2011 Movies
More films being added every day! Watch this space! Scroll down or click links for film details.
FEATURE FILMS
Absence/Presence
Angels & Goblins
Ash
Ballhawks
Bonsai People
A Cadaver Christmas
Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football & the American Dream
Ghost Player
Green Fire
If a Tree Falls
Incredibly Small
The Interrupters
Light: The Father Jay Samoine Documentary
Love And Valor
Lovely By Surprise
An Ordinary Family
Pro Wrestler
Rhythm of The River
The River Why
Sahkanaga
Sawdust City
Sweet Little Lies
Train to Nowhere
Trampoline
Turkey Bowl
Unforgettable
Valley Maker
Vanishing of the Bees
The Weird World of Blowfly
Where Soldiers Come From
Wrestling for Jesus
SHORT FILMS
Alone Together
An American Swan in Paris
Arbeiter Verlassen Die Fabrik
Artspace
Baden Krunk
Bathing and the Single Girl
Behind
Birth Day
Black Earth
Campus Cops
Darkways
Dona Coroquinha
Donkey
Friend of the Devil
From Depth of Dreams
Gates of Lodore
Good Morning Beautiful
Grandma Fern
Hits
If Only
Jack Goes Down Hard
Last Words of the Holy Ghost
Little Hero
Mall Church
Monika
My Life By Water
Night of the Zombie Chicken
Off Into Space
Power Trio
Red Princess Blues
Rigamortis: A Zombie Love Story
Ridin’ Down
Sheldon
SHC
The Violinist
When I Stand on the Moon
Zombie Bite Myth
FEATURE FILMS
ABSENCE/PRESENCE
Director: Jed Schlegelmilch
Time to talk about the unspeakable, understand the unexplainable. Time to look back to move forward.
Sometimes the journey to a happy ending means treading through the sorrows of our past. Join a man as he spends 10 days revisiting an unimaginable horror from his childhood for the first time. Nearly 17 years after his brother’s death, Absence/Presence is the truly raw, emotional and ultimately life affirming experience that comes from finding the courage to stare into the depth of the most devastating event of your life and still ache to know more.
www.absencepresence.com
ANGELS & GOBLINS
Director: Cole James Meredith
Starring: Jackie Kolenko
Angels & Goblins is the new film from WI native and Viroqua resident Cole Meredith, who shot the film all around the Driftless region.
Sarah Lambert is a semi-famous actress fleeing her career and fortune in L.A., returning home after many years to reconcile relationships with her friends and family. She returns to find a city on the brink of collapse, filled with mysterious figures and lost souls who wander the streets like ghosts. But there is something sinister slithering under the skin of these people, something which may cause Sarah to face her past in a way she could have never imagined …
ASH
Director/Writer: Tom Geraty
Starring: Tim Decker, Stephanie Brown
Hidden deep within the heart and memory of a devoted family man named Dan McBurney resides a dark and painful secret. When this man discovers a child-abductor lives in a house across the the street from his storage facility, a door is opened to his haunted past and hopeful future, and vigilantism walks in.
The child abduction takes a piece out of the collective heart and soul of a community. Dan is that “perfect storm” of what can happen when that collective pain finds expression in one man. His world begins to unravel as those closest to him discover his plight; that of a man who is willing to risk losing what he loves most in order to redeem that which has already been lost; childhood, innocence, a brother.
www.ashindiefilm.com
BALLHAWKS
Director: Mike Diedrich
Starring: Narrated by Bill Murray
Ballhawks is the story of the men who chase baseballs and dreams on the streets outside Wrigley Field.
For almost a century, an ever-changing cast of characters has patrolled Sheffield and Waveland, tracking down batting practice and home run balls that clear the bleacher grandstand. For the men who do it, Ballhawking has a unique and compelling draw: every so often, a ball leaves the bat of a major league ballplayer and clears the fence to land in the glove of a “regular” fan, making him – for that one instant – part of the game. While they’ll catch hundreds of balls in a given season, only one really matters – the elusive World Series walk-off home run ball.
Flash forward to 2004, where this iteration of Ballhawks continue the pursuit of baseballs and the struggle to overcome the passersby, real life and each other. But this year is different, because after decades of disappointment the Cubs are relevant again, and have a real chance to bring the playoffs to the North Side of Chicago. A looming bleacher expansion also threatens to change Ballhawking outside of Wrigley forever – making each ball that leaves the yard even more precious.
BONSAI PEOPLE
Director: Holly Mosher
What if you could harness the power of the free market to solve the problems of poverty, hunger, and inequality?
Bonsai People celebrates Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammed Yunus’ extraordinary humanitarian work, which started when he simply lent $27 to 42 people out of his own pocket.
