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Saturday / 3 P.M. / Zinema 1
Director: Naoki Kato
A surprise hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Abraxas is a delight with charming characters and profoundly moving. Read More »
* SUID will be donating a percentage of every paid ticket to the American Red Cross in support of the Japan Earthquake & Pacific Tsunami Fund.
ABRAXAS
A surprise hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Abraxas is a delight with charming characters and profoundly moving. Jonen (played by musician Suneohair) is a Zen monk who works in the temple, “Ryu-un-ji” in a small town in the North East province in Japan. He has a past that in dreaming to be rock musician, he became to hear the noise inside him and declined towards clinical depression. He had even attempted suicide just after becoming a monk. Still, he asks himself all the while, “Is this my life?” When he burns out at his speech in career guidance at a high school in the neighborhood of the temple, it occurs to him that nothing but music can save him after all. Now he realizes his deep desire to give a rock live again.
Genshu, the resident minister of the Zen temple understands Jonen very well. But when he knows Jonen’s desire to give a rock live in their town, Genshu starts worrying. Jonen’s wife Tae also opposes his idea, concerned for his worsening health. Besides, many residents of the town find it unbelievable that a Buddhist monk could give a rock live. However, nobody can change his mind.
Abraxas means a primitive God defined as the power above all, First Principle of all things including good and evil. It is also said that Abraxas is the origin of the mystic word “Abracadabra”.
Director: Naoki Kato, 2010, 113 min., Japan, In Japanese w/ English subtitles, 35mm
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Sunday / 2:45 P.M. / Zinema 1
Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari
Receiving acclaim from festivals worldwide (Venice, Toronto, Sundance and New Directors/New Films), ATTENBERG has been gaining mometum as one of the finest films of 2011. Read More »
ATTENBERG
Receiving acclaim from festivals worldwide (Venice, Toronto, Sundance and New Directors/New Films), ATTENBERG has been gaining mometum as one of the finest films of 2011. Part of the new wave of Greek cinema, ATTENBERG is an offbeat coming-of-age film. 23-year-old Marina is living in a small, factory town by the sea where her once-visionary architect father, has returned to die. Finding the human species foreign, she keeps her distance, choosing to observe mankind through Sir David Attenborough’s mammal documentaries and the songs of Suicide. While preparing for her father’s impending death, Marina discovers her own sexuality through lessons from her only friend, Bella, and a visiting engineer. Equal parts abstract theater and melodrama, ATTENBERG sincerely and humorously navigates the defining moments in life. Synopsis provided by Strand Releasing.
Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari, 2010, 95 min., Greece, In Greek w/ Eng. Subtitles, 35mm
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Friday / 11:59 P.M. / Zinema 1
Director: Wayne Coyne
Legendary rock band the Flaming Lips present Christmas on Mars: A Fantastical Film Freakout Featuring the Flaming Lips. Read More »
CHRISTMAS ON MARS
“It’s basically as weird as you’d hoped.” – Isaac Butler, New York Magazine
Legendary rock band the Flaming Lips present Christmas on Mars: A Fantastical Film Freakout Featuring the Flaming Lips, a glorious science fiction film that marks the directorial debut of the Lips’ visionary front man Wayne Coyne. Seven years in the making, Christmas on Mars features original music by the Flaming Lips (“The greatest U.S. band today” – The Guardian), with acting performances by all band members, and many others from their Oklahoma City-based team. Comedian Fred Armisen (Saturday Night Live) and actor Adam Goldberg (Dazed and Confused, Two Days in Paris) also appear, as does performer Steve Burns of the band Steve Burns and the Struggle (who had also appeared in children’s television show Blue’s Clues). Bradley Beesley and George Salisbury co-directed the movie with Mr. Coyne.
It’s Christmastime, and the colonization of Mars is underway. However, when an oxygen generator and a gravity control pod malfunction, Major Syrtis (the Lips’ Steven Drozd) and his team (including the Lips’ Michael Ivins) fear the worst. Syrtis also hallucinates about the birth of a baby, and many other strange things. Meanwhile, a compassionate alien Superbeing (Coyne) arrives, inspiring and helping the isolated astronauts. - Synopsis provided by Cinema Purgatorio
Director: Wayne Coyne, 2008, 83 min, USA, 35mm
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Saturday / 8:00 P.M. / Spirit Of The North / + Q&A
Director: Gorman Bechard
With Color Me Obsessed, the first documentary on the influential ’80s indie-rock band, The Replacements, director Gorman Bechard brings an extraordinary vision to a unique filmmaking challenge. Read More »
* Producer Jan Radder will be present at screening.
