Dates: September 14 - October 3
Venues: Artists Television Access, El Rio and Yerba Buena in SF and Parkway Theater in Oakland!

This September, the 8th Annual MadCat Women's International Film Festival screens the best cutting-edge experimental and independent films from around the world! As we expand our international scope each year, MadCat reviewed submissions from China, Croatia, Germany, Korea, Australia, Scotland and Slovakia as well as works from the U.S. and other countries. Featuring first-run shorts, documentaries, narratives, and animated works selected from more than 900 submissions, MadCat shares rarely seen jewels and hot off the editing bench premieres. We are thrilled to present an array of timely, insightful, humorous and deeply moving experimental and independent films by some of the best up-and-coming and established women filmmakers. MadCat's screenings include diverse thematically-curated shorts programs, a celebration of women directors from the silent era, a B-movie exploitation feature, educational films from the '50s to the '70s, plus live musical accompaniment and slide presentations.

Festival Highlights...Shows not to be missed!

THE VELVET VAMPIRE
Come see a rare revival screening of Stephanie Rothman's The Velvet Vampire (82 min. 1971). Rothman is touted as the first woman to direct a vampire movie! A glamorous seductress meets a handsome young man and his vapid, but pretty wife at an art showing. She invites the young couple to visit her desert home, where they find themselves secluded-and trapped. Tensions arise when the couple, unaware that the seductress is a centuries-old vampire, realize that they are both objects of the pale temptress's seductions. With campy images of lesbian desire, beautiful cinematography and sexploitation galore, The Velvet Vampire keeps you laughing, and on the edge of your seat! Ms. Rothman is available for interviews and a preview tape is available upon request.

THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER
With animation, documentary and experimental filmmaking, this series reveals how artists question their governments and challenge their actions. From corrupt links between corporate America and the US government to the staging of unnecessary military actions abroad, The Truth of the Matter is a chilling, and sometimes funny, look at our world. The Invisible Hand is a hand-drawn history of corporate corruption from Enron and Halliburton to Martha. It's Not My Memory of It, a three-part videotape about secrecy, memory, and documents, mobilizes specific historical records as memories that flash up in moments of danger, addressing the intensification of secrecy practices in the current climate of heightened security.

ART ON ARTISTS
This series of documentary and experimental portraits reveals the political ideologies and personal quirks of various emerging and established artists and filmmakers. Marie Losier premieres her companion films Bird, Bath and Beyond and Electrocute Your Stars about brothers Mike and George Kuchar. Candid interviews combined with Losier's own filmic homage results in loving sketches of these seminal filmmakers. George Kuchar will be in attendance. Berkeley filmmaker Ellen Lake's French Fries illuminates the fried-potato obsession of filmmaker Rebecca Baron, who gathered her collection while on a film shoot in 1998 and 1999, sealed them in plastic bags and watched their decay. Silvianna Goldsmith's Lil Picard is a filmed memoir of the witty and irreverent art world personality, artist and critic. Local filmmaker Gretchen Hildebran presents Carve, her film chronicling Bay Area Now participants Carolyn Cooley and Sara Thustra and their exploration of body cutting as a personal and political practice. Additional films TBA.

THE ABILITIES WE HAVE
A selection of films by and about people with disabilities, featuring Sharon Greytak's groundbreaking documentary, Weirded Out and Blown Away. Greytak's film challenges victim/superhero stereotypes of the disabled through frank interviews with five physically challenged professionals, including the filmmaker herself. Also included is the revealing Nature of Pleasure by local videomaker Thanh Diep. Made at the local arts organization Creativity Explored, this intimate piece reveals Diep's own struggles with her sexuality as an adult with cerebral palsy. Additional films included.

