This program presents a carefully selected cross-section of the state of filmmaking in the Northwest. These films—all chosen as official selections by Festival Judge Gill Dennis—screened at the 37th Fest in Portland.
Lisa Jackson / Vancouver (Narrative) A musical take on the First Nation residential school experience. “A beautiful and surprising Ghost Dance.” —GD. (6 min.)
John Waller / Portland (Documentary) Breathtakingly beautiful and surprisingly suspenseful, this voyage underground reveals the wonders just under the surface. “A compelling adventure that takes away the need to ever pursue such a pastime oneself.” —GD. (15 min.)
Rick Raxlen / Victoria (ANI) Raxlen’s hand-drawn animation sits in with Oscar Peterson. “An abstract, heartfelt illustration of great music.” —GD. (2 min.)
Jim Lowry / Portland (Documentary) “ROBIER TALKS ABOUT LIFE...in a memorable fashion while looking for someone like Beckett or Caver or Pinget to transcribe it.” —GD. (5 min.)
Michael Ward / Portland (Narrative) The time has come for two friends to sell their tandem bike. Braking up is hard to do. (9 min.)
Andrew S. Allen / Seattle (ANI) Deliciously atmospheric animation embellishes this noir tale of ciphers and fortunes. (10 min.)
Ian Berry / Portland (Experimental) A woman moves very slowly through Cairo. “A love letter in search of a...” —GD. (3 min.)
Brian Libby / Portland (Experimental) Frolicsome editing turns Portland’s Fremont Bridge into a roller coaster ride. “Celebrates something I do all the time, going and coming—and like doing, more coming than going.” —GD. (4 min.)
Orland Nutt / Portland (Experimental) This quick and beguiling tête-à-tête is offered as a musical biography of Peter MacArthur. “The Best of Frittering with a Vengeance Films.” —GD. (2 min.)
Nathaniel Bennett / Medford (Narrative) Lukas takes to the woods with his endearing and motley crew to prove the vast government conspiracy that is endangering the Bigfoot. “TRUE BELIEVERS makes you realize once and for all why poor Sasquatch must never be found.” —GD. (25 min.)
Official Site: http://festivals.nwfilm.org/nwfest37/
China (2009)
Directed by: Lu Chuan
Written by: Lu Chuan
Produced by: Lu Chuan, Sanping Han, John Chong
Cinematography by: Cao Yu
Edited by: Teng Yun
With: Ye Liu, Yuanyuan Gao, Hideo Nakaizumi
Running Time: 132 min.
Lu Chuan’s 
black-and-white epic begins days after Nanjing has fallen to the Japanese in 1937. The women, children, and soldiers who survived the attack were assured safety in a refugee area set up by Westerners, including Nazi John Rabe. However, soon Japanese soldiers begin breaking into the refugee area to rape women and young girls. Tang, Rabe’s assistant, negotiates a bargain with the Japanese soldiers in which 100 Chinese women from the camp will volunteer to be “comfort women” to the Japanese in exchange for food and coal for the rest of the survivors. Lu portrays both the Japanese and Chinese perspectives sensitively. The film shifts its point of view throughout, showing Tang’s struggle to create a sort of peace between the Japanese soldiers and the Chinese refugees while also portraying one of the Japanese soldiers, Kudokawa, as an altogether human character who is sickened by the violence committed around him, but can do nothing to stop it.
Lu received a great deal of criticism in China for depicting Kadokawa as a sympathetic character. However, showing both sides in this way raises the thought-provoking question: Does the burden of war lead necessarily to the erosion of a man’s conscience? Film critic Emmanuel Levy praises the film: "Among other distinctions, the aptly titled film describes the largely untold story of the defiant Chinese resisters who refused to bow down in defeat. As such, the movie joins the small league of cinematic war masterpieces about the human price and devastating effects of battle and occupation."
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q90R13aMwbA
Official Site (England): http://www.cityoflifeanddeath.co.uk/
When kids are strung out on sugary snacks and industrial niblets, attentiveness in the classroom is impossible. This simple revelation inspired a diverse group of Berkeley parents to challenge the entrenched notion of which foods should be served in schools. Their resolute efforts led to the Berkeley School Lunch Initiative, a revolutionary program that substitutes healthy organic meals for the previous concoctions of sweeteners, oils, and processed comestibles. San Francisco filmmakers Helen De Michiel and Sophie Constantinou saw the Berkeley School District’s nutritional efforts as a model deserving wider dissemination. Through webisodes, an impending documentary, and media socials like this event, The Lunch Love Community Documentary Project engages not with just food issues related to youth, but with the broader consideration of how localized activism inspires larger systemic change. The filmmakers will screen webisodes from http://www.lunchlovecommunity.org/capturing key aspects of Berkeley’s innovative lunch program, as well as introduce prominent food reform advocates to encourage a dialogue surrounding food literacy.
Helen De Michiel is a director, writer and producer whose work includes film, television and video installations. Her 1995 feature film Tarantella, starring Mira Sorvino, was shown at the Seattle Film Festival and won the Audience Award at the 1996 Torino International Woman’s Film Festival. Her documentary, Turn Here Sweet Corn(1990) was seen nationally on the PBS series POV. From 1996-2010, she served as the National Director for The National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture.
Sophie Constantinou’s directing credits include Divided Loyalties (Golden Gate Award, 1998 SF International Film Festival), a personal exploration of the conflict in Cyprus and Between the Lines, a lyrical documentary about women who cut themselves. She also has numerous cinematography credits including PBS’s Maquilapolis and HBO’s Unchained Memories.
