CITIZEN JANE 2009 PROGRAM
FRIDAY
WORKSHOPS & PANELS
COLD SOULS
SAY MY NAME
MESS UP THE MIX, MIX UP THE MESS (music showcase)
SATURDAY
$9.99
EXPERIMENTAL ANIMATION
WOMEN BEHIND THE CAMERA (panel conversation)
AN INTIMATE SESSION WITH BARBARA HAMMER
INTIMATE TRANSMISSIONS
ACT OF GOD
BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO
OUR LIFE IN SHORTS (shorts program)
BEE HOME SOON (video installation)
LEMON TREE
BRIGHT STAR
COLD SOULS
TINY CIRCUS
MONKEYSHINER’S CRAZY SWEATY! (music showcase)
SUNDAY
CITIZEN BRUNCH (Sunday brunch)
SUNSHINE
THE SECRET LIFE OF GIRLS (youth media program)
OLDER THAN AMERICA
AMERICAN CASINO
BRIGHT STAR
COLD SOULS
FRIDAY 11 AM – 4 PM @ Stephens College
WORKSHOPS & PANELS:
Join us for some great conversation, sneak peeks into artists’ lives, panels about important issues and professional development opportunities. Workshops and panels are free and open to the public, but space is limited and is on a first come, first served basis.
All workshops/panels are in Studio B, with the exception of the Handmade Film Workshop, which is in Studio A. Both studios are located in the basement of the Helis Communication Center (1405 E. Broadway) at Stephens College.
11 AM – 12 PM ANIMATION NATION with Jo Dery, Shira Derman, Laura Klein, Greta Songe, Sarah Bucalo Colado
12 – 1 PM CUT AND PASTE: The Fine Art of Editing with Karen Skloss
1:30 – 4:30 PM HANDMADE FILM WORKSHOP w/ Laura Klein and Jo Dery
1 – 2 PM VISUALIZING THE REEL: A Behind-the-scenes look at the making of $9.99 and other works with Shira Derman
2 – 3 PM FIRST WORKS: Making Your First Film with Jessica Oreck, Georgina Lightning, Karen Skloss
3 – 4 PM WOMEN & HOLLYWOOD: A BLOGGER TELLS ALL with Melissa Silverstein
4 – 5 PM LIFE IN DOCUMENTS: A Discussion about the Art of Non-Fiction and Personal Storytelling with Barbara Hammer, Jessica Oreck, Georgina Lightning and Karen Skloss
Back to top
FRIDAY 5:30 PM @ Ragtag Big
SATURDAY 7:30 PM @ Windsor Auditorium, at Stephens College
SUNDAY 5:45 PM @ Ragtag Big
COLD SOULS (dir. Sophie Barthes, 2009, 101 min.)
In person: production designer BETH MICKLE
In response to shiny, bigger, better American consumerism comes Cold Souls, a metaphysical comedy in which souls can be extracted and traded as commodities. Balancing on a tightrope between deadpan humor and pathos, and between reality and fantasy, the film presents Paul Giamatti as himself, agonizing over his interpretation of Uncle Vanya. Paralyzed with anxiety, he stumbles upon a solution via a New Yorker article about a high-tech company promising to alleviate suffering by deep-freezing souls.
Giamatti enlists their services, intending to reinstate his soul once he survives the performance. But complications ensue when a mysterious, soul-trafficking mule borrows Giamatti’s stored soul for an ambitious, but unfortunately talentless, soap-opera actress. Rendered soulless, he is left with no choice but to follow the trail back to St. Petersburg.
http://www.coldsoulsthemovie.com
Beth Mickle began her career as a production designer when she designed her first feature film Madness and Genius (dir. Ryan Eslinger) in 2002. The film’s success brought several more features including Half Nelson (dir. Ryan Fleck) which received a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for Ryan Gosling in 2006. She returned to Journeyman PIctures to design Sugar, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s sophomore film, then teamed with Journeyman once again to design one of the most stylistic films of her career, Cold Souls. Beth has designed sixteen feature films as well as several commercials and television sets, and she was named Hollywood Reporter’s “Next Generation Production Designer To Watch” in 2007. Beth is represented by Paradigm Agency and currently lives in New York.
http://www.elizabethmickle.com
FRIDAY 6:30 PM @ Columbia Foyer (outside Windsor Auditorium at Stephens College)
OPENING NIGHT RECEPTION
FRIDAY 7:30 PM @ Windsor Auditorium at Stephens College
*OPENING NIGHT FILM*
SAY MY NAME (dir. Nirit Peled, 2008, 73 min.)
In person: director NIRIT PELED
In an industry dominated by men and noted for misogyny, the unstoppable female lyricists of Say My Name speak candidly about class, race, and gender in pursuing their passions as female MCs. From hip hop’s birthplace in the Bronx to London’s eastside, we meet emerging artists and renowned stars like Erykah Badu, MC Lyte and Monie Love, who have turned adversity into art. What emerges are indelible portraits of young, ambitious, inspiring women lyricists fighting the odds in the music business and in a culture where poverty, war, and HIV take a daily toll.
http://www.saymyname.org
Nirit Peled, born in Israel, has been working in Amsterdam as an audio-visual artist for the last eight years. She is a community based, cultural artist and film director, as well as co-founder of Mamamess, a production company she runs with her partner Dave Hemmingway. Recently Peled has been focusing more on directing short films, animation and documentaries that seek to create dialogue, confrontation and communication.
She has also worked on numerous political, cultural projects with inner city youth, both in the Netherlands and abroad. The sequel Say My Name in Africa is still in production. Other recent projects include Poetry in Motion, three beautifully animated poems by the Jamaican poet Staceyann Chin, and the documentaries Rednose Goes to Cuba (about two DJs collaborating with Cuban musicians in Havana), and The Battle (about Arab-Israeli rappers).
http://www.mamamess.com
FRIDAY 10 PM @ Tonic
MESS UP THE MIX, MIX UP THE MESS: LADIES’ MUSIC NIGHT
CJFF is proud to present a diverse showcase of music made by incredible women from near and far, featuring legendary as well as up-and-coming emcees, performers, and special guests. Come celebrate women’s voices and the fine art of getting down on the dance floor.