As the founder of Grameen Bank, Yunus pioneered microcredit, the innovative banking program that provides poor people – mainly women – with small loans they use to launch businesses and lift their families out of poverty. In the past thirty years, microcredit has spread to every continent and benefited over 100 million families. His Grameen Bank currently lends to one out of every 1,000 people on earth and with a 98% rate of return – unheard of in the financial world.
bonsaimovie.com
A CADAVER CHRISTMAS
Director/Writer: Joseph Zerull
Starring: Daniel Rairdin-Hale, Yosh Hayashi
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the Lab, not a creature was stirring, except for the cadavers!’ When a biology professor’s Christmas Eve experiment goes horribly awry, it’s up to the university’s janitor to mop up the mess…But dealing with the undead may be a job even the best janitor can’t keep under control… and where else to recruit help but at the local bar!
This soon-to-be Christmas classic is a delightful blend of holiday gore and zombie cheer, guaranteed to bring a smile to your face when you’re not turning away in disgust- just like holidays with the family. A cross between “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Night of the Living Dead” – A Cadaver Christmas tells the story of an unlikely band of heroes given the task of saving the world from an army of living corpses that are quickly recruiting new members. The dead have been given the gift of life this Christmas, and it’s up to the janitor to take it back!
www.cadaverchristmas.com
FORDSON: FAITH, FASTING, FOOTBALL & THE AMERICAN DREAM
Director: Rashid Ghazi
Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football is a feature-length documentary film that follows four talented high school football players from the working class Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan as they gear up for their big senior year rivalry game during the last ten days of Ramadan, a month when Muslims traditionally fast every day from sunrise to sundown. The film begins on September 11, 2009 and concludes at the end of Ramadan ten days later. The story takes place at Fordson High School, a public school built by Henry Ford in 1922 that was once all white, but now attracts a 98% Arab-American population.
As the Fordson team readies itself to play its affluent, cross-town rival, the film depicts a community that is desperately holding onto its Islamic faith while struggling to gain acceptance in post 9/11 America. Fordson documents not only the players’ outer struggle to overcome the hunger and thirst of fasting as they prepare for the big game, but also their inner struggle to reconcile their Arab heritage with their American birthright. It is an inspirational story of an immigrant community’s resilience, that attempts to answer the question, “Who is an American?” Through the eyes of the team, their coaches, and their fans, Fordson offers an unprecedented glimpse inside the lives of a community that is home to the largest concentration of Arabs in any city outside of the Middle East, and their determination to hold on to the American Dream.
GHOST PLAYER
Director: Joe Scherrmann
In 1989, Hollywood went to Iowa to shoot the FIELD of DREAMS. Little did anyone know this blockbuster would spawn a comedic baseball show starring local ballplayers that would have an 18 year run and travel the world. GHOST PLAYER tells the story of how this zany team and baseball moved audiences around the world and changed the players’ lives forever. From Dyersville, we follow the Ghost Players around the world as warm hearted, comedic ambassadors of the best that the American Heartland has to offer – baseball, tomfoolery, and good old-fashioned family fun. We see them bring the comfort that only baseball can give to men and women stationed in the military in the far-flung corners of the world. But most of all, we witness how America’s favorite pastime and a Hollywood movie set gave one group of men a second chance to live the life as they’ve always dreamed.
www.ghostplayer.us
GREEN FIRE: ALDO LEOPOLD AND A LAND ETHIC FOR OUR TIME
Director: Steve and Ann Dunsky
The first full-length, high-definition documentary film ever made about legendary environmentalist Aldo Leopold, Green Fire highlights Leopold’s extraordinary career, tracing how he shaped and influenced the modern environmental movement. Leopold remains relevant today, inspiring projects all over the country that connect people and land.
www.aldoleopold.org/greenfire
IF A TREE FALLS
Director: Marshall Curry
In December 2005, Daniel McGowan was arrested by Federal agents in a nationwide sweep of radical environmentalists involved with the Earth Liberation Front– a group the
FBI has called America’s “number one domestic terrorism threat.”
For years, the ELF—operating in separate anonymous cells without any central leadership—had launched spectacular arsons against dozens of businesses they accused of destroying the environment: timber companies, SUV dealerships, wild horse slaughterhouses, and a $12 million ski lodge at Vail, Colorado.
With the arrest of Daniel and thirteen others, the government had cracked what was probably the largest ELF cell in America and brought down the group responsible for the very first ELF arsons in this country.
IF A TREE FALLS: A STORY OF THE EARTH LIBERATION FRONT tells the
remarkable story of the rise and fall of this ELF cell, by focusing on the transformation
and radicalization of one of its members.
www.ifatreefallsfilm.com
INCREDIBLY SMALL
Director/Writer: Dean Peterson
Starring: Stephen Gurewitz, Susan Burke
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.
