premiere
A hand-processed film meditation on madness, motherhood, psychoanalysis, and the possibility of escaping one's fate.

Chain
Ana Ribeiro
2007 • 5 min • Color • 16mm • US/Brazil
World Premiere
It's Friday evening in San Francisco. A woman goes for a bike ride. In an age of virtual meeting, human contact is still possible in a city.

Vasanti Vasanti
Taraka Larson
2007 • 11:17 min • Color • 16mm • US
West Coast Premiere • Filmmaker in Person
The fragmented history of India's most ancient dance form, odissi, is told by tracing the gradual corrosion of ritual and tradition in the face of mechanized progress. Ultimately, the spiritual essence of a culture proves to survive just as the choreography of a dance perseveres despite a broken rhythm.

Edie and the Nun
Andrea Hale
2007 • 3 min • Color • 16mm • US
World Premiere • Filmmaker in Person
Using found footage and slide film, the filmmaker reflects on the unusually intimate relationship between two women and how they later split apart.

Lake Ontario (in my head)
Penny McCann
2006 • 5:12 min • Color • 16mm • Canada
US Premiere
Grainy Super-8 imagery, optically printed 16mm footage, and an atmospheric soundtrack evoke the stillness of mind that can be reached when standing before an expansive horizon where sky meets water.

Atlantis Unbound
Lori Hiris
2007 • 14 min • BW • 16mm • US
Francis Galton, the main character in Francis Bacon's utopian novel New Atlantis, is furiously writing letters to his cousin Charles Darwin in the pursuit of discovering the truth of hereditary traits. Illustrating both the myths and history, charcoal drawings are erased and redrawn and filmed frame by frame to investigate the concept of heredity and the intersection of science, politics, and philosophy.

Memo to Pic Desk
Chris Kennedy and Anna van der Meulen
2006 • 6:30 min • Color • 16mm • Canada
Kennedy in Person
An idiosyncratic look at staging in news photography using materials from the archives of a Toronto daily. Moral codes, delinquency, and free will are pulled into an altered coherence, as vintage photos are examined next to their typewritten paper trail.


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Program 11

Program 11
So Loud It's Silent

El Rio
Wed • Sept 26 • 8:30 pm • Rain or Shine
(Free BBQ @ 6:30pm)
3158 Mission St @ Precita in SF.
Tix: $7-20. 21 and over. Tix available in advance or at the door. Cash Only.
(415) 282-3325. www.elriosf.com

PROGRAM 1
Spellbound

PROGRAM 2
Frame by Frame

PROGRAM 3
At the Margins

PROGRAM 4
ID Docs

PROGRAM 5
A Tribute to Helen Hill

PROGRAM 6
My Daughter the Terrorist

PROGRAM 7
Close to Home

PROGRAM 8
4 Elements

PROGRAM 9
Between States

PROGRAM 10
A Hand Made Tale

PROGRAM 11
So Loud it's Silent

I Reminisce
Veronica Majano
2004 • 2:50 min • Color • Mini-DV • US • Filmmaker in Person
Using archival images and a golden oldie, I Reminisce is a slow cruise through times, place and the people in San Francisco's Mission District.

Los 60
Yolanda de los Bueis
2006 • 2 min • Color • Mini-DV • UK
US Premiere
The experience of viewing images that are unidentified can have a seductive even spellbinding effect on the viewer. In an instant, disturbing fragments can be recognized, not clearly enough to allow for judgment, but long enough to trigger desires or conjure fantasies.

Hazel and David
Nomi Talisman
2005 • 4:45 min • Color • Mini-DV • US
Filmmaker in Person
The 1964 short narrative David and Hazel: A Story in Communication is a marriage counseling drama illustrating the conflict between a non-communicative husband and his family. Using a print donated by San Jose's Academic Film Archive of North America, the original film is manipulated and re-edited to play with the protagonists' point of view and create a reversed narrative.

6 short videos about film, in 3 acts (a love story)
Lana Z Caplan
2007 • 11 min • Color • Mini-DV • US
West Coast Premiere
Very short videos about film, love, and destructive relationships. Single frames of 16mm film, found footage, discarded bits of leader, and burning celluloid are strung together for a story of sex and love, alcoholism and abuse.

Recamarå
Yolanda de los Bueis
2006 • 2 min • Color • Mini-DV • UK
US Premiere
Sotelo transforms her bedroom into a camera obscura, projecting the outside world on the inside walls, and then filming it in time-lapse. The resulting camera within a camera creates an observatory of sorts, and a contemplation of psychological space.

Discoveries on the Forest Floor 1-3
Charlotte Pryce
2007 • 4 min • Color • 16mm • US
A cinematographic portrait of the insects and flora that teem in the forest's ground cover.

Photo-synthesis
Lisa Danker
2005 • 3 min • BW/Color • 16mm • US
West Coast Premiere
See what happens when plants and flowers come into contact with a filmmaker and her bag of tools. An experiment with the film strip and editing mechanisms, this short film illustrates not only the beauty of flowers but also their wonderwork as photosynthetic beings.

Venice
Kristina Kotov
2007 • 10 min • Color • 16mm • UK
US Premiere
Crowded into tightly packed burial areas, the dead of Venice's San Michele Cemetery are allowed to rest for just twelve years, after which the family must move any remains to small metal boxes for permanent storage. Fresh flowers, earth-moving machines, and visitors tending the graves make this island a living graveyard. Kotov journeys through this shifting space armed with a Super-8 camera, recording the constantly renovating landscape.