MC Lyte is one of the first female rappers to point out the sexism and misogyny that often runs rampant in hip-hop, often taking the subject head on lyrically in her songs and helping open the door for such future artists as Queen Latifah and Missy Elliott.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Lyte began rhyming at the age of 12, which eventually led to her first single, "I Cram to Understand U," which led to #1 singles, "Cha Cha Cha" and "Poor Georgie." "Ruffneck", which appears on the 1993 album Ain't No Other, earned her a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Single and was the first-ever gold single by a solo female rap artist. 1996's Bad As I Wanna B went gold and featured a duet with Missy Elliott on the track "Cold Rock a Party," which became another huge hit. In 2003, MC Lyte released her first album on her own label, SGI/CMM.
Her diary, turntable, records, and other assorted ephemera from her early days, were donated to the Smithsonian Institute to be part of the collection. Most recently, Lyte's new single marks the beginning of a new label DuBose Music Group where Lyte also serves as the Executive Vice President.
http://www.mc-lyte.com
Toyy, named "Best of St. Louis Hip Hop Artists" in 2007, is a young, talented singer, rapper, model, actress, and author who has been performing and working for over ten years.
http://www.myspace.com/toyy100
Chocolate Thai is best known for her superior free styling skills and appearing at MC competitions on and off television. http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/chocolatethai
Even in her first years of life growing up in New York, Chocolate Thai had a special knack for performing - she danced, sang, and wrote poetry with a passion that later led her into writing complete songs. When she got an earful of MC Lyte and Salt N Pepa, Thai knew that she wanted to make rhyming a permanent part of her life. Appearing as the only female on Interscope Presents: The Next Episode, Thai battled ten of the nation’s best emcees. Most recently, Thai defended her "End Of The Weak (E.O.W.) MC Challenge" title against former winners in the "Battle of Champions," coming away with the Grand Prize.
Invincible, described as “One of the most talented emcees I’ve ever heard black or white, male or female…” by Talib Kweli, is a Detroit-based MC, whose lyrics to communicate both personal experience and a desire to affect social change. She moved from the Middle East to the Midwest (Michigan) in elementary school, where she traded tapes and began to write rhymes. By 16, she was throwing her own all-ages shows and collaborating with Detroit area artists. In 1997, Invincible linked with the ANOMOLIES crew, an all-women all-elements hiphop collective. Her latest work is on the Platinum Pied Pipers’ 2005 BBC Album Of The Year Award nominated Triple P, featured on the cut “Detroit Winter.” Invincible splits her time between community work, youth organizing, and constant touring. She started her own record label, EMERGENCE, self-releasing her long-awaited full length LP, ShapeShifters, in June, 2008. http://www.myspace.com/invincilana
Tickets:
$10
On sale at the door.
Tonic. 122 S. 9th St.
SATURDAY 10 AM @ Ragtag Small
SATURDAY 5 PM @ Ragtag Big
$9.99 (dir. Tatia Rosenthal, 2009, 78 min.)
In person: animator and concept illustrator SHIRA DERMAN
The title of this inventive stop-motion animated fable, $9.99 reflects the price of a mail-order book that promises to reveal the meaning of life to an unemployed slacker who lives at home with his blustery father. We enter an original universe of characters in search of contentment, including a boy in love with his piggy bank and a down-and-out suicide who returns to earth as a disgruntled angel.
Using the droll, wise stories of Etgar Keret as her guide, Israeli filmmaker Tatia Rosenthal concocts an artful film that expresses deep thoughts, lightly. It is by no means a kiddie cartoon. One of its voice actors, Geoffrey Rush (playing a homeless man), accurately described it as “a claymation of Robert Altman’s Short Cuts.” The painter Edward Hopper, with his moody, dispossessed humanscapes, might have recognized in Rosenthal a kindred spirit.
http://www.9dollars99movie.com
Shira Derman is an Israeli illustrator and animator who lives and works in Tel Aviv. She received her early education as a painter, and an apprenticeship in anatomy for drawing, which were followed by degree studies in animation. Since completing her studies, she has freelanced as a 2D animator and illustrator in the television and film industry, where she worked on such films as Eran Kolirin’s award winning The Band’s Visit. Recently Shira contributed an illustrated comics chapter to a graphic novel co-written by Israeli artist Oreet Ashery and Palestian artist Larissa Sansour.
SATURDAY 10 AM @ Ragtag Big
EXPERIMENTAL ANIMATION: SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS NEVER TASTED SO GOOD (TRT 70 min.)
In person: artist, animator, and curator JO DERY
From entertaining to contemplative, poetic to polemic, the Experimental Animation program is a sweet and savory sampling of work being produced by contemporary female animators. The program also includes an homage to the legacy of female independent animators with rare films from the collection of Cecile Starr, teacher, author, and self-described "friend of animation." Starr, who assisted with curating, is the co-author of the classic book Experimental Animation: Origins of a New Art, which was first published in 1988.
Program Details:
Animations from the collection of Cecile Starr: Charlestown Home Movie (Deana Morse, 1980, 7 min., 16mm)
An animated home-movie, set to Keith Jarret’s “Country.” Memories of three years spent by the filmmaker in South Carolina are re-created with rotoscoped and selectively colored images.
An artist specializing in animation and personal short films and videos, Deanna Morse is also an educator and a leader in international organizations supporting independent film and video artists. She is currently serving as Vice-President of ASIFA, the Association Internationale du Film d’Animation. http://www.deannamorse.com
Tub Film (Mary Beams, 1971, 2 min., 16mm)
A woman, seen from her own point of view, settles into her tub to bathe in the presence of an inquisitive kitten fascinated by the water. A mischievous paw pulls the plug.
