Celluloid by Ethan Knecht

USA, 2 minutes

*Director Ethan Knecht in attendance.

Celluloid is a short film about the affect of the present on memory and love. Celluloid is a short experimental/documentary about the affect of the present on memory and love. Shot in 16mm, HD video, and using a myriad of avant-guard techniques the film explores the relationship between time, love, and the processes of revisiting old footage.  Ethan Knecht’s previous films–Glass and A Film About Violence–have shown on IFC.com, PBS Reel13 Shorts, Rooftop Films, and The Atlanta Underground Film Festival. He lives and works as a teacher in New York City.

Incredibly Small by Dean Peterson

USA, 2010, 83 minutes

*Director Dean Peterson in attendance.

A 300 Square Foot Love Story. Anne and Amir are an unlikely pair. Amir is an escalator attendant by day and aspiring sculptor by night. Even though he has never sculpted anything before, he hopes to one day fulfill his lifelong dream of making a marble bust of Charles Barkley. Anne comes from a well-to-do family and just started law school where she spends most of her days studying. Against the odds they decide to move into a shabby 300 square foot apartment and try to start a life together. But things don’t exactly go as planned. The combination of their small apartment, their threateningly charming neighbor next door and unexpected visitors from the past make them realize that maybe they aren’t as perfect for each other as they previously had thought. Director Dean Peterson is a filmmaker from Minneapolis, MN. He studied film in New York, Paris and Chicago. His interests include: black coffee, Siberian Huskies and David Bowie. He currently lives in Chicago, IL. Incredibly Small is his first feature.

Young Bird Season by Nellie Kluz

USA, 2011, 19min

*Director Nellie Kluz in attendance.

Young Bird Season is about the rhythms and logistics of pigeon racing, the guys who fly, and the birds themselves. Each week, the pigeon flyers at the Braintree Pigeon Racing Club send their birds hundreds of miles away, and then they let them race home. YOUNG BIRD SEASON is a movie that handles the details. Nellie Kluz grew up in Upstate New York and England and now lives in Boston. YOUNG BIRD SEASON has been shown at the  Chicago Underground Film Festival and the Independent Film Festival Boston.

Pow Pow Pow by Dianne Bellino

USA, 2011, 17 minutes

*Director Dianne Bellino in attendance.

Send in the clowns. After losing a series of menial jobs, Danny, 39, a sometimes artist, launches himself as BOBO, a children’s birthday party clown. Armed with a joke book and a duffle bag full of props, Danny goes to a gig at a large house in the Rhode Island suburbs, where he has a moment of unexpected self?reckoning. Dianne Bellino’s short films have screened at festivals such as SXSW, Hamburg, Maryland, MadCat, Ann Arbor; on television (MTV); and at the RISD Museum and the Coolidge Corner Theater. Her work is distributed independently and by Drag City. She currently teaches in the department of Media Studies and Film at the New School in New York City.

The Virgin Herod by Xander Robin

USA, 2011, 7 minutes

*Director Xander Robin in attendance.

It’s called a crush cause it hurts. Herod has an obsessive crush on Miriam. She accidentally invites him to a party. On the way, Herod’s anxiety incites the gradual and excessive breakdown of his body and mind. Xander Robin is a filmmaker studying at the FSU College of Motion Picture Arts. Born in Chicago, IL to Russian-Israeli parents, his films often explore a state of frenzy, the human body and its hair, doomed romance, and explosions of dairy products. In his spare time, Xander likes to drink coffee and listen to soul music.

Daud by Joel Fendelman

USA,  2010,  13 minutes

*Director Joel Fendelman in attendance.

Set in Brooklyn, a slice of life story of a 10 year old religious Muslim boy who one day finds himself wanting to play softball with the other kids. After changing to what he thinks is acceptable, he learns it’s not so easy. For the last six years, Joel Fendelman has been in New York producing and directing award winning films. His documentary feature debut  “Needle Through Brick” which surveys the quickly vanishing art of traditional arts in Borneo through the eyes Kung Fu Masters won the Silver Palm award from the Mexico International film festival. He has directed a number of award winning short films that have been accepted and shown at prestigious film festivals, including Cannes, Chicago, Miami, Woodstock and IDFA. “David” will be Joel’s narrative feature debut, a very personal yet universal film about identity told through the unlikely friendship of a young Muslim and orthodox Jewish boy living in Brooklyn. Joel received his BFA in film and television from the Savannah College of Art and Design and currently lives in Brooklyn.

Sun in My Mouth by Jessica Yatrofsky

USA, 2010, 35 minutes

*Director Jessica Yatrotsky in attendance.

Can you hear the light? Sun In My Mouth is an experimental coming-of-age story about a young man who confesses his sexual past to an unseen phone sex operator. He reflects on his sexual identity as we follow him on a solitary excursion to a beach. Ultimately, it’s a film about how we attempt to connect and understand other people by understanding ourselves. Jessica Yatrofsky is a New York–based artist, known for her film and photographic work with male subjects and the founder of iheartboy.com. Yatrofsky’s artwork also includes live performances as well as films that explore male beauty and sexual politics. She received an MFA from Parsons The New School and has just published her first monograph titled, I Heart Boy, with Powerhouse Books.