At once both singularly funny and painfully poignant, Incredibly Small is equal parts Woody Allen, John Hughes, and Eric Rohmer.
Shot in Minneapolis, MN over the course of 14 days in the summer of 2009 with an independently financed micro budget, Incredibly Small exemplifies the true spirit of independent film.
incrediblysmall.com
THE INTERRUPTERS
Director: Steve James
The Interrupters tells the moving and surprising stories of three Violence Interrupters who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed. From acclaimed director Steve James and bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz, this film is an unusually intimate journey into the stubborn persistence of violence in our cities. Shot over the course of a year out of Kartemquin Films, The Interrupters captures a period in Chicago when it became a national symbol for the violence in our cities. During that period, the city was besieged by high-profile incidents, most notably the brutal beating of Derrion Albert, a Chicago High School student, whose death was caught on videotape.
The film’s main subjects work for an innovative organization, CeaseFire. It was founded by an epidemiologist, Gary Slutkin, who believes that the spread of violence mimics the spread of infectious diseases, and so the treatment should be similar: go after the most infected, and stop the infection at its source. One of the cornerstones of the organization is the “Violence Interrupters” program, created by Tio Hardiman, who heads the program. The Interrupters — who have credibility on the streets because of their own personal histories — intervene in conflicts before they explode into violence.
http://interrupters.kartemquin.com/
LIGHT: THE FATHER JAY SAMONIE DOCUMENTARY
Produced and Directed by:
Ritch Wedeking and Paul Schmaltz
It started on May 27,1937: a colorful symphony of rising lights, green, pink, yellow, orange, blue, floating upward from the cemetery. As a young child of seven, Jay Samonie had just experienced the first of many visions he would witness during his lifetime. After embracing his “calling”, a story in itself, Father Jay Samonie served as a Catholic priest for over 50 years, helping the poor and destitute. During this time, Father Jay enjoyed daily communication with his Spirit Guides, experienced numerous visions and explored reincarnation. Father Jay has been described as having an aurora about him and as magical. He has likewise been described as a heretic. In the world of religion and faith, there can be a fine line between visionary and controversy. Father Jay Samonie transcends the forces that divide the spiritualists and the fundamentalists through bringing people together with his vision and grace. His personal odyssey explores his extraordinary experiences with miracles and healings, and is a testament of unrelenting faith and the pursuit of understanding a higher power. Light, the true-life story of Father Jay Samonie, opens the door to a mystical world.
LOVE AND VALOR: THE INTIMATE CIVIL WAR LETTERS
Director: Charles Larimer
Starring: Brian Pittman, Ann Cejka
Narrated by: Brian Dennehy
A tremendously moving story of a Union soldier and his wife during the Civil War, Love & Valor, The Intimate Civil War Letters is based on the book of the same name, which was featured by the Smithsonian in the month after 9/11. Ritner, a Union captain from Iowa, was a teacher, farmer and abolitionist before the war. The movie tells of their devotion to each other, patriotism, loneliness, anguish at the death of loved ones, and slavery. Emeline raising four small children, managing the family farm, dealing with other women in town. Jacob witnessing death of family and friends, participating in great adventure, seeing new lands, changing views on the South.
www.loveandvalor.com
LOVELY BY SURPRISE
Writer/Director : Kirt Gunn
Starring: Carrie Preston, Dallas Roberts, Austin Pendleton
A truly unique and visually stunning take on meta-fiction, Lovely By Surprise follows the journey of novelist Marian Walker as she attempts to finish her first novel.
Facing the age-old problem of writer’s block, Marian seeks advice from a mentor and ex-lover. His seemingly innocent advice to kill the book’s protagonist unleashes chaos in her life as a willful protagonist escapes from her novel and appears in the unresolved corners of her past. At turns funny, lyrical, dark and mysterious, this enigmatic film explores past and present, art and reality, life and death, ultimately revealing the strength and beauty of the human heart.
www.kirtgunn.com/lovelybysurprise
AN ORDINARY FAMILY
Director: Mike Akel
Starring: Troy Schremmer, Greg Wise
AN ORDINARY FAMILY is a humorous drama about one family, two brothers and a really big problem. Thomas Biederman is blindsided when his estranged brother, Seth, shows up unannounced to the annual family vacation… with his boyfriend.