Mary Beam made Tub Film at Harvard’s Carpenter Center, where she later taught. Her work screened at the MOMA and Whitney, and in international festivals such as Zagreb and Ann Arbor.
Mirror People (Kathy Rose, 3 min., 1974, 16mm)
The mirror people are gaunt, crayon-colored figures who stretch themselves into impossible contortions.
Kathy Rose is an internationally acclaimed animator, dancer and choreographer. She creates projections, and intricately integrates herself within them in live performance to create a fascinating and poetic "alternate universe". http://www.krose.com
A Showcase of Contemporary Women in Animation: Madame Winger Makes a Film: A Survival Guide for the 21st Century (Helen Hill, 2001,10 min., 16mm)
Madame Winger proclaims that the idea behind a film is more important than the technology used, and describes inexpensive ways to create films, including hand-processing and drawing directly onto the film.
Helen Hill was an experimental animator, filmmaker, educator, artist, writer, and social activist who lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her life ended tragically in 2007, yet her award-winning films continue to resonate with her beautiful and unique spirit.
http://www.helenhill.org
Dem Bones Wiggle (Lorelei Pepi, 2005, 1 min., video)
Boom shakalaka boom boom shiakalakalaaaa ...
Lorelei Pepi is an independent internationally award-winning animation filmmaker living in Providence, RI. She’s a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and CalArts, and teaches animation to fabulous college students. http://www.loreleipepi.com
Head Garden (Lilli Carré, 2009, 2.5 min, video)
An animated hand-drawn short that follows a man down a mouse hole.
Lilli Carré is a cartoonist and filmmaker living in Chicago. Her graphic novels include Nine Ways to Disappear and The Lagoon.
http://www.lillicarre.com
Myth Labs (Martha Colburn, 2008, 7.5 min., 16mm)
Myth Labs interweaves Puritan visions, folk art, religious allegories and victims of the current Methamphetamine epidemic. It is a film about fear, paranoia, faith and loss of faith and salvation.
Martha Colburn is an animator, filmmaker, musician and artist who lives and works in New York, NY. Her films have been presented by museums and film festivals around the world, including the Centre Pompidou, the Whitney Biennial, the Sundance Film Festival, and the Stedelijk Museum. http://www.marthacolburn.com
Twilight Spirit (Jodie Mack, 2009, 5 min, video)
Created with backlit colored tissue paper, this music video for Chicago folk-rockers, Judson Claiborne, attempts to capture the desert hallucinations of workers for the CIA "Stargate Project."
Jodie Mack is a Chicago animator working in various forms of cameraless, cut-out, and stop-motion animation. She splits her time up animating, teaching animation, coordinating screenings, and making pop-up cards.
Terrace 49 (Janie Geiser, 2004, 5.5 min, 16mm)
Images of impending disaster – slamming doors, a truck careening down a hill, and a frayed, almost snapping, elevator rope – collide with the repeated image of a woman’s body, cycling toward ephemerality as the woman disappears into the texture of the film itself.
Janie Geiser is an internationally recognized visual/performance artist and experimental filmmaker, whose work is known for its investigation of the emotional power of inanimate objects, its sense of ambiguity, and its strength of design. http://www.janiegeiser.com
Black Oval White (Sabine Gruffat, 2009, 3 min, video)
A video recording of a computer-generated abstract animation that is keyed, wiped and matted by electronic oscillators and feedback. The sound of the electronic oscillators is delayed and pitched to produce modulations.
Sabine Gruffat is a media artist in Madison, WI, where she is an Assistant Professor of Digital media at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Sabine’s films and videos have screened at festivals worldwide, as well as on bicycle film tours across France and Switzerland with filmmaker Bill Brown.
http://www.sabinegruffat.com
The Collagist (Amy Lockhart, 2009, 2 min., video)
This charming and humorous animation began as a collaboration with artist Marc Bell, who works primarily in collage and drawing. It focuses on his trials and tribulations as he assembles one of his works.
Amy Lockhart is a filmmaker, animator and artist, whose artwork and award winning films have been exhibited and screened internationally. Her work has received international acclaim and been collected by public and private art institutions and film festivals across the globe. http://www.amylogheart.blogspot.com
The Amazing, Mysterious and True Story of Mary Anning and Her Monsters (Laura Heit, 2003, 7.5 min., video)
Based on the life of amateur paleontologist Mary Anning (1799-1847) from Lyme Regis, England. At a time when most children were afraid of monsters, Mary sought them out. She had a passion for the inexplicable, and in the end her discoveries would change more than she bargained for.
Laura Heit is currently co-director of Experimental Animation at California Institute of the Arts. Her award-winning experimental animation and puppet films have been screened extensively in the US and abroad. http://www.lauraheit.com
Short Animation by Jo Dery:
Peeks (2009, 2 min., video)
Momentary glimpses of construction and destruction in our man-made and natural world, made with the help of images collaged from National Geographic.
Woodpecker in Snowshoes (2008, 1.5 min., video)
Woodpecker fashions his snowshoes from persistent pecking. While pausing to look at the moon, a nighttime snowfall proves more magical and mysterious than he had expected.
Echoes of Bats and Men (2005, 7 min., 16mm)
The night shift begins with a musical history lesson sung by a chubby skunk. Tonight we learn about Rhode Island’s industrial evolution through the midnight flight of a little bat, and his many friends.
The Last, The Rest (2000, 4 min., 16mm)
A tale of the tragic and flightless, as wingless birds and mystery disks are lost somewhere between the mountains and the sea.