*Sun in My Mouth features erotic language (in the form of an erotic phone call) and a boy who masturbates to completion.

Doppleganger by Micheline Durocher

Canada, 2009, 4 minutes

*Director Micheline Durocher in attendance.

This recent experimental video is inspired by the autobiography of Goethe, conveying the uncanny feeling of being confronted with your double coming toward you.… and here one of the most singular forebodings took possession of me.. I saw my own figure coming toward me, attired in a dress which I had never worn… it was pike-gray, with somewhat of gold. As soon as I shook myself out of this dream, the figure had entirely disappeared. It is strange, however, eight years afterward, I found myself on the very road, to pay one more visit to her, in the dress of which I had dreamed, and which I wore, not from choice, but by accident.  (Truth and Fiction, Goethe)

Prologue to a Cyclops by Nathan Punwar

USA, 2010, 5 minutes

*Director Nathan Punwar in attendance.

A stereoscopic presentation of modern day cyclops trying to find his way in a two-eyed world. Francis, a cyclops, cannot see the world the same way as everyone else. Ashamed and depressed, he lives in total seclusion until he is plucked from obscurity by the mysterious Lina Rae, delivery girl and photographer extraordinaire. When she shows him her way of interpreting the world through a camera’s lens, he becomes obsessed with the idea of building a device that will give him two-eyed vision. Nathan Punwar writes and makes films in Brooklyn, NY. A graduate of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, he is currently working on his next short film and a series of episodic shorts. His various work in animation, photography, and design is collected at kettlecornrock.net.

Sister Fight by Jen and Crystal Campbell

USA, 2010, 2 minutes

*Directors Jen and Crystal Campbell in attendance.

Identical twin sisters face off in a humorous battle over beer in the animated short comedy, Sister Fight. Sister Fight is a stop-motion film portraying a fight between a set of identical twins.  The images and film are comedic and highly stylized, and the fight is instigated by a trivial dispute.  Beneath the humor, however, is an exploration of the difficulties of self-identity for the twins.  In the film, Jen and Crystal are dressed very similarly and, as a result, easily confused in the unknowing viewer’s eyes.  The explosive fight hints at the intensity of Jen’s and Crystal’s underlying struggle for a distinguished identity and individualized self.  Run through with heavy doses of playfulness and numerous references to significant aspects of the sisters’ shared background, the film reveals the interwoven tensions and convergences of each sister’s self-identity and her relationship to her sister. Jen and Crystal Campbell are identical twin sisters born in Springfield, MO. They moved to New York City in 1996 to attend Columbia University. Jen majored in Art History and Crystal majored in Film. Their collaboration started as kids working on school projects and self entertainment. Recently, they have embarked on a series of photographs and stop motion films portraying fight scenes. The series is comedic and often the fights are instigated by seemingly meaningless reasons.  However, while the animation is run through with heavy doses of playfulness, it reveals the interwoven tensions of the sisters and the competitive spirit of sibling rivalry. Jen and Crystal both live in Brooklyn. Jen works as a portrait and fashion photographer while Crystal works in film and commercial production.(full RT: 103min)

Bad Fever by Dustin Guy Defa

USA, 2011, 77 minutes

*Director Dustin Guy Defa in attendance.

A humorless loner attempts to win the admiration of a drifter with his debut performance at the local comedy club. Alternatingly quiet and delirious, always desperate, Bad Fever is a witness to one man’s broken American Dream and his eternal longing to find someone, anyone, who understands or even pretends to understand. Eddie bumbles his way through an agonizing courtship with Irene, a manipulating drifter who videotapes their fleeting moments together. To express his true feelings for her, he painstakingly orchestrates his debut stand-up performance at the local comedy club.    Here is a portrait of two lonely trains passing each other by on the emotional railroad tracks of a forgotten city. Dustin Guy Defa has been making movies since he was eleven. He lives in Brooklyn.

Cochran by James P. Gannon

USA, 2009,  8 minutes

*Director James Gannon in attendance.

Jim Cochran hates his job, he wishes he could just shoot clay pigeons all day. Jim Cochran floats through his days dreaming about being somewhere else and reflecting on his past. He works a job delivering packages to residences that seem to never be home. He hates his job more than anything and despises the delivery truck he must drive. In his free time he finds solace in shooting clay pigeons at the local shooting range. In contrast to his delivery truck his shotgun is his favorite thing in the world and he considers it his “nightly companion”. He also has a slight love affair with performing magic tricks, and practices them alone in his backyard. Jim’s life is stagnant; he makes no attempt to change and instead accepts his fate, living inside of his head with his memories of the past. One fateful day while walking alone in the woods he finds something on the ground, his decision to pick it up will change his life forever. “Cochran” is a story about the inability to escape the past, and what happens when the present intervenes. It’s a story about acceptance, and about how something that seemed bad at one point could turn out to be something good in the long run. James P. Gannon was born in Levittown Pennsylvania in 1982. He is the 6th of 7 children and he has had an interesting childhood. He began telling stories in comic book form at a young age and eventually turned toward making films. He moved to Brooklyn in 2005, where he worked on many films in a variety of positions. During this time he wrote, directed and produced 2 short films and directed a third.(Full RT: 85min)