COLOR ME OBSESSED
With Color Me Obsessed, the first documentary on the influential ’80s indie-rock band, The Replacements, director Gorman Bechard brings an extraordinary vision to a unique filmmaking challenge. Told through the eyes of fans, friends, and contemporaries, the film breaks from the traditional music documentary format of music and performances. “Not wanting to make a VH1/where-are-they-now style documentary, I decided to present the band in a more iconic way,” the director explains. “I thought, people believe in God without seeing or hearing him but rather through the passion, faith, and stories of others. After watching COLOR ME OBSESSED, I’m pretty sure music fans will believe in The Replacements in much the same way.”
Telling the band’s story was a project close to the heart for Bechard. Like many who were weaned on punk music he latched onto this brash young Minneapolis band with fervor. Dubbed “the last best band” by Spin Magazine, their live shows could be miraculous or downright disasters. Their fans, unwaveringly faithful. As critic’s darlings, their albums were wrought with angry guitars and passionate well-written lyrics that hinted at potential commercial success. Yet, somehow, the band managed to continually shoot themselves in the foot. Their relative obscurity was a motivating factor in presenting their story on film. “The Replacements should have been the next Rolling Stones,” Bechard says, “And to the people who loved them, I think they were.”
Combining over 140 interviews with rockers (Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, Craig Finn of The Hold Steady, Tommy Ramone, Grant Hart and Greg Norton of Husker Du, all three members of Goo Goo Dolls), journalists (Robert Christgau, Legs McNeil, Ira Robbins, Greg Kot, Jim DeRogatis), and fans both famous (Tom Arnold, Dave Foley, George Wendt) and not, Bechard delivers the obsessive tale of the most influential band you’ve never heard of, to many the greatest rock band of all time, The Replacements. And though containing not a note of their music, COLOR ME OBSESSED is a documentary that really rocks.
Director: Gorman Bechard, 2011, 123 min, USA, HDCAM
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Friday / 7:15 P.M. / Spirit Of The North / + Q&A
Editor/Director: Rob Bralver
Cure for Pain: The Mark Sandman Story examines the life and work of Mark Sandman, deceased front man of Boston “low rock” band Morphine. Read More »
* Editor/Director Rob Bralver will be present at the screening.
CURE FOR PAIN: THE MARK SANDMAN STORY
Cure for Pain: The Mark Sandman Story examines the life and work of Mark Sandman, deceased front man of Boston “low rock” band Morphine. From his Newton, Mass., roots to his travels across America and around the globe, Sandman left an indelible imprint as one of the most distinctive musicians of his generation. Along with revisiting the “unique and sultry sound” of his music, the film explores the meaning of family through this critically praised and personally conflicted singer, songwriter and innovative instrumentalist.
Hot off of its US premiere at the world renowned, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in April, Cure For Pain, the pursuit of Sandman’s turbulent story has led filmmakers Robert G. Bralver, Jeff Broadway and David Ferino to New York, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London and Rome. Among those appearing in the film are members of the Sandman family, Seth Mnookin (Vanity Fair), Nic Harcourt (Los Angeles Times, KCRW), Steve LaBate (Paste), Ben Harper, John Medeski, Les Claypool (Primus), Mike Watt (The Stooges), Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) and members of Morphine: Dana Colley, Billy Conway and Jerome Deupree. – Synopsis provided by the filmmakers.
Directors: Robert Bralver & David Ferino, 2010, 83 min., USA, HDCAM
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Sunday / 12:15 P.M. / Spirit Of The North
Director: Gereon Wetzel
El Bulli is a restaurant owned by Three-star chef Ferran Adrià (widely considered the best, most innovative and craziest chef in the world) and Juli Soler. Read More »
* This film is sponsored by JJ Astor.
EL BULLI
El Bulli is a restaurant owned by Three-star chef Ferran Adrià (widely considered the best, most innovative and craziest chef in the world) and Juli Soler. Ferran Adrià is considered the most creative chef of our time. El Bulli is famous around the world for its avant-garde cuisine, and the annual number of reservation requests is overwhelming. The renowned magazine Restaurantʼs annual international jury of chefs and restaurant critics has voted El Bulli the Worldʼs Best Restaurant five times. In Cala Monjoi, a cove near Roses, in the Catalan province of Girona, a few hours from Barcelona. The only way they can prepare their creations is by keeping the restaurant open for six months, so the cooks can spend the remaining time developing new dishes in their cooking laboratory El Bulli Taller.