Jo Dery makes drawings, prints, little books and short films in Providence, Rhode Island. She is the author of Quietly Sure – Like the Keeper of a Great Secret, a book of drawn stories. Her short films have been shown internationally in festivals, as well as in independent venues, art spaces, on the sides of barns and in parking lots.
http://www.jodery.com
SATURDAY 12 PM @ Ragtag Small
WOMEN BEHIND THE CAMERA: A CONVERSATION WITH THE WOMEN OF CJFF09
Moderated by: MELISSA SILVERSTEIN
Come meet the amazing women of this year’s fest and listen to their thoughts about working in the world of film, the role and possibility of feminism in today’s culture, and what it is like being a female in a male-dominated industry. An exciting and intimate conversation with the directors, writers, editors, and artists who are behind this year’s films and events.
Melissa Silverstein is a marketing consultant, writer and blogger. Her writing has been featured in Alternet, Ms. Magazine, Swing, Oxygen, and Pop & Politics, among others. She is currently working on a book on women & Hollywood, which is also the title of her blog, which has become a respected site for issues related to feminism and pop culture. She is also an entertainment correspondent for wowOwow.
Melissa's recent marketing projects have included: Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, Cheri, Sunshine Cleaning, Last Chance Harvey, Revolutionary Road, Hounddog, The Duchess, A Previous Engagement, Then She Found Me, The Business of Being Born, Becoming Jane, Bend it Like Beckham andThe Hours. She has also worked on several high profile public education campaigns including "Take Our Daughters to Work Day" and the "Pro Choice Public Education Project."
Catch Melissa moderating panels and hosting conversations throughout the festival. http://womenandhollywood.com
SATURDAY 12:30 PM @ Ragtag Big
AN INTIMATE SESSION with BARBARA HAMMER: A HORSE IS NOT A METAPHOR + DIVING WOMEN OF JEJU-DO (TRT 60 min.)
In person: director BARBARA HAMMER
Citizen Jane honors the life and work of Barbara Hammer, a noteworthy pioneer of queer cinema, with a wide-ranging discussion of her life after a screening of a couple of her films.
In the last 30 years this wide-ranging visual artist, has made over 80 works that span a broad spectrum of genre. Her experimental films of the 1970s often dealt with taboo subjects such as menstruation, female orgasm and lesbian sexuality. In the ’80s she used optical printing to explore perception and the fragility of 16mm film life itself. Her documentaries tell the stories of marginalized peoples who have been hidden from history and are often essay films that are multi-leveled and engage audiences viscerally and intellectually with the goal of activating them to make social change. Hammer’s work has screened in galleries, festivals and museums around the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art Bienalle (’85, ’89 and ’93).
She has been a Fulbright Senior Specialist, awarded the first ever Shirley Clarke Avant-Garde Filmmaker award and has been the subject of two major retrospectives. Her most recent work, A Horse Is Not A Metaphor, premiered in June 2008. Her memoir, Hammer: Making It in Sex and Movies is forthcoming in spring 2010 and will coincide with a retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
http://barbarahammer.com
A HORSE IS NOT A METAPHOR (dir. Barbara Hammer, 2009, 30 min.)
The filmmaker, fighting ovarian cancer, stage 3, returns to her experimental roots, in a multi-layered film of numerous chemotherapy sessions with images of light and movement that take her far from the hospital bed. A cancer “thriver” rather than “survivor,” Barbara Hammer rides the red hills of Georgia O’Keefe’s Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, the grassy foothills of the Big Horn in Wyoming, and leafy paths in Woodstock, New York changing illness into recovery. The haunting and wondrous music of Meredith Monk underscores and celebrates in this film that lifts us up when we might be most discouraged.
“Experimental film can best convey the emotional ups and downs of a cancer patient. The multi-layers of feelings, experiences, visions and tears can be portrayed through juxtapositions, editing rhythms, image super impositions, and a personal point of view which are some of the hallmarks of experimental film. A traditional documentary approach would dampen the emotional impact and could not convey both the trials and the thrills of hopes that I’ve experienced.”
DIVING WOMEN OF JEJU-DO (dir. Barbara Hammer, 2007, 30 min.)
Jeju-do is the largest of Korean islands and lies between Korea and Japan. There, for hundreds of years, women dive without breathing apparatus to the ocean floor and collect shellfish, octopus, and urchins that they sell. In this fascinating portrait, Hammer dives with the women and records this disappearing ancient women’s tradition.
SATURDAY 1:15 PM @ Ragtag Small
INTIMATE TRANSMISSIONS: A ROMP THROUGH EXPERIMENTAL VIDEO ART (presented by the Video Data Bank) (TRT 80 min.)
In person: curator and VDB Distribution Manager LINDSAY BOSCH
Founded in 1976 at the inception of the media arts movement, the Video Data Bank is the leading resource in the United States for videotapes by and about contemporary artists. The VDB collections feature innovative video work made by artists from an aesthetic, political or personal point of view. The collections include seminal works that, seen as a whole, describe the development of video as an art form originating in the late 1960s and continuing to the present. The videos employ innovative uses of form and technology mixed with original visual style to address contemporary art and cultural themes.
Through a national and international distribution service, the VDB makes video art, documentaries made by artists, and taped interviews with visual artists and critics available to a wide range of audiences. Intimate Transmissions presents a fun ride through the inspired and challenging history of women video art of the past 30 years.
Curated especially for CJFF, the program will feature rarely seen work as well as landmark video art all from the archives of the VDB.
http://www.vdb.org
Program Details:
Lee Krasner: An Interview
(Lyn Blumenthal and Kate Horsfield, 1980, 4.5 min. excerpt)
An historical interview with the pioneering abstract expressionist painter and wife of Jackson Pollock originally recorded in 1980 and re-edited in 2004.
Women’s Liberation Demonstration, NYC August 26, 1970
(Videofreex, 1970, 5 min. excerpt)
Videofreex was one of the pioneer production groups that formed when consumer video was first introduced. Footage from the Women’s Liberation Demonstration in New York City, August of 1970, includes interviews with protestors, counter protestors, and passers by and images of the march.
Art Herstory
(Hermine Freed, 1974, 15 min. excerpt)
Freed restages art history, putting herself in the model’s role.
