2018 OFFICIAL FESTIVAL PROGRAM
2018 DENVER UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2018 07:00 PM SHORTS PROGRAM (01:37:54) DOCUMENTARIES Light and Sound (14:34) Director: Arsalan Baraheni. Canada. Soley is one of the millions of Iranians who was forced to leave his country after the 1979 revolution. Music was banned by the Iranian regime and he was not able to sing anymore. He was a well known singer who ended up in Canada as a taxi driver. He struggled as an artist but yet he continued his mystical music as an indie musician in exile. Adoptions (09:51) Director: Christopher Beeson. Denver, Colorado, USA. Adoptions' is a documentary experiment that combines archival audio of adopted parents and children with new footage of shelter and adopted animals. A Few Acres At A Time (06:58) Director: Will Sardinsky. Carbondale, CO. Lani Malmberg, goatherder and gypsy, travels with her cashmere goats throughout the Colorado Front Range to elevate goat grazing as an accepted method of managing weeds and land restoration as an alternative to chemicals and machinery. My Dad Was Contacted By Aliens (09:12) Director: Niklaus Lange. Los Angeles, CA, USA. This true story explores how an encounter with aliens in 1986 tested a son’s patience and a father’s patriarchy. Director Niklaus Lange’s statement: “I made this personal short film because I wanted to explore relationships and what happens when your hero (my dad, Helmut Lange) believes in something you can't.” CAT FLAVORED CINEMA Il Mio Gatto Dante (02:49) Director: Will Berry. Maine, USA. A poet reconnects with her dead cat through their mutual love of Italian quatrains. Katz on The Internet (12:27) Director: James M. Martin. Denton, Texas, USA. Young hipster cats Gwendolyn and Milo decide to chronicle their life in the city through documentary in order to show the world a different view of online cat videos. I Remember Ashes (08:35) Director: Graham Turner. USA, Czech Republic production. Sally and Oliver spend most of their time deep in the hills of the Czech Republic where they find freedom in shooting a slingshot, listening to music and spending time with a stray cat that has taken a particular liking to Oliver. Sally grows envious, but when she attempts to take further control of the situation Oliver steals the cat and escapes. THE CHRISTMAS BEFORE THE NIGHTMARES (42:03). Blast Minute Shopping (03:38) Director: Matt Bogacki. Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Make sure you stock up on groceries before the nuclear apocalypse. Alchemy (14:05) Director: Brandon Polanco. New York, NY, USA. A failed everyman begins working through pages and pages of questions. He battles the unknown ultimately transcending into a heightened reality, discovering a new life existing between multiple worlds, both familiar and otherworldly. A Great Christmas (14:54) Director: Kevin Ralston. Brooklyn, NY, USA. A modern American Christmas satire. The Christmas Bull (09:55) Director: Rosie Jones. United Kingdom. A cautionary tale for naughty little boys who don’t expect to encounter The Christmas Bull. --INTERMISSION-- 09:00 PM SHORT FILMS DRAMATIC NARRATIVE SHORTS Somnium (05:00) Director: Zainah Salameh. Qatar. Reality and fantasy merge as two strangers across a train platform are drawn inextricably to a surreal dreamscape. The fragility of hope is cruelly exposed as they are tied together in a moment where time and space are frozen and anything can happen. Don’t Cry For Me (29:30) Director: Louie Pozos. Los Angeles, CA. As a young man waits in jail he reminisces of the path that lead him there, but his conscience is clear. First time director Louie Pozos attended the Lifton Institute of Media Sciences in Castaic, California. ANIMATED SHORTS The Good Queue (05:00) Director: Roger Gimenez. Badalona, Spain. Is there ever a best line to stand in? This story portrays the human condition in a daily situation. Greed and impatience are always bad advisors, but we are doomed to follow their impulses. Prizefighter (06:06) Director: Lyndon Barrois Prizefighter is an animated “sportrait” depicting three days in the life of heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, fighting his fiercest opponent - racism. Prizefighter is an ambitious piece of storytelling, incorporating traditional stop-motion animation techniques, combined with live action actors' facial compositing and other digital visual effects. It involves miniature characters in 1:43 scale made from chewing gum wrappers, a medium Barrois created as a child in New Orleans. Chiaroscuro (05:17) Director: David Perry. San Jose, CA, USA. A story of a lonely widow who mourns for her lost love, gets color back in her life by a quirky painter. The Deplorable Existence Of Monster Mount vs Dreamo Hernandez (09:46) Director: Bradley Wilkinson. Texas, USA. A somnambulistic prince named Dreamo Hernandez loses his family to a monster, and he doesn't know what to do. So he runs to Seattle, and then he gets distracted by dreams along the way. iRony (07:53) Director: Radheya Jegatheva. Perth, Australia. A