Pictures are taken down and cutlery wrapped up in cellophane foil, as a delivery van is loaded with machines and boxes. In the tiny cove of Montjoi below, waves pound the beach. We are at El Bulli, witnessing the closing of probably the most famous restaurant in the world. No, itʼs not forever, just until next season. Each winter the restaurant closes, and Ferran Adrià, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch cloister themselves in their experimental kitchen in Barcelona for half a year, to create their new menu for the following season. Anything goes – except copying oneself. Synopsis provided by Kino/Lorber.
Director: Gereon Wetzel, 2010, 108 min., Germany, In German w/ Eng. Subtitles, HDCAM
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This screening is a special celebration of Life House
Sunday / 3:00 P.M. / Teatro Zuccone / + Q&A
Director: Matt Seilback
Joe's Place is the story of a unique home established to provide a refuge for homeless teen boys in St. Louis, MO. Read More »
* This screening is a special celebration of Life House.
JOE’S PLACE
Joe's Place is the story of a unique home established to provide a refuge for homeless teen boys in St. Louis, MO. Follow the lives of four young men who lived there and who's lives were changed there. You might mistake it for any other home, but this is a home especially filled with renewed chances, a home filled with hope and love, a home... called Joe's Place.
Director: Matt Seilbeck, 2011, 50 min., USA, video
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Buy Tickets »LAMBENT FUSE (Work-in progress screening)
Sunday / 12:45 P.M. / Teatro Zuccone / + Q&A
Directors: Matt Cici
Lambent Fuse is a character-driven drama that illustrates human connection and choice. Read More »
* Director/Co-writer Matt Cici, Actor Nick Hansen, Producers: David Marketon & Blake Hosler will be present at the screening.
LAMBENT FUSE (Work-in progress screening)
Lambent Fuse is a character-driven drama that illustrates human connection and choice. This complex narrative unfolds in a non-chronological timeframe as the lives of these six main characters intertwine.
Freddie Goone (Rhett Romsaas) plunges into a detached world full of regret after recent and tragic events that trigger his slide into depression. Allison Swanson’s (Heidi Fellner) kleptomania undermines her ability to hold a job and maintain a relationship with an emotionally detached and swiftly sinking Freddie. Paul Dobbler (Eric Hanson), a mysterious chef, takes it upon himself to meddle in the life of a woman with whom he's deeply infatuated. Phillip Richter (Matthew Feeney) seeks to overcome allegations that threaten his long sought promotion as police captain. Keith Malone (Nick Hansen) and Vincent Becker (Dan Eckman-Thomas) embark on a series of robberies that land them in a situation that is way over their heads.
As the lives of these characters meld together, the consequences of their seemingly straightforward choices result in unpredictable and dynamic outcomes. Synopsis provided by filmmakers.
Director: Matt Cici, 2011, 105 min., USA, video
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Saturday / 5:00 P.M. / Spirit Of The North
Directors: Don Argott & Demian Fenton
Cult rock legend Bobby Liebling has been churning out genre-defining hard rock for over 36 years as the lead singer of the band Pentagram. Various acts of self-destruction have condemned his music to obscurity. Read More »
LAST DAYS HERE
Cult rock legend Bobby Liebling has been churning out genre-defining hard rock for over 36 years as the lead singer of the band Pentagram. Various acts of self-destruction, multiple band break-ups, and botched record deals have condemned his music to obscurity. Frozen for decades in his parents' basement, Bobby is finally discovered by the heavy metal underground. With the help of Sean 'Pellet' Pelletier, his friend and manager, Bobby struggles to overcome his demons.
Bobby Liebling & Pentagram have been churning out widely admired hard rock / doom metal for over four decades. Within its first, this D.C. band is largely regarded as pioneering not one but two subgenres of hard rock. At the onset of the 1970’s, they helped procreate a behemoth called, “Heavy Metal”. Nine years on, they’d be planting the dark seed of what would grow to be known as “Doom”. 2011 marks the 40th anniversary of this American treasure and see the release of their new album, “Last Rites,” on Metal Blade Records.
Directed by Don Argott and Demian Fenton (“Rock School” and “The Art of the Steal”), Last Days Here chronicles the triumphs and downfalls of this underground icon who finds himself at the crossroads of life and death. Premiering at the 2011 SXSW, Last Days Here, was recently picked up for U.S. distributor by Sundance Selects is sure to entertain and rock your skull!
Directors: Don Argott & Demian Fenton, 2011, 90 min., USA, HDCAM
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Saturday / 12:30 P.M. / Teatro Zuccone
Director: Mike Ott
Winner of “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” and an Independent Spirit Award for “Someone to Watch”, Mike’s Ott, directorial debut, Littlerock... Read More »
* SUID will be donating a percentage of every paid ticket to the American Red Cross in support of the Japan Earthquake & Pacific Tsunami Fund.