Dressing Up
(Susan Mogul, 1973, 7 min.)
A reverse striptease, non-stop comedic monologue about shopping for clothes, while eating corn nuts. Dressing Up was inspired by the artist’s mother’s penchant for bargain hunting.
If Every Girl Had a Diary
(Sadie Benning, 1990, 8 min.)
Setting her pixelvision camera on herself and her room, Benning searches for a sense of identity and respect as a woman and a lesbian. Acting alternately as confessor and accuser, the camera captures Benning’s anger and frustration at feeling trapped by social prejudices.
Atlanta (
Miranda July, 1996, 10 min.)
A 12-year-old Olympic swimmer and her mother (both played by July) speak to the public about going for the gold.
Television
(Ximena Cuevas, 1999, 3 min.
)
The vacuum cleaner becomes the device of the feminist “liberation,” or the monster that devours us.
five more minutes (
Dena Decola/Karin Wandner, 2005, 17.5 min.
)
five more minutes is an exploration of grief. Two women spend an afternoon recreating lost time. What begins as play-acting breaks open into a world where the tenderness and sorrow of having to say goodbye exist untempered.
Baby (
Hester Scheurwater, 2006, 2 min.
)
A mother holds her child. Her face barely shows any expression.
Litau
(Dani Leventhal, 2007, 7.5 min.
)
A tapestry of images and sounds. Tango dancing. A conversation about heaven and hell, with illustrations. Horses nuzzle. A woman reclines. Silent soccer. Street entertainers play classical music. Travel is mysterious and sometimes fraught.
Lindsay Bosch serves as the Distribution Manager of the Video Data Bank archive, coordinating the use of VDB titles in exhibitions and festivals worldwide. Lindsay has a background in Film Studies from Northwestern University and she completed her graduate study in Art Theory at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. With a background in film studies, art history, theory and criticism, Lindsay writes and curates on film, new media and vernacular culture. In addition to her work with VDB, Lindsay writes and curates on film, new media and vernacular culture. Most recently she presented the 2007 exhibition “Pass It On! Connecting Contemporary DIY Cultures at Columbia College, Chicago” and is the coauthor of the forthcoming textbook Icons of Beauty: Art, Culture and the Image of Women [Greenwood Press].
SATURDAY 2:45 PM @ Ragtag Big
ACT OF GOD (dir. Jennifer Baichwal, 2009, 76 min.)
In person: director JENNIFER BAICHWAL
Act of God is an elegant cinematic meditation about the metaphysical effects of being struck by lightning. Through riveting personal stories from around the world – including a former CIA assassin and a French storm chaser, to writer Paul Auster and improvisational musician Fred Frith – we come face to face with chance, fate and the elusive quest to make sense out of tragedy. The philosophical anchor of the film, Auster was caught in a terrifying and deadly storm as a teenager, and it has deeply affected both his life and art. Visually dazzling and aurally seductive, Act of God singularly captures the harsh beauty of the skies and the lives of those who have been forever touched by their fury.
http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/actofgod
Jennifer Baichwal is a Canadian who has been directing and producing documentaries for 15 years. Her first film, Looking You In The Back of the Head, an inquiry into the problem of personal identity, asked thirteen women to try to describe themselves. Let it Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles, was her first feature documentary, and won a 1999 International Emmy for Best Arts Documentary. The Holier It Gets documents a trek Baichwal took with her brother and two sisters to the source of the Ganges river with her father’s ashes. The True Meaning of Pictures is a feature length film on the work of Appalachian photographer Shelby Lee Adams. Manufactured Landscapes is a stunning feature about the work of Edward Burtynsky whose large-scale photographs make beautiful art from the industrial debris of factories, mines and dams.
SATURDAY 3 PM @ Ragtag Small
BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO (dir. Jessica Oreck, 2009, 90 min.)
In person: producer/writer/director JESSICA ORECK
The quietly spellbinding Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo opens in modern-day Tokyo where a single beetle recently sold for $90,000. From the smallest backyard in the suburbs of the city to the wilderness of Mt. Fuji, insects inspire an enthusiasm in Japan that could be called a national obsession. Whereas other cultures harbor a profound revulsion toward these buggers, the Japanese enthusiasm extends to buying them live in vending machines and department stores, and as plastic toys in Japan’s version of the Happy Meal. They are even the subject of Japan’s number one videogame, MushiKing.
The lyrical Beetle Queen, with its hypnotic sense of composition, does away with traditional plotlines and talking heads to engage in avant-garde entomology that marks the coming out of a distinctively intuitive filmmaker.
http://beetlequeen.com
Jessica Oreck works as an animal keeper and docent at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. When not at the museum, Jessica spends her time inventing new ways to create a sense of wonder in the world. Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is Jessica’s first feature film. She is currently in production on several animated science shows, building her own museum exhibition, and research for her next feature film.
In a statement about her own work, the director writes: “My passion isn’t about genetics, it isn’t about global warming, it doesn’t follow the latest craze in the science world – but it is critically relevant to the problems of today. It is about attention to detail, patience, and ultimately harmony – all of which are so rarely present in our modern lives.”
SATURDAY 5:30 PM @ Ragtag Small
OUR LIFE IN SHORTS
In person: filmmakers KAREN SKLOSS and STEPHANIE FOLEY and curator JENNIFER ERICKSON
This program celebrates the art and craft of the short film – windows into other lives, portraits of a time and place, and cinematic novellas. Most feature directors started out small and many filmmakers prefer the sort format, yet shorts remain largely inaccessible.
Karen Skloss, whose first feature film, Sunshine, is also playing at the fest, will be in attendance. Karen will talk about her short, Smitten, which was her thesis film at the University of Texas at Austin and also went on to the Cannes Film Festival.
CJFF 2009 is proud to bring a diverse and rich program that celebrates the short form. Short, but really great.
Program Details:
Hard Luck Story (dir. Stephanie Foley, 2009, 3 min.) was created by a local artist with a distinct voice. And that voice can sing a twangy song!