Despite a well meaning attempt to surprise everyone, things do not go as planned, throwing Thomas and the family into an awkward weeklong vacation where everyone has problems and no one wants to talk about them.
www.anordinaryfamily.com
PRO WRESTLER
Director: Kenneth Johnson
So what exactly is “real” and “fake” in the world of professional wrestling? Yes it does label itself as a legitimate sport, but it actuality the matches are predetermined and most of the moves are planned out. So does that necessarily mean that all of wrestling is “fake?” Follow Kenny Johnson, during his directorial debut, as he embeds himself in the world of independent professional wrestling. Along the way, he tells the stories of five unique performers at very different points in their careers and lives. Discover what is real to them and why they do it.
prowrestler.kjthunderball.com
RHYTHM OF THE RIVER
Director: Dave Erickson
Rhythm of the River is a documentary about life along the lower Wisconsin River, originally filmed for public television. The DFF screening will include 30 minutes that will not be seen on TV, including the story of APT coming to Spring Green in 1980, cedar strip canoe building by Dave Roeder, fish art by Bill Weege and Port Andrew’s Tippesaukee, founded 1838, the oldest European settlement in Richland County. In addition to Tippesaukee, downriver residents will see local highlights of the river such as the Blue River Barrens.
THE RIVER WHY
Director: Matthew Leutwyler
Starring: Zach Gilford, Amber Heard, Kathleen Quinlan, Dallas Roberts, William Devane, William Hurt
Set on the banks of a wild river, The River Why is the story of 20 year old Gus Orviston, the Mozart of flyfishing, who leaves his big city home in rebellion from his family to live in a secluded cabin on the banks of a wild river. Instead of finding fishing bliss, his desolation drives him on a reluctant quest for self-discovery. In the process he comes in contact with an assortment of eccentric characters who help him in his journey to adulthood. Most of all, The River Why is a love story. The love of a man for the wilderness, and for a beautiful woman who comes to share it with him.
www.theriverwhy.com
SAHKANAGA
Director: John Henry Summerour
Starring: Trevor Neuhoff, Kristin Rievley
A teenager in rural Georgia stumbles upon a gruesome discovery in the woods, and the fabric of his life unravels as he suffers the secret.
SAHKANAGA (pronounced “sock-uh-nogga” and Cherokee for “Great Blue Hills of God”) is a fictional exploration of the 2002 Tri-State Crematory scandal, an event that threatened to shatter a tight-knit community in the Appalachian foothills of northwest Georgia. Shot in Walker County and cast entirely with local actors, many of whom had a direct connection to the real-life story, the film presents an unknowable tragedy from the perspective of one teenager who must grapple with the consequences of secrets and the difficulties of forgiveness.
SAWDUST CITY
Director: David Nordstrom
Starring: David Nordstrom, Carl McLaughlin, Lee Lynch.
Fresh out of the Navy, Pete Church returns to his hometown on Thanksgiving to track down an alcoholic father he hasn’t seen in years. Unable to pick up the scent on his own, he calls his older brother Bob who has remained in town building a business and a family. The estranged siblings hit a series of old bars, but while Pete is intent on finding their father, Bob just wants to drink and reconnect with his little brother. Along the way, they’re joined by Gene, a barroom hustler. He promises to lead the brothers to their father (as long as they buy the beer). Desperate, they accept Gene’s half-cocked guidance through the small town dives. As the quest falters, the drinking increases; old grievances arise, and the brothers must face the past and each other. Sawdust City was filmed entirely on location in Eau Claire, WI.
http://www.sawdustcityfilm.com
SWEET LITTLE LIES
Director: William J. Saunders
Starring: Caitlin Kinnunen, Bill Sage Joseph Montes
Bess, a lonely, rebellious trailer park teen, steals a car and makes a desperate journey from Kansas to Vegas in search of a father she never knew. Her trip takes her deep into the seedy underbelly of America where she encounters an array of lost-souls, deadbeats and con men, and learns that family can be found in the oddest of places.
www.sweetlittleliesmovie.com
TRAIN TO NOWHERE
Director: Paul Kakert & Colleen Bradford Krantz
One sealed railcar…eleven dead bodies.
When the bodies of eleven Central Americans and Mexicans were found inside a freight car in Denison, Iowa, the nation took notice. Reporters descended on the small farming community, searching for information about how and why this group ended up inside a locked railcar, where they would die horrific deaths.
The documentary, Train to Nowhere; Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation, offers an honest, yet compassionate look at the 2002 deaths of the eleven undocumented immigrants. It takes the viewers from the streets of southern Texas, to the hills of a Guatemalan farm, to the Iowa town where the bodies were found.
www.traintonowherefilm.com
TRAMPOLINE
Director: Mark Wojahn
TRAMPOLINE is a vulnerable and intimate story of a family in Minnesota being torn apart by the stress of their daily lives. Their world is a roller coaster of teen parties, third-degree burns, unemployment, drugs, and marital strife. The central character is the mother, Osla, whose pluck and spirit and will to protect her children helps them rise and overcome their circumstances.
www.trampolinethemovie.com
TURKEY BOWL
Director: Kyle Smith
Starring: Morgan Beck, Adam Benic, Kerry Bishé
Every summer, Jon gathers 10 friends together in his adopted city of Los Angeles to play the Turkey Bowl – bringing a piece of small-town tradition to the urban sprawl – all for the beloved prize for the winning team… a turkey. Friendships flare and fade, jealousy is met with both laughter and pain, old and unrequited love threatens to remain old and unrequited, and all of these undercurrents are revealed in the unique, improvised rhythm of backyard football.