LITTLEROCK
Winner of “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” and an Independent Spirit Award for “Someone to Watch”, Mike’s Ott, directorial debut, Littlerock, confirms Ott as a proven filmmaker and an exciting new voice in American Independent film. A road-tripping Japanese brother and sister spend several lost days discovering the less-flattering flipside of California dreaming in this charmingly scruffy tale of misfits, heartbreak and small-town restlessness. Rintaro and Atsuko are visiting the U.S. for the first time. They are headed for San Francisco when their rental car breaks down in the California desert town of Littlerock. Despite the cultural and language barriers—or maybe because of them—they soon fall in with the aimless young locals, including an awkward outcast named Cory clumsily plotting an escape to Los Angeles and clearly taken with Atsuko. She finds fumbling romance with another boy instead, even though the two don’t understand a word between them. Atsuko is seduced by this place that is so unlike her home and wants to stick around, while Rintaro detects its darker side. Soured by what he sees, he continues on as his sister stubbornly remains—embracing California as the storied refuge from troubles. Director Mike Ott proves astutely familiar with hi well-observed setting, convincingly evoking the languid rhythms of purposeless young people, drinking and smoking their days away. The dazzling sunsets and soaring mountains provide counterpoints to the claustrophobia of a small-town rife with petty sniping, racial tension and homophobia. Gently funny and sweetly melancholic, Littlerock is a warm depiction of the confusing and sometimes painful process of finding your identity and lurching towards adulthood. Synopsis provided by the San Francisco Film Festival.
Director: Mike Ott, 2010, 85 min., In English and Japanese with Eng. subtitles, Blu-Ray
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Buy Tickets »MOTHER OF ROCK: LILLIAN ROXON
Friday / 5:15 P.M. / Spirit Of The North
Director: Paul Clarke
If you’d been lucky enough to keep company with the likes of Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison in the sixties, then you’d be all too familiar with the inimitable Lillian Roxon. Read More »
MOTHER OF ROCK: LILLIAN ROXON
If you’d been lucky enough to keep company with the likes of Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison in the sixties, then you’d be all too familiar with the inimitable Lillian Roxon, the pioneering rock critic who captured the verve of New York City’s music scene for a generation of international readers. A dynamic, iconoclastic trailblazer and a centerpiece at Max’s Kansas City – the legendary club frequented by Warhol and his Factory superstars – Roxon distilled her intimate insights and insider experience into Lillian Roxon’s Rock Encyclopedia, the first important book on rock music. No history of rock would be complete without a chapter on this cultural pioneer and now, thanks to the work of director Paul Clarke, Roxon stars in her own fascinating documentary.
She is credited as the first journalist who saw rock and roll as more than a passing trend; from the outset, she considered it a powerful reflection of a society in revolution. From there we’re whisked away on a behind-the-scenes journey into New York City’s hippest spots, mingling with the likes of John and Yoko, The Velvet Underground and Janis Joplin while hearing Roxon’s lucid, seemingly definitive observations on such icons as Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors. Roxon also made a name for herself as an outspoken feminist and had a long, tumultuous friendship with Germaine Greer, who caustically dedicated her groundbreaking feminist text The Female Eunuch to Roxon. In a shockingly frank interview, Greer reveals what really happened between these two brilliant women. –Synopsis provided by Toronto International Film Festival
Director: Paul Clarke, 2010, 74 min., Australia, HDCAM
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Saturday / 2:30 P.M. / Spirit Of The North / + Q&A
Directors: Jen Dietrich and Sarah Nitschke
Ironic, imperturbable, mischievous and fascinating, Philip Pearlstein's controversial creative vision continues to drive him forward, upstream against time and art history. Read More »
* Will be screening with Scrap Vessel.
NAKED VISION
Ironic, imperturbable, mischievous and fascinating, Philip Pearlstein’s controversial creative vision continues to drive him forward, upstream against time and art history. Considered the “father of New Realism,” through his prolific painting, writing, and teaching, Pearlstein has had a tremendous impact on modern and postmodern art. Synopsis provided by filmmakers.
Directors: Jen Dietrich & Sarah Nitschke, 2011, 32 min.,
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Saturday / 4:00 P.M. / Teatro Zuccone/ + Q&A
Directors: Lu Lippold & Mark Tang
A Hmong immigrant is convicted of killing six white hunters in a violent confrontation during the 2004 deer-hunting season in northwestern Wisconsin. Was it a racial incident? Read More »
* Co-Director Mark Tang will be present at screening.
OPEN SEASON
Co-Director Mark Tang present at screening.