Stephanie Foley is an artist, musician, and graphic designer based in Columbia whose work can be found all around town.
Countertransference (dir. Madeleine Olnek, 2008, 16 min.) is a wry comedy about a woman searching for her identity via a thankless job, a therapist with an agenda, and various other encounters.
Army Love (dir. Robin Griswold, 2008, 2.5 min.) brings you into a whimsical - and perhaps dangerous - day in the life of army toys.
Smitten (dir. Karen Skloss, 2001, 11 min.) Have you ever been smitten? Our teenage heroine has and may live to regret that fact.
Sister Wife (dir. Jill Orschel, 2008, 10 min.) is an intimate portrait of a woman in a polygamous marriage, in which the second wife is her sister. Sister, wife, friend, daughter, mother - where does her identity lie?
The Solitary Life of Cranes (dir. Eva Weber, 2008, 27 min.) is a mesmerizing glance at the city of London from a unique and revealing vantage point. After seeing this film, you may decide to pack in your current job and apply as a construction-crane operator. Part city symphony part visual poem, the film explores the invisible life of a city. What emerges is a lyrical mediation about how our existence is shaped through the environment we inhabit.
SATURDAY 6:30 PM @ Columbia Foyer (outside Windsor Auditorium) at Stephens College
RECEPTION for BEE HOME SOON (film installation, 2009)
In person: artist and filmmaker LAURA KLEIN
The installation Bee Home Soon addresses the corporate control of habitats and shelters, and specifically two devastating crises: bee colony collapse disorder and the rampant foreclosure of homes in the U.S. Made of a cube composed of four large canvas paintings, the installation invites viewers to peer into houses and hives so as to see film loops and hear powerful interviews/soundscapes that beg us to reevaluate our housing policies and food systems.
http://lauraklein.wordpress.com/bee
Laura Klein is a painter and is an elementary school librarian who is passionate about storytelling. Her work encompasses film, painting, video documentation, and children’s literature to express creative solutions to evolving cultures. Her work meshes fairy-tale with reality to engage the viewer in deciphering what could become the best possible outcome.
http://lauraklein.wordpress.com
SATURDAY 8 PM @ Ragtag Big
LEMON TREE (dir. Eran Riklis, 2009, 106 min.)
Followed by discussion with writer/artist IBTISAM BARAKAT
Lemon Tree is the story of Salma, a Palestinian widow who must defend her lemon tree field when a new Israeli Defense Minister moves next to her and threatens to have it destroyed. Her trees, which she inherited from her father, grow on the Green Line that separates Israel and the occupied West Bank. With the help of her lawyer, Salma takes the fight all the way to the supreme court. Salma’s struggle arouses the interest of the Prime Minister’s wife, and the two women develop an invisible bond. Meanwhile, her relationship with her lawyer deepens despite cultural traditions that forbid it. Salma’s legal and personal journey lead her deep into the complex, dark and sometimes funny chaos of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, in which all players find themselves alone in their struggle to survive.
http://www.lemontreemovie.com
Born in Beit Hanina, near Jerusalem, Ibtisam Barakat's life was turned upside down at age three, when Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem following the 1967 war. After graduating from Birzeit University in the West Bank, Barakat moved to New York in 1986, where she interned with The Nation. Later, she earned Masters in Journalism and Human Development and Family Studies, both from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Growing up with war and occupation is the focus of her memoir, Tasting the Sky: A Palestinina Childhood which won the International Reading Association's Best Non-Fiction Book Award for Children and Young Adults. She is now working on her second book. http://www.ibtisambarakat.com
SATURDAY 7:30 PM @ Ragtag Small
SUNDAY 5:15 PM @ Ragtag Small
BRIGHT STAR (dir. Jane Campion, 2009, 120 min.)
Written and directed by Academy Award winner Jane Campion (The Piano), Bright Star is a riveting drama based on the three-year romance between 19th century poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and fashion student Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), which was cut short by Keats’ untimely death. This unlikely pair started at odds; he thinking her a stylish minx, she unimpressed by literature in general. But when Keats’s younger brother falls ill John and Fanny are drawn together. Keats, touched by Fanny’s efforts to help care for his brother, agrees to teach her poetry. By the time Fanny’s alarmed mother (Kerry Fox) and Keats’s best friend Charles Armitage Brown (Paul Schneider) realize their attachment, the relationship had an unstoppable momentum. “Campion breaks through any period-piece mustiness with piercing insight into the emotions and behavior of her characters ... Cornish’s Fanny takes her place among the most memorable of Campion’s strong, complicated women.” (Todd McCarthy, Variety).
http://www.brightstar-movie.com
SATURDAY 10 PM Orr Street Studios
*Special Outdoor Screening*
TINY CIRCUS presents THE OTHER HISTORIES OF THE WORLD (TRT 50 min)
In person: artists and animators GRETA SONGE, SARAH BUCALO COLADO, and CARLOS FERGUSON
The Other Histories of the World is a series of short, stop-motion animated films made with groups of children and adults around the USA. The screening at CJFF will also include a special brand spankin' new animation made with local Columbians just for the fest!
All the films will be projected outside (weather permitting!) from a vintage airstream trailer that acts as a rolling magic lantern and studio space. The animations present fanciful imagined histories of a variety of subjects, like rain, smiles, or constellations.
Tiny Circus is a collaborative project that was founded in the summer of 2008 in Grinnell, Iowa. Exploring various subjects through stop-motion animation, Tiny Circus has developed a creative storytelling structure that serves a range of voices. Artistically, the Tiny Circus animations are simple and accessible, created with a broad audience in mind. Their work inspires viewers to reconsider the ways that we use assumptions, beliefs and storytelling to order our world.
http://www.tinycircus.org
Greta Songe is a native of South Louisiana and is currently a Professor of Art at Florida State College in Jacksonville. Her work consists of paintings, drawings, prints, film, and installations, which have been exhibited both nationally and internationally. In addition to being one of the founders of Tiny Cirucs, Greta is a member of another collaborative art group, Paintallica. http://paintallica.com
Carlos Ferguson is a carpenter, artist, and animator. who coordinates the Tiny Circus project.