film that explores the relationship between man and technology… told from the perspective of a phone. MUSIC VIDEOS OCD (05:00) Director / Performer: Ken “Glaserbeam” Glaser. Anaheim, CA, USA. A music video that takes a lighthearted look at obsessive-compulsive disorder. “There's a bit of OCD in all of us,” says Glaserbeam. According to actor/comedian Steve Martin, 'OCD is inventive - a really funny piece - and [Glaserbeam] is a gifted producer. Everyone should watch this!' Turgid Toad (03:16) DIrectors: Russ Lake and JazzElle Laziuk. Santa Cruz, California, USA. The tawdry tale of a bellowing blowhard who shows up at a peaceful pond one day and proceeds to wreak havoc every which way…until the locals give him the boot. Weeds (05:31) Director: Justin Lacy. North Carolina, USA. A vagabond bicycle rolls past a night-time dreamworld of yarn-string hills, construction-paper trees and pipe-cleaner farms, racing against rapidly growing Kudzu. Rooftops (04:26) Director: Odeya Rush. New South Wales, Australia. The Rooftops music video is a story about a boy in love, centered around the lyric "Rollin' like it's high school fantasy". The video was created and produced independently by four best friends, who are listed as producers. This is also Odeya Rush's directorial debut. Waiting Tables (03:36) Directors: Evan Seplow, Sakinah Iman. Starring Sakinah Iman. New York, NY, USA. Dedicated to all who had to get a side hustle to pay for their art. INTERMISSION 11:00 PM LATE NIGHT SHORTS AND FEATURE FILM COMEDY SHORTS PART UNO (35:43) Random Knowledge (16:50) Director: MIchael Charron. The final round at a pub trivia game puts the random knowledge of six oddly-matched teammates to the test… but knowing is only half the battle. La Nuez (07:53) Director: Alex Fauver. New Hampshire. Two guys are on a mission to make a delivery, but what is it? Huevos (11:00) Director: Adam Rosenberg. Denver, CO. A dark comedy about a man who receives a mysterious proposition from his childhood crush. FEATURE FILM The Summerlands (01:30:00) Director: Kathryn Bucher. Los Angeles, CA. Deeds is 13. She has a Super8 camera and a favorite animal. Jill is 40. She has a degree in poetry, a license to sell insurance and a short fuse. Pete is 30. He's got nothing. 1 car. 3 people. 673 miles. A few bad choices. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2018 DENVER UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2018 07:00 PM SHORTS PROGRAM WATER BASED CINEMA (35:08) FESTIVAL STATEMENT: We have observed throughout the years that films submitted to DUFF have delivered a small sample of some of the concerns of the collective unconscious of that particular time. This year we have received a group of films with water as the main subject and filming environment made separately by filmmakers from opposite sides of the planet. We believe this is a reminder of the dire situation of our waterways and oceans due to waste dumping and chemical pollution and reversing the damage already done has to be made the number one priority for every person and government on Earth. Pictured Rocks (08:39) Director: Jack Cronin. Ann Arbor, Michigan. USA. A study of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the winter/spring of 2018. The Stream VIII (06:54) Director: Hiroya Sakurai. Japan. In the man-made waterways of rice paddies, the water in nature must follow artificial rules. In that way, nature is made abstract, giving rise to a new form of beauty distinct from the natural state. The theme of this work is the liveliness of the water as it follows the man-made course. A Portrait in Water (04:38) Director: Alexandria Searls. Virginia, USA. A short, silent film, explores the visual qualities of a river in Virginia. The surface of the river becomes a second lens for the underwater camera. Inspired by Joris Ivens' "Rain” Aquarium (06:00) Director: Stephanie Maxwell. Aquarium is a choreography of light and motion of the motions of ocean water and its expressive optical qualities. Composer Max Berlin provides a jazzy arrangement of Saint-Saëns’ Aquarium composition (1886). Birthplace (05:00) Director: Sil Van Der Woerd. SFX: Jorik Dozy. Netherlands. The symbolic story of a man arriving on a perfect Earth, who encounters his nemesis in the form of ocean pollution. Sil Van Der Woerd has created music videos for artists such as Skrillex and Noisia. Jorik Dozy is a lead visual effects artist working for Lucasfilm. EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS (18:11) Catalyst (03:30) Director: Kent Tate. Canada. Catalyst represents a type of diary without dates, of memories reconstructed to formulate my story. A story that takes place in time and space, shaped by the earth and sky. The Equatorial Calms (03:37) Director: Derek Taylor. Middlebury, Connecticut, USA. Optical ruminations on an unpredictable region of Earth where raging storms and calm waters coexist. Seafarers are not only contained within this indeterminate state, but also within the film frame. Provoke (05:41) Director: Rase Vigil. USA. DIrector’s statement: “26 words that describe this film; Violence, Fear, Surreal, Unconscious, Hatred, Dreams, Nausea, Manic, Escape, Entertainment, Sadism, Totalitarianism, Hypocrisy, Vivid, Blunt, Object, Dissonant, Birth, Murder, Trap, Control, Cleanse, Behavior, Attack, Static, Provoke.” Hard Drive (05:23) Director: Aaron Kearns. Hard Drive is the first of a new personal experimental sub genre titled Action-Garde. With this sub genre purely abstract imagery and sounds are taken and collaged together to create an atmosphere that communicates intensity and high speed. A cinematic rush of energy with no logical or conceptual limitations. DOCUMENTARY Heel On Red: The Life and Photography of Sam Holden (29:33) Director: Charles Cohen. Narrator: Donna Sherman. 