A Hmong immigrant is convicted of killing six white hunters in a violent confrontation during the 2004 deer-hunting season in northwestern Wisconsin. Was it a racial incident? Was it the random act of a madman? Did it happen because urban development has diminished the woods, leaving hunters to battle over limited territory? Chai Soua Vang, the perpetrator, is now in prison, his victims buried. But there’s a much bigger story here: a story about race, ethnicity, immigration and the changing face of our nation. Part courtroom drama, part intimate portrait, this feature-length documentary looks at the root causes and the reverberating impacts of this tragedy, bringing into high relief the simmering tensions – racial, cultural, economic – that lurk in America’s heartland.
Winner at the 2011 San Francisco Asian Film Festival for Achievement in Citizen Journalism, the jury said, “A nuanced approach to an urgent contemporary issue – that of refugee and migrant struggles to find a home and justice in 21st-century America.” Synopsis provided by filmmakers.
Directors: Lu Lippold & Mark Tang, 2010, 57 min., USA, video
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Sunday / 5:15 P.M. / Zinema 2
Director: Monte Hellman
From legendary American director Monte Hellman (Two-Lane Blacktop, The Shooting and executive producer of Reservoir Dogs) comes his first directed film in over two decades. Read More »
ROAD TO NOWHERE
From legendary American director Monte Hellman (Two-Lane Blacktop, The Shooting and executive producer of Reservoir Dogs) comes his first directed film in over two decades and some critics are calling it a “ certifiable masterpiece” and have garnered praise from Venice and SXSW film festivals.
There’s a murky tenuous balance between reality and fiction; particularly when it involves a beautiful young woman, murder, a powerful politico, a missing fortune and suicide.
A passionate filmmaker (Tygh Runyan), creating a film based upon a true crime, casts an unknown mysterious young woman (Shannyn Sossamon) bearing a disturbing resemblance to the femme fatale in the story. He finds himself unsuspectingly drawn into a complex web of haunting intrigue, obsessed with the woman, the crime, her possibly notorious past and the disturbing complexity between art and truth.
From the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina to Verona, Rome and London, new truths revealed and clues to other crimes and passions, darker and even more complex are uncovered as Road to Nowhere takes you places you’ve never been. – Synopsis provided by Monterey Media.
Director: Monte Hellman, 2010, 121 min., USA, Blu-Ray
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Saturday / 2:30 P.M. / Spirit Of The North / + Q&A
Director: Jason Byrne
Scrap Vessel documents the last trip of the Haru Funafuti (formerly the Bulk Promoter and Hupohai – which means ‘Amber Ocean’), a cargo ship on its way to be scrapped. Read More »
* Will be screening with Naked Visions.
SCRAP VESSEL
Scrap Vessel documents the last trip of the Haru Funafuti (formerly the Bulk Promoter and Hupohai – which means ‘Amber Ocean’), a cargo ship on its way to be scrapped. With a languid atmostpher using the massive ship like a landscape, the film explores what is found inside from the Hupohai’s communist past, onwards through an unseen attack by pirates and onto a distant beach and glowing ironworks factory, until the ship becomes a phantom. Synopsis provided by filmmakers.
Director: Jason Byrne, 2009, 51 min., USA, HDCAM
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Friday / 5-6:30 P.M. / Zinema 2
This year, Sound Unseen International Duluth is very pleased to have culled film and video work from around the region for presentation in our regional shorts collection.
More Info / Trailers »
Regional Shorts Collection
Here you will find UMD students looking to make careers in the film industry, established pros from across the Midwest, music videos of Duluth bands and some local Duluthians just doing their thing! Many filmmakers will be in attendance for this screening.
Filmmaker - 16mm 14 minutes - Trailer
Dir. Lance Karasti present!
The plot revolves around famous film director Martin Scorsese in 1976, plotting to kill the studio head who is forcing him to cut the end of his masterpiece "Taxi Driver." This is based on an old Hollywood rumor.
Left Behind, or Only the Good Die Young - Animation 3:18 - Trailer
Produced by Peter Kirschmann
Try To Sleep - Low Music Video 4:26
Travis Schneider
"Try To Sleep" features John Stamos behind the wheel as he goes on a beautifully languid drive to nowhere with his sweetheart beside him. A handsome gentleman takes his lovely lady for a serene drive through a rear-projected countryside... With one tragic twist.
Mr. Nice In Death From Above - 6:09
Music by The Keepaways
Dir. Todd Gremmels present!
Mr Nice and his reckless nihilistic rampage through Death From Above is akin to Toshiro Mifune's Seven Samurai.--Sandra Peterson, Chicago Film Critic
Heaven - 2:42 - Trailer
Dir. Coleman Miller present!
Only human beings could come up with the ridiculous idea of a judgmental god. This is my one and only effort where someone handed me a soundtrack and i cut images accordingly. Thanks to Jon Nelson for this great track.