Sarah Bucalo Colado is an artist, student and mother from Jacksonville, Florida who has been working with Tiny Circus since July of 2009. Her primary mediums are printmaking and painting.
http://sbcolado.com
SATURDAY 10 PM @ Orr Street Studios
MONKEYSHINER’S CRAZY SWEATY!
Get crazy. Get sweaty. Do the Monkeyshiner. Repeat! Videology takes over Orr Street Studios for a night of hot dancing and multimedia adventures.
Tickets:
$10
On sale at the door.
Orr St. Studios, 106 Orr St.
SUNDAY 10 AM @ Uprise Bakery/Ragtag Cinema
CITIZEN BRUNCH
Join the festival filmmakers and guests for a yummy treat! Come kick off the last day of the festival at a special brunch hosted by Uprise Bakery (adjoined to the Ragtag Cinema).
We’re going to eat and drink to the bluegrass with Citizen Ida Jane herself and members from Ironweed accompanied by the Pixie Chicks and Fiddle Stick (an all-girl band).
Tickets:
On sale at the Ragtag Box Office (10 Hitt St.) and online
Adults: $13
Children 12 and younger: $6.50
SUNDAY 12:15 PM @ Ragtag Big
SUNSHINE (dir. Karen Skloss, 2009, 72 min.)
In person: director KAREN SKLOSS
Sunshine, which premiered last year at the SXSW Film Festival and will be nationally broadcast this spring on PBS’s Independent Lens, is Karen Skloss’ first documentary feature as a director. In the film, Skloss explores the meaning of family through a personal journey to understand both the legacy of her birth and the non-traditional family she created by co-parenting with her ex-boyfriend. As an unwed teenager, Skloss’s mother gave her up for adoption in 1975. Now Skloss reconnects with her biological mother as she contemplates her own relationship with her own daughter, Jasmine. Young, pregnant, single and unprepared, the daughter/director struggles with the incredible ironies of the family – that history somehow repeated itself, and that the most strenuous efforts to protect the idea of family can actually do the most to pull families apart.
Woven together from over 10 years of super 8 and video home movies, intimate family interviews, shimmering dance sequences and stylized reenactments, Sunshine offers a refreshingly rare glimpse on the current-day transformations taking place within our most sacred of institutions, the family.
Karen Skloss is a filmmaker and visual artist who lives in Austin. She is also the single mom to her nine-year-old daughter, Jasmine. Her films and video installations have been shown in festivals internationally. Karen’s work as an editor for documentary film includes Atomic Ed & the Black Hole, (dir. Ellen Spiro), Be Here to Love Me (dir. Margaret Brown), Dirt (dir. Jeff Bowden), and Writ Writer (dir. Susanne Mason). She also works in television, on commercials and occasionally lectures at The University of Texas. She received an MFA in studio art in 2005 and a bachelor’s in radio, television, and film in 1999.
SUNDAY 12:30 PM @ Ragtag Small
THE SECRET LIFE OF GIRLS: CJFF YOUTH MEDIA PROGRAM (TRT 70 min.)
In person: curator NEELEY CURRENT and young filmmaker NIKIE WATSON
Talented young filmmakers, 18 years of age and younger, share their perspectives on global issues such as labor rights, immigration, and women in politics. More intimately, filmmakers delve into the nature of God, beauty, and finding self in a complex network of peers and family.
This program (the first ever at CJFF) was curated from over 80 films made by young women all over the world as well as some closer to home. Local youth filmmaker, Nikie Watson, will be in attendance to talk about her short animation film, Look. Caitlin Gaylord (Seattle, WA), and Molly Nemer (Minneapolis, MN), will be in attendance to present and discuss their work as well.Many of the filmmakers in the program developed their films through the support of non-profit youth filmmaking organizations that work to educate and celebrate the next generation of women filmmakers.
TVbyGIRLS http://www.tvbygirls.tv
Reel Grrls http://www.reelgrrls.org
Reel Works http://www.reelworks.org
Adobe Youth Voices http://plantandinspire.org
Street Level http://www.street-level.org
In Progress http://www.in-progress.org
Program Details:
Bloom (dir. Caitlin Gaylord, 2008, 1 min.): A short story about the life of a flower, and what it can teach us about our own.
Caitlin Gaylord is an 8th grader at Seattle Girls’ School. This is her first animated film with paper cutouts and she hopes to continue working with animation and film through Reel Grrls and expanding her film skills. “Everyone blooms, and when they do, no two flowers are the same.”
Compassionate Child (1.5 min.): An animation describing “compassion” through young eyes.
Bee Positive (13 min.): A documentary of a young woman’s experience battling cancer.
Few Words (dir. Sahar Shakeri, 1 min.): A young woman’s personal letter to God.
Sahar Shakeri was born in Iran in 1989. Through the process of making this experimental documentary she found her passion of being able to talk in a “different language.”
Maria’s Story (5 min.): A girl leaves her sister behind in Mexico to be with her father in Chicago. She tells her story and then imagines what it would be like to see her sister again.
Nuestras Dignidad (dir. Kathy Vega-Munoz, 2009, 2 min.) Created in the structure of two poems, this film looks at immigration in the United States.
Siblings (dirs. Casey Haarstad, Molly Nemer and Madeline Shaw, 4.5 min.): Three young filmmakers look at the love/hate relationship they have with their siblings.
Casey Haarstad enjoys collaborating with the other girls and making movies. Through filmmaking, Molly Nemer has acquired confidence and leadership skills. Madeline Shaw just graduated from high school and is taking a year off between high school and college to work on organic farms.