'The boxes from the studio, It's hard to explain. Those boxes are screaming' After Photographer Sam Holden's sudden death in 2014, his longtime girlfriend confronts the stunning work he left behind in this visually explosive personal essay documentary. An hydraulic-infused trip of Analog Photography. A Tale of Love, Passion..The good stuff! --INTERMISSION-- 08:40 PM SECOND SHORTS PROGRAM POST NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE (47:43) Post-Republik (19:47) Director: Hans Schellhas, USA. In this dystopian, experimental film a lone insurgent warrior seeks to survive the onslaught of brutal invasion. Home Grown (20:49) Director: William Reynish. Denmark. 12-year-old Darya was once evacuated from a nuclear disaster and returns to her hometown to look for her father, but everything has changed; amazing nature and wild animals have moved in. She succeeds in finding her father, but it forces Darya to leave the past behind and adapt to a new world. Wonderwall (07:07) Director: Alexander Denysenko. Lviv, Ukraine. A musical story of unconditional love after the loss of a loved one. A young man’s surreal experience in the Chernobyl exclusion zone gives him a chance to discover himself. This film shows Chernobyl from an emotionally new point of view; not of fear and anxiety, but of healing, inspiration and hope. MYSTERY & HORROR (49:53) Beast (06:46) Director: Natalie Peracchio. Los Angeles, CA, USA. A younger sister struggles to contain her anger at her domineering older sister. When her feelings finally overflow, they take the form of a magical spider. The spider grows with her desire for power until it is too big to contain. When it threatens both her and her sister, they must reconcile their differences or be overwhelmed by its force. Claire In The Rain (09:42) Director: Mark Zampella. Sarasota, Florida, USA. Claire is a writer on a deadline. She also needs to get more sleep. A hypnagogic romp through the park with invisible dogs and a weather cult. Hysteria (07:13) Director: Lucretia Grimm. Brooklyn, NY, USA. An evolving nightmare that blurs real and imagined horrors with the emotional experience of sexual brutality dismissed in the original “Sleeping Beauty.” No Trespassing (06:06) Director: Masaki Itagaki. Starring: Ed Mizner. Redondo Beach, CA, USA. A detective’s search for a missing child in an abandoned school might yield terrible secrets. Guilt Trip (06:37) Director: Edward Sevillano. Ohio, USA. Alex Ruberon learns a lesson he will always remember for the rest of his life when he made a decision to text while driving. Made for the 2018 Columbus 48 Hour Film Project. Ghost Car (06:10) Director: Sam Gannuch. Denver, CO, USA. Tom buys a car off of the internet only to find that it is possessed by a ghost whom Tom must build a relationship with in order to get to work on time. Vinyl Destination (07:19) Director: Daniel Cummings Written by: Nate James Bakke. DEnver, CO, USA. Two hipster friends are gifted a rare record, only to find out it's dark side. --INTERMISSION-- 10:30 PM THIRD SHORTS PROGRAM AND FEATURE FILM COMEDY SHORTS PART DEUX (35:33) Conned (10:19) DIrector: John Gigrich, USA. A con artist ignores the advice of her mentor and tries to con her high school rival, but the tables are turned when their mark threatens to turn them in unless they help her commit a crime. Bennifer (13:12) Director: Ryan McGlade. Brooklyn, NY, USA. Jed’s family isn’t how he remembered it. Taste The Spider (13:02) Director: Brian Dorrington. Lowell, Massachusetts, USA. A young couple’s relationship is poisoned when a spider invades their home. RED LIGHT CINEMA (17:07) Room Service (11:28) Director: Jacob Warren. Written by: James M. Jones. CLover, SC. A man is confronted with his decision to step out on his wife. Bad Lobster (05:39) Director: Julia Hebner. Austin, TX, USA. Call girl Annie is expected to fulfill a strange request involving a lobster, but her good conscience steps in to keep the worse from happening. FEATURE FILM Starlit (01:35:00) Director: AO. Fishkill, NY, USA. Jessica Alvarez is twenty-four and bored. She has an MBA, a safe corporate gig, a bland boyfriend, a steady supply of pills, a stargazing hobby and a room at home with a suffocating mother. An unexpected road trip with a sly car mechanic takes her exactly where her soul yearns to go. |