New York Minute - 3:00
Coleman Miller present!
Stationary camera; moving people. Slowed down and manipulated for your pleasure.
UMD Student Selection:
Femme Fatale - 7:20
Dir. Leon Nyarecha present!
The film is about revenge and justice
Punishable Acts - 5:00
Leon Nyarecha present!
The film is about the punishing of evil deeds.
Drink Sprite - :50
Dir. Travis Haggerty invited!
Conceptual sprite commercial
Brandon Edit - 1:36
Dir. Jacob Durham invited!
Snowboard Video
Zoldier - 4:24
Dir. Luke Johnson
The film is about the survival of mankind in a zombie-infested world.
Duluth Minnesota:The Northern Exposure - 3:26
Dir. Spencer Johnson invited!
A photo documentation of the city of Duluth | 20 locations | 4921 Photos
North Shore Sessions - Music Video 4:33
Dir. Trent Waterman invited!
Russian Bride Video
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Thursday / 7:30 P.M. / Clyde Iron / + Q&A
Director/Editor: Susanne Rostock
Susanne Rostock’s inspiring biographical documentary, Sing Your Song, surveys the life and times of singer/actor/activist Harry Belafonte. Read More »
* Producer Gina Bellafonte will be present.
SING YOUR SONG
Opening the 2011 Sundance Film festival, Sing Your Song, is wonderfully archived, and told with a remarkable sense of intimacy, visual style, and musical panache, Susanne Rostock’s inspiring biographical documentary, Sing Your Song, surveys the life and times of singer/actor/activist Harry Belafonte. From his rise to fame as a singer, inspired by Paul Robeson, and his experiences touring a segregated country, to his provocative crossover into Hollywood, Belafonte’s groundbreaking career personifies the American civil rights movement and impacted many other social-justice movements. Rostock reveals Belafonte as a tenacious hands-on activist, who worked intimately with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., mobilized celebrities for social justice, participated in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, and took action to counter gang violence, prisons, and the incarceration of youth.
Because of his beliefs, Belafonte drew unwarranted invasions by the FBI into both his personal life and career, which led to years of struggle. But an indomitable sense of optimism motivates his path even today as he continues to ask, at 84, "What do we do now?" His example may very well inspire you to action. – Synopsis provided by Sundance Film Festival.
Director: Susanne Rostock, 2011, 104 min., USA, HDCAM
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Saturday / 1:00 P.M. / Spirit Of The North
Director: Dave Boyle
San Francisco musician and rising star Goh Nakamura’s (playing himself) life of solitude is disrupted when he is hired to teach TV actor Danny Turner (Chadd Stoops) how to play guitar for an upcoming film. Read More »
SURROGATE VALENTINE
San Francisco musician and rising star Goh Nakamura’s (playing himself) life of solitude is disrupted when he is hired to teach TV actor Danny Turner (Chadd Stoops) how to play guitar for an upcoming film. Hell bent on accurately portraying Goh’s mellow vibe for his role, Danny meticulously studies his every move. Together, the two embark on a hilarious West Coast adventure involving live gigs, groupies, shotgun-wielding record exes and an unexpected friendship. Along the way, Goh discovers that Danny may be the missing puzzle piece in his life-long chase for Rachel (Lynn Chen), the one that got away. Surrogate Valentine had its world premiere at the 2011 SXSW Film Festival and has since won numerous awards at film festivals worldwide. Synopsis provided by Tiger Industry Films.
“Director Dave Boyle has delivered a film that might be drained of a color palette but that remains flooded with humor and charm.” Michael Tully, Hammer to Nail
Director: Dave Boyle, 2011, 75 min., USA, HDCAM
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Buy Tickets »THE AGONY & ECSTASY OF PHIL SPECTOR
Friday / 7 P.M. / Zinema 2
Director: Vikram Jayanti
Phil Spector wrote and produced the soundtrack of America’s love affairs, creating the famously resonant mono recording style he called the “Wall of Sound”. Read More »
* Jury Member Jim Browne to introduce.