Jewmaican (dir. Melinda Tezenzapf, 9 min., 2006): A young Jewish girl explores her bond with her Jamaican nanny.
Humpty Dumpty (dir. Madeline Shaw, 1 min.): Struggles being overwhelmed by issues and to‐dos. Feeling helpless in the face of expectations.
Madeline Shaw is 18 years old and just graduated from high school. She is taking a year off between high school and college to work on organic farms.
What You Lose (Patricia Henry, 7.5 min., 2007)
Patricia Henry participated in the Reel Works Teen Filmmaking program and Girls for Genders Equity’s photography program. She is now working as a Lab Assistant for Reel Works.
Self Internal (dir. Rachel Adkins, 7 min., 2008)
Leila’s Eyebrow (dir. Leila, 4 min): A young Iranian woman in Britain is bullied due to cultural differences in the meaning of beauty.
What Has This World Come To? (dir. Maria Centeno, 3.5 min.): Facing the harsh realities of life, one young woman advocates finding something positive to do in life.
New Orleans (dir. Molly Nemer, 5.5 min.): Molly takes us on a journey through New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit. Molly interviews children and teenagers who volunteered to help in the clean-up, but also talks to some of the victims to get their perspectives of the tragedy.
Molly Nemer is 15, enjoys art, writing and music. Molly finds filmmaking a perfect combination of her interests.
One More Penny (1.5 min.): Looks how at one more penny per pound of produce could improve the lives of farm laborers.
Go Run (dir. Molly Nemer, 2 min.): Inspiring short film encouraging women be involved in political leadership.
Look (dir. Nikie Watson, 1.5 min.): Multiple storytellers share their understanding of abstract animation drawings with different colors, media and shapes.
Nikie Watson was born and raised right here in Columbia, Missouri. Currently, Nikie is a junior at Rock Bridge High School.
New Year Traditions (Molly Nemer, 1.5 min.): A glimpse of a family tradition.
I Am a Bird (Cindy Vue, 2009, 3 min.): A young girl dreams of flying as a bird to visit her grandparents in her homeland Laos. Cindy Vue is just 7 years old and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.
SUNDAY 2:15 PM @ Ragtag Small
OLDER THAN AMERICA (dir. Georgina Lightning, 2008, 102 min.)
In person: director GEORGINA LIGHTNING
Followed by a COMMUNITY DISCUSSION
Starring director Georgina Lightning and Adam Beach (Flags of Our Fathers), Older Than America is set in Northern Minnesota’s Fond Du Lac Reservation, where Indian children were forced to attend government-funded boarding schools to “Americanize” them. Centered on a woman’s haunting visions that reveal a sinister plot to silence speaking out about the atrocities that occurred there, this suspenseful drama follows a group of Ojibwe Indians dealing with their ancestors’ brutal legacy — a close subject for Lighting as many of her relatives, including her father, were boarding-school kids.
http://www.olderthanamerica.com
Georgina Lightning knew she wanted to be an actress from the time she was 6 years old. She left her reservation in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to pursue her dream in the early ’90s. Now she has had 14 years in the industry, getting steady acting work in TV, including roles in Walker, Texas Ranger and The West Wing. But she never forgot her roots and two years ago began talking to Native American tribes about how important film can be in expressing Native American identity. Through her company, Tribal Alliance Productions, Lightning is now making her directorial debut with Older Than America, which she sees as an early step toward building up a Native American presence in the film industry.
Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Anishinabe Nation and recipient of a local grant to "create a viable Native presence in the Twin Cities theater community" which resulted in Free Frybread ,a take-no-prisoners satire of a racist criminal justice system. Rendon is also a children's book writer: Pow Wow Summer, was published 1996, followed by The Farmer's Market / Families Working Together in 2001. As an artist and organizer, Rendon focuses on changing the myth that Native Americans are a “vanished peoples" and her work has championed the vibrancy, importance, and beauty of indigenous voices.
http://marcierendon.com
Joanna Hearne teaches in the English Department at the University of Missouri. She writes on topics in film studies, Native American studies, and folklore, with research interests in indigenous media, Westerns, early cinema, and issues of ethnicity in film history and theory. Her current book project, The Cross-Heart People: Indigenous Narratives, Cinema, and the Western, traces cinematic representations of Native American children and boarding school education in the 20th century.
Back to top
SUNDAY 2:30 PM @ Ragtag Big
AMERICAN CASINO (dir. Leslie Cockburn, 2009, 89 min.)
In person: director LESLIE COCKBURN
Followed by a COMMUNITY DISCUSSION
As the global financial system crumbled and outraged lawmakers flailed at Wall Street titans, we were made to be baffled onlookers to the wreckage. But Leslie and Andrew Cockburn make sense of the subprime-mortgage mess, creating a lucid picture of a system rotten to the core. Filmed over 12 months in 2008, American Casino introduces us to the minorities who were the prime targets for the subprime loans that powered the casino – African Americans were four times more likely to take out loans as whites. And we get in bed with the powerful financial players who benefited, including a billionaire who describes how he made a massive bet that people would lose their homes and has won $500 million, so far.
http://www.americancasinothemovie.com
Leslie Cockburn began her documentary film career in 1980 at CBS Reports. She directed and produced several films for PBS Frontline, including Inside the Cartels and The War We Left Behind. She directed and produced Peter Jennings Reporting From the Killing Fields. In 1997, Ms. Cockburn co-produced The Peacemaker starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman. She was a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton and has produced dozens of segments for 60 Minutes, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Colombia, Zimbabwe, and Russia. She began work on American Casino in January 2008, when she and her husband Andrew, who co-produced the film, recognized the signs of a potentially devasting financial collapse from the subprime meltdown.
SUNDAY 5:30 PM @ Ragtag Lobby / Uprise Bar & Café
HANDMADE FILM & FUN: Closing Night Hangout Session
A special screening of work made during this year's festival workshops, featuring handmade films and a new animation from TINY CIRCUS.