Sea Lion
Caroline Koebel
2007 • 2:50 min • Color • 16mm • US
World Premiere
Hand-processed Super-8 film records the marvels of a sea lion and the fascination of the filmmaker's two-year-old son with this animal new to his world.

hole or space
Caroline Koebel
2006 • 3:23 min • BW/Color • 16mm • US
West Coast Premiere
Pricks, gaps, dots, openings--hole or space takes its cue from contortionists of early cinema.

Secrets
Charlotte Taylor
2006 • 3 min • BW • 16mm • US
World Premiere
Hand-processed shadows and optically printed photograms of nature.

There Goes the View
Carolyn Macartney
2007 • 11:30 min • Color • Mini-DV • US
West Coast Premiere
Time-lapse cinematography spanning almost two years is inter-cut with real-time details of construction on a high-rise that eventually blocks the filmmaker's once impressive view. Meanwhile, the spectacle of accelerated time is overwhelmed by the majesty of the ever-changing clouds and sky.


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Installation

Video Installation
Installation constructed by Rebecca McBride

Artists' Television Access
www.atasite.org

992 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 824-3890

PROGRAM 1
Spellbound

PROGRAM 2
Frame by Frame

PROGRAM 3
At the Margins

PROGRAM 4
ID Docs

PROGRAM 5
A Tribute to Helen Hill

PROGRAM 6
My Daughter the Terrorist

PROGRAM 7
Close to Home

PROGRAM 8
4 Elements

PROGRAM 9
Between States

PROGRAM 10
A Hand Made Tale

PROGRAM 11
So Loud it's Silent

Artists' Television Access
Ongoing in ATA's storefront window through the month of September

Dust off and cowboy up!
Laurence Arcadias
2007 • 4:10 min • Color • France/US • West Coast Premiere
Re-animated westerns shed new light on cowboys and Indians.
Madness at 3 AM
Anne Davidson
2005 • 6 min • Color • Canada • US Premiere
An artist is awakened at 3 am and can only be calmed by medication.
Three Decades of Static
Yin-Ju Chen
2006 • 4 min • Color • Taiwan • US Premiere
Through architecture and video, the artist imagines three decades of herself.
Wiener Wuast (Vienna Mix)
Maya Yonesho
2006 • 4:48 min • Color • Japan/Austria • CA Premiere
A transforming view of Vienna.
Document
Coleen Fitzgibbon
1975 • 17 min • BW • US
Microfilm becomes a medium to explore transactions between the public and private.
On/Off
Irena Skoric
2007 • 19 min • Color • Croatia • US Premiere
Most events are fleeting. Some leave an indelible mark.
Object Lesson
Julie Casper Roth
2006 • 4:50 min • Color • US • West Coast Premiere
Fun and disorder are indistinguishable as a boy with Asperger's Syndrome plays.
Themes & Variations for the Naked Eye
Caitlin Horsmon
2007 • 15:23 min • Color • US • World Premiere
A still life as medical film.
Maricopa Drive
Laura Purdy and Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
2006 • 3 min • Color • US • CA Premiere
A blowup doll is plunged into the primary element of water.
A Bit Scary Really...
Maarit Suomi-Väänänen
2005 • 7 min • Color • Finland • US Premiere
Real-life city slickers try to fell a tree.
Nowhere Here
Ria Ama
2007 • 1:39 min • Color • US/Japan
Are we half asleep, or are we hypnotized by society's illusions?
Embrace It
Kirthi Nath
2007 • 6: 40 min • Color • US • World Premiere
The landscape of love, politics, and spirituality.
The Expeditionists: La Ciudad Dorada
Sabine Gruffat
2007 • 14:40 min • Color • Colombia/US
A group of travelers use Advanced Recording Technology to map their trip to Colombia's Golden City.
Lost/In Memoriam
Anita Thacher
2006 • 7:18 min • Color • US • World Premiere
Flowers, woods, water, and other images of nature call to mind the rituals of women's daily lives.
I Was Never Glamorous, I Was Just Around
Ellen Lake
2006 • 2 min • BW/Color • US • Bay Area Premiere
A diptych connecting images of an old woman and her former, youthful self.
Panache
Nicole Emmons
2007 • 3 min • BW/Color • US • World Premiere
One woman struggles with the daily fears of living.
Ectoplasm Study
Amy Squires
2007 • 7:28 min • Color • US • World Premiere
A chain of images evoking something familiar but which you have never seen before.
Runa's Spell
Stephanie Maxwell and Michaela Eremiasova
2007 • 3:30 min • Color • US
The texture of trembling and contorted sound images illustrate the hesitation, solitude, and endless dreamscape of the human mind.
Drive Thru
Gretchen Skogerson
2006 • 19:40 min • Color • US • Northern CA Premiere
Inspired by traces of destruction in Miami left by Hurricane Ivan.
Revealing Roots
Akosua Adoma Owusu
2007 • 9:41 min • Color • Ghana
Remake of Alex Haley's iconic TV series Roots.
Welcome to Normal
Marianna Ellenberg
2007 • 7 min • Color • US • CA Premiere
An exquisite corpse compendium of hypnotic sounds, symptoms, and neurological side effects.
Night Walk
Esther Weng
2006 • 4:5 min • Color • US • World Premiere
A quiet night in San Francisco.

 

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