UNFORGETTABLE
Writer/Director : Eric Williams
Starring: Brad Williams
Unforgettable follows the memorable adventures of Brad Williams, dubbed “the human Google” by Good Morning America, only the second person ever studied for an extremely detailed autobiographical memory for events both global and personal, monumental and trivial. Give Brad a date within his lifetime and he can tell you the day of the week, the major news of the day, even what was on TV and what he ate.
Screenwriter/filmmaker Eric Williams follows his brother Brad’s journey through one eventful year, as media coverage of his rare mental gifts makes Brad an unlikely celebrity, vaulting him from small-town anonymity to sudden midlife notoriety.
www.unforgettabledoc.com
VALLEY MAKER
Director: Sean Kafer
After completing the construction of a hand crafted barrel raft, filmmaker Sean Kafer travels 1600 miles down the Mississippi River from Prescott, Wisconsin to New Orleans. Capturing Middle America’s backwaters, Valley Maker combines documentary and personal travelogue. The film is a chronological trip of living postcards compiled of forgotten places and present life on the big river.
VANISHING OF THE BEES
Director: George Langworthy & Maryam Henein
Producer: Holly Mosher
Narrated by: Ellen Page
Honeybees have been mysteriously disappearing across the planet, literally vanishing from their hives.
Known as Colony Collapse Disorder, this phenomenon has brought beekeepers to crisis in an industry responsible for producing apples, broccoli, watermelon, onions, cherries and a hundred other fruits and vegetables. Commercial honeybee operations pollinate crops that make up one out of every three bites of food on our tables.
Vanishing of the Bees follows commercial beekeepers David Hackenberg and Dave Mendes as they strive to keep their bees healthy and fulfill pollination contracts across the U.S. The film explores the struggles they face as the two friends plead their case on Capital Hill and travel across the Pacific Ocean in the quest to protect their honeybees.
Filming across the US, in Europe, Australia and Asia, this documentary examines the alarming disappearance of honeybees and the greater meaning it holds about the relationship between mankind and mother earth. As scientists puzzle over the cause, organic beekeepers indicate alternative reasons for this tragic loss. Conflicting options abound and after years of research, a definitive answer has not been found to this harrowing mystery.
www.vanishingbees.com
The Weird World of Blowfly
Director: Jonathan Furmanski
The Weird World of Blowfly tells the story of Miami musician Clarence Reid and his alter ego Blowfly, the original dirty rapper. At 69 years-old, with a gold-spangled superhero costume and a catalog of the world’s raunchiest tunes, Blowfly continues to record new material and tour the world, struggling for success and recognition.
Before his X-rated career began, Clarence was instrumental in the Florida soul scene of the 1960s and ‘70s; he wrote Top-10 songs for Miami’s greatest R&B acts, including Betty Wright, Gwen McCrae and KC and the Sunshine Band, and recorded what might be the world’s first rap song in 1965. But for over 40 years Clarence has shocked and grooved audiences with Blowfly’s hilarious and provocative hard-core songs.
Shot over the course of two years, the film follows Clarence today and we see his life, career and philosophy unfold. A revealing portrait of an unheralded man, The Weird World of Blowfly examines Clarence’s personal and professional contradictions, explores his legacy and celebrates his musical and cultural significance as a rapper and soul music legend.
WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM
Director: Heather Courtney
From a snowy small town in Northern Michigan to the mountains of Afghanistan and back, WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM follows the four-year journey of childhood friends, forever changed by a faraway war.
A documentary about growing up, WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM is an intimate look at the young men who fight our wars and the families and town they come from. Returning to her hometown, Director Heather Courtney gains extraordinary access following these young men as they grow and change from teenagers stuck in their town, to 23-year-old veterans facing the struggles of returning home.
Enticed by a $20,000 signing bonus and the college tuition support, best friends Dominic and Cole join the National Guard after graduating from their rural high school. After persuading several of their friends to join them, the young men are sent to Afghanistan, where they spend their days sweeping for roadside bombs. By the time their deployment ends, they are no longer the carefree group of friends they were before enlisting; repeated bombs blowing up around their convoys have led to the new silent signature wound of the Afghan war, Traumatic Brain Injury, and they have all become increasingly disillusioned about their mission.