THE AGONY & ECSTASY OF PHIL SPECTOR
Phil Spector wrote and produced the soundtrack of America’s love affairs, creating the famously resonant mono recording style he called the “Wall of Sound” instantly recognizable in hits from The Crytals’ Da Doo Ron Ron to The Righteous Brothers You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling. Until, after tabloid frenzy and two trials, Spector faced the music himself and was convicted for the second-degree murder of Lana Clarkson. Partly an ode to what Spector called his “Wagnerian approach to rock & roll: little symphonies for kids," and partly a stage for megalomania that alternates between charming and creepy, Agony is an always-riveting inquiry into a man and his music. Award-winning producer and director Vikram Jayanti continues a series of documentaries on larger-than-life people who are, in his words, “about something even bigger than themselves”. Granted an almost unheard of interview with the reclusive Spector at his suburban Los Angeles mansion during his first trial for murder, Jayanti pays tribute to Spector’s richly layered sound by crafting Agony from an analogous layering of images, commentary and magnificent renditions of Spector hits. John Lennon's Crippled Inside plays to Spector’s involuntary tics and twitches; we see Spector in court with the sounds of He’s a Rebel and hagiographic subtitles excerpted from a biography. Shot by the trail-blazing cinematographer Maryse Alberti (Happiness, Velvet Goldmine), in the end, as Jayanti says, Spector is “naked on-screen and he's weird [but] however complicated the film is in its view of him, it's also a love song to his legacy.” – Synopsis provided by New York Film Forum
Director: Vikram Jayanti, 2009, 102 min., USA/UK, Blu-Ray
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Buy Tickets »THE BALLAD OF GENESIS & LADY JAYE
Friday / 9:15 P.M. / Spirit Of The North / + Q&A
Director: Marie Losier
Seven years in the making, Ballad is a mesmerizing and deeply romantic love story between pioneering musician and performance artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and soul mate Lady Jaye. Read More »
* Producer Steve Holmgren will be present.
THE BALLAD OF GENESIS & LADY JAYE
Seven years in the making, Ballad is a mesmerizing and deeply romantic love story between pioneering musician and performance artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and soul mate Lady Jaye. Breaking new ground in its depiction of gender transformation and identity, the film chronicles the physical and spiritual merging of two beings into one. Eschewing the classic talking heads documentary format, Losier’s film employs Genesis as the narrator of her own life story, Losier animates this soothing narration with experimental techniques, including the breathless pace of her 16mm moving camera flares, archival material, and reenactments that enliven this heartfelt tale of love and loss. Losier’s film also captures unique behind-the-scenes preparations and live performances of their bands that pioneered industrial music, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, closing in perfect form with the evocative and poignant love ballad “The Orchids.”
Winner of the Teddy Award at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival, The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, is an intimate, affecting portrait of the life and work of groundbreaking performance artist and his other half and collaborator, Lady Jaye, centered on the daring sexual transformations the pair underwent for their “Pandrogyne” project. Produced by Minnesota native Steve Holmgren, in person for a Q&A with filmmaker Marie Losier. – Synopsis provided by Jon Gartenberg - Tribeca Film Festival and filmmakers.
Director: Marie Losier, 2011, 70 min., USA/France, HDCAM
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Saturday / 12:45 P.M. / Zinema 1 / + Q&A
Director: Calvin Lee Reeder
The Oregonian is that nightmare where the lines are blurred, where memories and unconscious thoughts fade in and out. There was a car accident and a green, furry friend. Read More »
* Producer Steven Schardt will be present.
THE OREGONIAN
The Oregonian is that nightmare where the lines are blurred, where memories and unconscious thoughts fade in and out. There was a car accident and a green, furry friend. And gasoline coladas… And the woman from Oregon screams for help as she runs from her past and becomes lost in this nightmare.
After his prize winning short, Little Farm, director Calvin Lee Reeder’s The Oregonian, shocked audiences at the Sundance Film Festival this year and recently won a special jury prize at the Sarasota Film Festival, with its thick visuals and often-violent experiences of sound, similar to auteur David Lynch, his feature debut, is no exception to that. Reeder is an independent director on the festival circuit today with a bold, unique voice that can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.
The Northwest woods are a creepy place for the woman from Oregon, but one she can’t escape. The atmosphere is cold, eerie, dark and tense. The characters she meets along her journey, strange and wild. This nightmare is unsettling yet even humorous at times. It’s a nightmare that’s ok to get lost in. – Synopsis provided by Dallas Film Festival.
Director: Calvin Lee Reed, 2011, 81 min., USA, Blu-Ray
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Sunday / 12:30 P.M. / Zinema 1
Director: Francois Truffaut
A haunting score by Georges Delerue enhances the mood in The Soft Skin, François Truffaut's dark and suspenseful follow-up to Jules and Jim. Read More »
THE SOFT SKIN
"RIPE FOR REAPPRAISAL! One of his best … Truffaut treats it like a crime film - low-key yet tense, filled with carefully planted potential 'clues' and an undercurrent of anxiety." - J. Hoberman, The Village Voice
"François Truffaut's fourth feature, The Soft Skin, is easily one of his best … a relentlessly paced, breathtakingly intense thriller." - Nelson Kim, Hammer to Nail
A haunting score by Georges Delerue enhances the mood in The Soft Skin, François Truffaut's dark and suspenseful follow-up to Jules and Jim. While on a business trip, married literary critic Pierre Lachenay (Jean Desailly) meets a beautiful airline hostess (Françoise Dorleac) and begins an affair. As Pierre's behavior becomes increasingly impulsive, his infidelity sparks a devastating act of jealousy and revenge. A mixture of Hitchcockian suspense motifs and acutely observed drama, The Soft Skin is one of Truffaut's most penetrating works. Janus Films is proud to present this long-underrated film in a new 35mm print and not available on DVD. Synopsis provided by Janus Films.
