Just finished creating a very fun, spontaneous, color super 8 short with Karn Junkinsmith and Michael Seiwerath. It will screen along with 23 other short films as part of the EXQUISITE CORPSE filmmaking challenge at the Northwest Film Forum on May 12th, 2009 at 8pm.
The film is created in the same surrealist spirit as the exquisite corpse exercise that writers and illustrators often do... Participants in the filmmaking challenge can create a film about anything they want, but must begin and end their film with images chosen randomly out of a hat. For example, one person might pick from a hat a slip of paper that instructs them: "Begin with man in a red shirt. / End with barking dog." The filmmaker must begin and end their film accordingly. Another person will draw a slip that says: "Begin with barking dog. / End with girl riding a bike." Another: "Begin with a girl riding a bike. / End with a boat." And so on.
It should be a fantastic show!
Seattle wins again at the HotDocs International Documentary Challenge in Toronto. DARK MATERIAL, by Team Reel Grrls (I provided some post-production support on this project), won the Best Editing award and the award for Best Use of the Hope & Fear Theme. A HEALING ART, a story about artificial eyeballs, (I worked on this one too, providing post-production and story consulting support), goes home with one the top prizes, which includes a cash award and a coveted broadcast deal with POV!
Seattle filmmaker Lynn Shelton is kicking ass in the film world lately and making us all very proud out here in the Northwest. Her feature film HUMPDAY will play at the Cannes Film Festival as part of the Director's Fortnight series next month. She premiered HUMPDAY at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year (where less than 1% of submitted films are accepted into competition) and won one of the most buzzed about bidding wars of the festival, selling her film to Magnolia Pictures. Just a few weeks later, she was crowned as Someone to Watch at the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards for her previous feature film, MY EFFORTLESS BRILLIANCE. Of course, we here in Seattle have known all along that Lynn Shelton is someone to watch...
Damn, Lynn. You go girl.
Recently I've been working with Christen Marquez, editing an updated work sample for her project HAKU INOA. Christen's film is a first-person documentary in which she explores her Native Hawaiian heritage through a quest to reconnect with her estranged mother and learn the meaning of her enigmatic, extremely complex Hawaiian name.
Christen has been shooting for several years now and just finished gathering some very pretty new footage with support from PBS Hawaii. She's doing a little more fundraising before she dives all the way into post-production on the 60-minute show, so if you'd like to donate, please visit her website!
A LOT LIKE YOU is a feature-length documentary by Eli Kimaro that examines the difficulties of holding onto culture and tradition in the modern world. After 40 years of being away, the filmmaker's father moves back to his homeland on Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa and struggles to find a sense of identity and belonging in the community he left behind. In the process of filming, however, Eli discover that this is no longer just her father's story.
I've been working with editor Eric Frith to help get this doc ready for submission to festivals in coming months!
Earlier this year, 142 filmmakers from all over the world made short non-fiction films with the assigned theme of "Hope and/or Fear". It was a race against time, as teams were randomly assigned genres (character study, art, biography, history, experimental, etc.) and then only had a handful of days to complete their videos before a postmark deadline. From the 142 International Documentary Challenge submissions, 13 finalists have been selected to premiere their videos at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on May 9, 2009. Winners will be announced that night. Against all odds, three Seattle-based teams have been selected as finalists this year. Something in the water? Look for DARK MATERIAL and A HEALING ART, two of the films that I worked on a tiny bit.
MARCH POINT screens in Washington DC at the National Geographic headquarters at 1pm on April 4th, 2009. On April 5th MARCH POINT screens again at 8pm at Bus Boys and Poets, an event co-sponsored by National Geographic and the Environmental Protection Agency. The directors will be in attendance for Q&A.
MARCH POINT had its European premiere on March 14th in Paris, France at the European Documentary Film Festival. The outpouring of Parisian audiences was enormous, which resulted in MARCH POINT receiving a Special Jury Award in competition. Of course, this also means that MARCH POINT is now available with French subtitles!
A fascinating article for independent filmmakers who are trying to figure out the ever-changing landscape of distribution... Click here.
Due to the amazing response to the original broadcast last November, Independent Lens has decided to re-broadcast MARCH POINT> on Tuesday, March 3, 2009. The film recently won Best Documentary at the ImagineNative Film Festival in Toronto and was selected by UNESCO as an example of indigenous grassroots mobilization in response to climate change! Now watch it on TV... Check your local PBS listings for more info, or follow this link: www.pbs.org/independentlens/marchpoint
A couple years ago, I spent several months working with youth from the Lummi Tribal Community (near Bellingham, WA), teaching them start-to-finish filmmaking skills so that they could create their own short videos. One of those videos, CANOE PULLING: A LUMMI WAY OF LIFE, recently screened at the Smithsonian's prestigious National Museum of the American Indian in New York City. The youth directors received a special invitation to present their work in person at the museum -- their first (and I suspect not their last) trip to the Big City! Congrats Sara and Talia!
After years of hard work, Delaney Ruston has finally locked picture on her documentary UNLISTED. (I worked on this project a little bit as a shooter and editor.) Check out this great front-page feature article about Delaney and UNLISTED in the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Congrats Delaney!
Reel Grrls honored me with their own very special version of an Oscar this year! ♥
Ever notice how few women filmmakers appear on the Academy Awards ticket?
Longhouse Media is now accepting applications for SUPERFLY, an annual fly filmmaking event for youth from all over that takes places in Seattle from June 4-6 (with very little sleep across the span of those days). This event is co-sponsored by the Seattle International Film Festival, and the films created during SUPERFLY screen in June at the beautiful Egyptian theatre as part of the festival. I'm the Tech Coordinator for this event and look forward to collaborating with everyone again on this year's batch of films! More info is available at: www.longhousemedia.org
In conjunction with the last weekend of the Gifts exhibit at Seattle Art Museum, MARCH POINT will screen at 1pm on January 10th, 2009.