The challenges really begin to surface when they return to Michigan to their families and communities and try to fit back into their daily routines. WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM looks beyond the guns and policy of an ongoing war to examine the effect on parents, loved ones and the whole community when young people go off to fight.
www.wheresoldierscomefrom.com
WRESTLING FOR JESUS
Director: Nathan Clarke
Wrestling For Jesus is a new documentary released in 2011. A man from rural South Carolina tries to find solace from the demons of his past by starting a Christian professional wrestling league. His goal is to use wrestling to evangelize his neighbors. However his passion and vision for his ministry are tested when his personal life begins to disintegrate.
SHORT FILMS
ALONE TOGETHER
Director: Marc Kornblatt
The sign in the woods reads, “Bird Nesting Habitat. Your presence can disturb nesting bird success. Please stay on designated trails and boardwalks.” John and Karla, having crossed paths on the internet, travel from different ends of America to meet in the Midwest. They follow the right directions to the same spot in the middle of a bird sanctuary, but their encounter represents a calamitous detour from acceptable mating rituals.
AN AMERICAN SWAN IN PARIS
Director: Arantxa Aguirre
The famous ballet company Béjart Ballet Lausanne (BBL) prepares for the premiere in the well-known theatre Palais Garnier in Paris. Two dance couples will perform on alternate evenings in the opening duet. One of the dancers is the American ballerina Kathleen Thielhelm, born and raised in Wisconsin, who is the central character in the movie. After nine years dancing in Chicago with the Joffrey Ballet, she has just arrived to Europe and this show means a great chance for her. Scenes are shown of the rehearsals of both dance couples, travel to Paris, preparation in the Palais Garnier, instructions of repetitors and artistic director Gil Roman, etc. It gives an interesting ‘behind the curtains’ view of the daily matters of the dance company. All is set for the premiere, but then the unexpected happens…
ARBEIETER VERLASSEN DIE FABRIK (GERMANY)
Director: Anna Linke
In remembrance of the Lumiere Brothers: Karin works in a metal factory where she spends day after day, performing the same monotonous tasks. When a new worker begins his job in the factory, it seems to be the end of this drab life. He not only likes Karin but also the strange metal figurines she secretly builds before her workday starts.
ARTSPACE –Animated
Director: CeCe Chen
Vancouver Film School: A frustrated artist finds his solace with a phone call home.
BADEN KRUNK
Director: Tony Wood
Baden Krunk (Bad Luck) is the hilarious tale of accordionist Hans Hinklemeier,; a man with a dark cloud of bad luck hanging over every waking minute of his life. Shot in a black and white, pseudo-expressionistic style, Baden Krunk was this year’s big winner at the 2011 48 Hour Film Project in Madison, WI.
BATHING AND THE SINGLE GIRL
Director: Christine Elise McCarthy
Single, in her thirties and experiencing an extended romantic drought this lady decides she needs to broaden her ideas of who might make a suitable boyfriend. Once offended by her grandmother’s advice to “overlook a little” – she feels desperate times call for desperate measures. But – just how desperate is she? Bathing and the Single Girl is an irreverent & raw comedic look at some of the pitfalls of dating men you can talk yourself into rather than waiting for one you cannot talk yourself out of.
BEHIND — Animated
Director: Ga young Back
Vancouver Film School: A young girl discovers that her best friend is behind her.
BIRTH DAY
Director: Juan Riedinger
Vancouver Film School: A birthday not to remember.
BLACK EARTH
Director: James T. Warbington
A Zombie Apocalypse has begun in the Village of Black Earth, Wisconsin. But two outcast rednecks with a 12 pack of beer a baseball bat and a boat paddle plan to save their home town and the world….one beer at a time.
CAMPUS COPS
Director: Nathan Brown
Veteran campus cops Donnelly and Davidson thought they had seen the worst of the streets…but that was before some punk kid decided the bicycle safety laws at Felker College mean jack squat. Now it’s personal.
DARKWAYS
Director: William Q. Hartin
Dark Ways tells the terrifying story of Nell, a precocious ten-year old girl with a love of young adult horror books, and her father Robert, as they settle the haunted estate of Robert’s deceased older brother Carlson. Nell helps her father as he goes through Carlson’s strange and eerie belongings. At night though, the house reveals an unsettling presence to Nell, one that could prove to be sinister…or good. As Nell learns more about what else dwells within the dark places of the house, she realizes there is yet another presence, one so terrifying and ancient, it can only lead to unspeakable horrors.
DONA COROQUINHA – Animated
Director: Diogo Nii Cavalcanti
Vancouver Film School: A woman attempts to cross a busy street.