Director: Francois Truffaut, 1964, 119 min., France, In French w/ Eng. Subtitles, 35mm
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Sunday / 2:30 P.M. / Spirit Of The North / + Q&A
Directors: Sean Nelson & Steven Schardt
First-time directors Steven Schardt and Sean Nelson's playful comedic approach is loose and upbeat and does not dare to take itself too seriously. Read More »
* Directors Sean Nelson & Steven Schardt along with producer Jennifer Maas will be present at the screening.
TREATMENT
Leonard and Nelson have been friends for ages. Leonard is the charismatic, underachieving, but obsessive screenwriter looking for a fast track to success, and Nelson is his self-deprecating and accommodating writing partner who always has a few bucks to spare. As both confront a mid-30s reality check and a pile of unsuccessful screenplays, Leonard convinces Nelson to back his stint at a glitzy LA rehab clinic so he can pitch their new movie deal to mega-star Gregg D. As the half-baked plan twists and turns, and Leonard's ambition and selfishness spin out of control, the writing duo's friendship cries for an overdue dose of reality.
First-time directors Steven Schardt and Sean Nelson's playful comedic approach is loose and upbeat and does not dare to take itself too seriously, making for a zany and refreshing time. Shooting in Los Angeles on a shoestring budget, the producers of Humpday and actors Sean Nelson, Ross Partridge and Katie Aselton (from SUID’s 2010, The Freebie and Feed the Fish), and Joshua Leonard reunite for this equally smart absurdist comedy. Not to be confused with your typical "bromance," Treatment picks up after the honeymoon, when there is some growing up to do and maybe even a little "bromancipation." Original music by Robyn Hitchcock. Synopsis provided by Tribeca Film Festival.
Directors: Sean Nelson & Steven Schardt, 2010, 84 min., USA, Blu-Ray
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Friday / 9 P.M. / Zinema 2 / + Q&A
Directors: James Hall & Edward Lovelace
In small church basements with rattling fluorescent lights, Missourian Brendon Masse achingly strums his guitar for the few who gather to listen. Read More »
* U.S. Premiere – Directors James Hall & Edward Lovelace will be present.
WEREWOLVES ACROSS AMERICA
In small church basements with rattling fluorescent lights, Missourian Brendon Masse achingly strums his guitar for the few who gather to listen. He goes by the name Viking Mmoses and he's a stand in for a lost American landscape haunted by the unseen rejects of the American Dream. Werewolves In America is a portrait serenaded by and introduced through some of freakfolk's finest practitioners including Deer Tick, The Shivers and Phosphorescent. Its an observational narrative giving glimpses into DIY culture, a surreal portrait of a man who lives by his own choices, shedding light on the wider ideas of choice and modern pioneering lifestyles in the heartland of America.
Directors: James Hall & Edward Loveless, 2010, 85 min., UK, Blu-Ray
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Saturday / 2:00 P.M. / Teatro Zuccone / + Q&A
Director: Mark Jackson
On a remote wooded island, a young woman becomes caretaker to an old man in a vegetative state. She has no cell signal and no Internet. Read More »
* Lead Actress Joslyn Jensen will be present at screening.
WITHOUT
On a remote wooded island, a young woman becomes caretaker to an old man in a vegetative state. She has no cell signal and no Internet. Only a year removed from high school and forced to meet the needs of a man who cannot respond, Joslyn vacillates between finding solace in his company and feeling fear and anger towards him. As the monotony of daily routine starts to unravel, boundaries collapse and Joslyn struggles with sexuality, guilt and loss.
Winner of multiple awards already in 2011 including Special Jury Mention in the Narrative Feature Category at Slamdance, Independent Vision Grand Jury Award at the Sarasota Film Festival and Special Jury Award for Outstanding Debut Performance by Jensen at the Florida Film Festival. Without features a stunning performance by Joslyn Jensen and a riveting debut by writer/director Mark Jackson. Synopsis provided by filmmakers.
Director: Mark Jackson, 2011, 87 min., USA, Blu-Ray