THE ART OF PERFORMANCE
Films from the 60s, 70s and today.
Both humorous and chilling, these performance art pieces were created by some of the most fearless and innovative women artists. Watch Yoko Ono try to extricate herself from the confines of her underclothes in Freedom. Ono puts her trust in the audience as she sits and allows them to participate with her and a pair of scissors in Cut Piece. Experience Carolee Schneeman writhing naked and covered with molasses and wallpaper paste in a pile of paper becoming her own Body Collage 1967. Valie Export, known to many for her groundbreaking and distinctly feminist work, presents a shocking comment on femininity and pain with a hint of maternal instinct in her film Remote...Remote. Film critic and filmmaker Amy Taubin's direct address trilogy, See, Like and Duck, confronts the audience with audacious declarations. Moniek Toebosch creates a bizarre, side - splitting and ultimately tear - jerking "happening" in her rarely seen 1977 gem, Solokonsert voor recensent en fotograaf. Additional films TBA.

THE EXPERIMENTALISTS
Directors manipulate the medium and share visual delights in this series of contemporary avant-garde films and videos. Numerical Engagements by Chelsea Walton (World Premiere/maker in person) is a hand-processed, optically printed love poem exploring an intimate rendezvous whilst on the go. Lush and colorful, the film's rhythm of editing is like a heartbeat. Neptune's Release: Shot in the Dark, by Joell Hallowell and Jacalyn White (West Coast Premiere, makers in person!) and featuring a star-studded cast (Janis Joplin, Timothy Leary and Shirley McClaine)- is a lesson in editing and ingenious juxtapositions. Christina Battle's Buffalo Lifts (World Premiere, maker in person!) is a sumptuous peek at gentle four-legged friends filmed in a wash of color and optically printed to obey the maker. See Bikini See (Angela Reginato in person!) reveals the secret schematics of '60s beach movies by which scratched-off emulsion allows the sexual undertow to dominate Annette, Frankie and Friends.

LIVE MUSIC and AVANT-GARDE FILMS!
The Secrets of Family Happiness graces MadCat again this year with their lyrical delights. Films TBA. The SF Bay Guardian says of the trio, "The Mission District's Secrets of Family Happiness have been sharing their musical insights with audiences for more than two years. The trio's mellow instrumental project (featuring guitar, bass, and percussion) sweeps the gamut of genres from blues to post-rock. Their songs start off with minimal - sometimes funky, sometimes folky - beats that slowly climb into lush and full sonic tales."

More LOCAL Filmmakers and Premieres at the Festival!
Joell Hallowell and Jacalyn White Neptune's Release West Coast Premiere, Filmmakers in Person.
Gretchen Hildebran Carve. Filmmaker in Person.
Barbara Klutinis Call to the Dark Side. SF Premiere. Filmmaker in Person.
Ellen Lake French Fries. Filmmaker in Person.
Candice Lin Unicorn. World Premiere, Filmmaker in Person.
Angela Reginato See Bikini See. Filmmaker in Person.
Phoebe Tooke Hotel City. Filmmaker in Person.
Chelsea Walton Numerical Engagements. World Premiere, Filmmaker in Person.

Upholding its mission to explore notions of visual storytelling, MadCat is proud to present local artists in live performance. Accompanying an evening of early silent films is live music from The Secrets of Family Happiness. Continuing a six-year collaboration with MadCat, Point Blank presents slide shows before all the screenings. Point Blank, a local queer photography collective headed by Rebecca McBride, Dusty Lombardo and Cara Gurney has garnered recognition for their photography at galleries such as New Langton Arts, Femina Potens and Build Gallery, and at renegade slide shows projected on buildings around the city.
For info: http://pointblank.xbuild.com/

In 1996 the MadCat Women's International Film Festival was born and with it a new platform for women artists to screen their work. MadCat showcases some of the best avant-garde independent and experimental films and videos from around the world. At MadCat women directors and artists are not only the centerpiece - they are the Festival. From MadCat's beginning as a three-day event at one location to our current month long line-up at four venues, plus more than 25 touring spots around the country, MadCat is truly a Festival to be reckoned with.