DONKEY (UK)
Director: Keir Burrows
A narrated short about a successful young banker, whose life is going according to script. but whose encounter with a man he bullied when they were both younger causes him to reflect on his priorities.
FROM DEPTH OF DREAMS
Director: Kyle Lavore
Starring: Robb Thompson, Victoria Yakoleva
Charles Vonder is haunted by the thoughts of his murdered wife. As his search to the mystery of his wife’s killer unravels, he soon finds out the answer is more then he could bargain for.
FRIEND OF THE DEVIL
Director: Eric Heisner
Former Texas Ranger, Jacob Matthau goes in pursuit of Bandits that robbed and killed a payroll guard. The journey takes him to the Mexican border and outside the law.
GATES OF LODORE
Producer: Victor Zorba
A high water journey through the Lodore Canyon of the Green River, exploring the cultural, geologic, hydraulic, and rafting aspects of the river, with an original score.
GOOD MORNING BEAUTIFUL
Director: Todd Cobery
Starring: David Tufford, Catherine Campion
Good Morning, Beautiful is the personal and surreal story of one man’s grief. After the death of his newborn daughter, Dave struggles to keep his grip on reality as he begins to see only ugliness in the world. He drifts through his existence in an almost dream state, not knowing what is real and what is only in his head.
Dave begins to meet with and to be haunted by a bevy of odd characters and nightmarish creatures all while dealing with the grief of the loss of his child. While his world breaks down around him, Dave tries to maintain a level of normalcy and cope with the alienation he feels from the real world and his friends and family.
www.goodmorningbeautifulmovie.com
GRANDMA FERN
Director: Brent Notbohm
Grandma Fern is filmmaker Brent Notbohm’s personal journey through the life of his eighty-one year old grandmother, Lillian Fern Smith Grenier. A mother of seven, Fern shares with us her greatest joy (her family) and her worst heartbreaks (the deaths of her husband and two of her daughters). Filmed in Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula, Grandma Fern is a moving and often humorous documentary about a special woman who manages to radiate hope in spite of life’s many challenges.
What is better than baseball, hot dogs — and mustard? A winning season. When Rusty, an old-fashioned baseball stadium hot dog vendor, mixes a special concoction of mustard for a down-and-out rookie, things start to turn around. The rookie starts hitting. Soon his buddy wants a special hot dog from Rusty. Then, the whole team.
This short film, made by students of the Wisconsin Film School, from a script by Tom Dunn of the Wisconsin Screenwriters Forum, looks at superstition, exploitation and the all-American game of baseball. Made with the cooperation of the Madison Mallards baseball team, the National Mustard Museum and the Wisconsin Film School.
IF ONLY – Animated
Director: ilan srulovicz
Vancouver Film School: A man at the end of his life, remembers what he has pushed away.
JACK GOES DOWN HARD
Director: Brendan Jones
Jack Goes Down Hard is a short format film that follows two school bus drivers that are good friends and dig underage chicks.
LAST WORDS OF THE HOLY GHOST
Directed by: Ben Sharony
Starring: Heidi Armbruster, Joel Nagle, Gabrielle Senn, Jonathan Watts
Besotted with the precocious and sexy Rose, 14-year-old Harold agrees to be re-baptized in her North Carolina church and to speak in tongues in order to win a date with her. He gets the date, but things don’t go as well as he had hoped. Meanwhile, his mother’s relationship to his beloved step-father, Clay, could provide additional lessons for Harold’s battered heart. A bittersweet coming-of-age story about love, loss, and survival.
LITTLE HERO
Director: Kim Savory
Vancouver Film School: A boy finds comfort in his imagination.
MALL CHURCH
Director: Stephen Crompton
Mall Church explores the growing trend of churches opening for business in shopping malls throughout the Midwest. Through malls in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, and the churches within them, the film reveals the strange synergy that seems to exist between places of worship and of retail in the era of the dying mall.
MONIKA(DENMARK)
Director: Christian Werner
Barely out of her teens, dependent on her family and extremely nearsighted, Monika, 20, desperately wants to pass her driving test. She undertakes a risky eye laser operation which fails and she loses her sight. Her fragile mother cracks under the strain of seeing her daughter blind and defenseless. Through this Monika shows her own inner strength and fights for her independence. A year later she enrolls in an apprenticeship as a physical therapist. She discovers a new sensual connection to the outside world and discovers a balance between disability and autonomy.
MY LIFE BY WATER
Director: Brent Notbohm
My Life by Water: Lorine Niedecker is a cinematic interpretation of a selection of poetry by renowned Wisconsin author Lorine Niedecker. Once named “America’s Greatest Unknown Poet,” this short experimental film explores Niedecker’s life through her poetry, photographs, and images of the place she spent much of her life, Blackhawk Island in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.
NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIE CHICKEN
Director: Steven Blomkamp
Vancouver Film School: Chicken dinners wake up, and they are hungry for revenge.
OFF INTO SPACE
Director: Anna Jung
One guy, one night, one unbelievable catch. In this lighthearted mini-doc, we follow Mike Pantazis, the Chicago super-fan who garnered national media attention with his famed 1995 leap from the stands of Soldier Field. A televised Bears/Packers showdown with over 42 million viewers, the stunt earned Mike a place in Monday Night Football history, the coveted ESPY award and a seat on Letterman. Here, we explore the absurdity of how one seemingly inconsequential moment can create sports legend, meet the man behind that moment and illustrate why, 16 years later, we’re still talking about him.
Director: Eric J. Nelson
Intergalactic plastic musicians give their half-inch arms a workout in an out-of-this-world performance. Animated by Madison-based filmmaker, Eric J. Nelson. Music by ViBRATiONLAND.
RED PRINCESS BLUES
Director: Alex Ferrari
In this twisted modern day fairy tale ZOE, a young teenage girl, is lured into an after hours carnival tent by the sleazy rock n roll carney RIMO, she then gets more then she bargained for. It is up to the mysterious PRINCESS, the star of the new knife show at ROSCOE’S CARNIVAL & FREAK SHOW to pull her out of the wolf’s den that she has fallen into.
RIGAMORTIS: A ZOMBIE LOVE STORY
Director: Ted Campbell & Dave Dewes
After humanity quells an undead uprising, the last two remaining zombies pair up in search of sanctuary, but instead find love.
RIDIN’ DOWN
Director: Ben Zeller
A cowboy noir picture that tracks three mismatched ne’er do wells as they follow Preach in robbing a bank and high tailing it to Mexico, and the steely-eyed sheriff who is relentless in his pursuit.
SHELDON
Producers: Andreas Frisch, Jeremy Slutskin
Puppeteer: Matt Vogel
Sheldon Shellstein is fired from the starring role on his hit children’s program after a scandalous video surfaces on the web. An overnight fall from grace follows: divorce, bankruptcy, public scorn and humiliation. SHELDON picks up several years later when a documentary crew begin’s documenting Sheldon’s painstaking climb out of the gutter as he makes the rounds of the washed-up celebrity circuit. Along the way, Sheldon has to make amends for his shameful past, confront his gold-digging ex-wife, maintain his sobriety and rebuild the shattered connections to his friends, family, and career.
SHC
Director: Robb Thompson
Anxiety pervades the photography, editing, and score of SHC, an energetic thriller about a man who visits a gypsy fortune teller and learns that he will burst into flames that night, through spontaneous human combustion. As the frantic artist recalls the events of the day to his skeptical girlfriend, her reactions evolve from humored to concerned. What at first sounds like a joke is realized to be an inexplicable and not-disproven cause of death. Whether you accept or deny the phenomenon, one thing is for certain… some things cannot be explained.
THE VIOLINIST
Director: Carlo Vinnie Beasasie
Michael, a down on his luck, love-less bag boy, learns that world-famous, concert violinist, Nicholas Rentz is going to be performing for a few nights in his home town. Bearing a resemblance to the musician (a well-known bachelor with female fans around the globe), Michael hatches an elaborate plan to impersonate him with the hope that he can trick a woman or two into thinking he’s the genuine article, and get lucky. But when he meets a classy young woman at a ritzy nightclub and is poised to seal the deal, things take an unexpected turn.
WHEN I STAND ON THE MOON (UK)
Director: Mark Fisher
Two young brothers separated by a tragic accident are reunited for one magical evening. When I Stand On The Moon is a short film set in the present day and records one magical night’s events for our story’s hero, a nine year old boy called Jamie. Two years previously, Jamie’s older brother, Ryan, was tragically killed in a road accident and ever since, Jamie has found it difficult to come to terms with this. Even his mother cannot answer his naive questions as to why he can never see his brother again.
Tonight, however, as he disobeys his mother’s instructions and stays up late reading superhero comic books under his bed covers, he is about to be visited by Ryan who has returned to spend one last moment with his younger brother. Midnight is the chosen time and a mutual friend Ryan brings, along with an amazing gift that will keep Ryan’s memory alive forever and help Jamie overcome his grief.
ZOMBIE BITE MYTH
Director: Aaron Yonda
Can you get turned into a zombie from just one bite? Aaron, Matt, and Kandi use SCIENCE to discover the truth in this episode of MythPunchers, the show that is not anything like MythBusters, we swear…
Follow Us!