Official Site: http://www.lunchlovecommunity.org/
Interview with directors http://www.sf360.org/?pageid=13195
Chile/France/Germany (2010)
Directed by: Patricio Guzmán
Written by: Patricio Guzmán
Produced by: Renate Sachse
Cinematography by: Katell Djian
Edited by: Patricio Guzmán and Emmanuelle Joly
Running Time: 90 min.
In Nosta
lgia for the Light, three very different groups of people turn to Chile’s Atacama Desert in search of answers. Reportedly the driest desert on earth, archeologists search for artifacts perfectly preserved in the dry sands for clues of past civilizations. Astronomers turn to the skies above the Atacama to answer the eternal human question: where did we come from? These scientists point some of the greatest telescopes on earth towards the vast and cloudless Chilean sky in hopes of unraveling the mysteries of the stars, the solar system, and our own existence. Meanwhile a group of women armed with tiny shovels probe the desert sands in a never-ending search for the remains of the tens of thousands of political dissenters who “disappeared” under the reign of General Pinochet from 1973 to 1990. In a desert that seems as vast as the faraway galaxies above it, these women search for any small clue that could be a link to their missing loved ones.
Director Patricio Guzmán, famous for his political documentaries (The Battle of Chile,The Pinochet Case),connects these groups of desert-devotees through their shared need to learn about the past in order to understand the present. Each of them thirsts for answers that can only be quenched by this arid land. Dispersed between these enlightening interwoven stories are awe-inspiring time-lapse shots of the desert sky at night and glimpses of dust particles that shimmer like stars. It’s no wonder that Stephen Cole of The Globe and Mail said of the film “Imagine Ansel Adams, working in color, let loose on the Milky Way.” In Nostalgia for the Light Guzmán displays his hope for his country to recover from the past and move towards the future.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok7f4MLL-Hk
Official Site: http://icarusfilms.com/new2011/nost.html
US (2010)
Directed by: Sam Green and Dave Cerf
Produced by: Sam Green, Carrie Lozano, Jasmine Dellal
Cinematography by: Andy Black
Edited by: Sam Green, Dave Cerf
Running Time: 75 min.
Academy Award nominated documentarian Sam Green joins forces with sound artist Dave Cerf to create Utopia in Four Movements, a powerful “live documentary.” In this era of watching streaming video alone on a computer screen, Green and Cerf create a collective experience for the audience that can only be witnessed in person. Green cues video recordings to the screen and narrates while Cerf performs the soundtrack live, allowing for improvisations and ensuring that no two screenings are the same. The Huffington Post called Utopia “the most compelling screening of the entire [2011 Sundance] festival.”
Presented in four interchangeable segments, this unique performance/film medley explores unified human idealism and where our hopefulness has gone in the 21st century. Each of the four segments illustrates the concept of a utopian impulse; meanwhile Green illustrates how some human actions can thwart utopian ideals. Green takes the audience on an exploratory journey through Esperanto, a language created in the late 19th century with the intention of fostering universal communication and understanding. The other segments focus on a time capsule buried at the 1939 World’s Fair, a hopeful American exile living in Cuba, and the world’s largest shopping mall in China. Ultimately the question for building our own future is, will we continue to have hope?
Sam Green is a San Francisco-based documentary filmmaker who was nominated for an Academy Award for 2002’s The Weather Underground. His films have been featured at many festivals, including Sundance, the London Film Festival, and Locarno. Dave Cerf is a filmmaker, musician, sound artist, software designer, and composer of the soundtrack of Green’s The Weather Underground.
Official Site: http://utopiainfourmovements.com/
Interview with Sam Green: http://blogs.walkerart.org/filmvideo/2011/02/04/8-ball-with-sam-green/
China (2005)
Directed by: Liu Jiayin
Written by: Liu Jiayin
Produced by: Liu Jiayin
Cinematography by: Liu Jiayin
Edited by: Liu Jiayin
With: Liu Zaiping, Jia Huifen, Liu Jiayin
Running Time: 110 min.
Director Liu Jiayin created Oxhide, her first feature length film, at the age of 23 while she was a Master’s student at Beijing Film Academy. Festival Fellow Shelly Kraicer called Oxhide “one of the most astonishing recent films from any country.” Shot entirely within the confines of her family’s cramped Beijing apartment, Liu plays a fictionalized version of herself in the film, and her real-life parents also play the roles of the parents onscreen. This quirky film centers on the leather purse and bag business the family runs; their tight living quarters are a result of the fact that their business has been struggling in recent years.
Liu’s film contains 23 scenes, each one a single continuous shot. Because of the stillness of the camera and the smallness of the apartment, some scenes feature only torsos, or only hands. However, Liu’s control over the scripted dialogue and off-screen sounds keep us well aware of the unfolding story of familial strife. These unique framings reinforce the idea that the apartment is small and overcrowded, adding to the realism of the film. While technically a drama, Oxhide has its moments of oddball humor, such as the father’s belief that the pull-up bar he has set up will help his daughter stretch her body so that she will grow to a more satisfactory height.
The winner of multiple awards, including the Dragons and Tigers Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival, this independent, underground film became an immediate sensation on the international festival circuit. The film’s popularity resulted in Liu creating a sequel, Oxhide II, in 2009.
Clip from Oxhide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ewVXZCXCV8
Liu Jiayin Bio: http://dgeneratefilms.com/liu-jiayin/
Come see the results of Eugene's second Adrenaline Film Project. On Wednesday, April 6, several teams of filmmakers will gather at Chambers Productions to be assigned a genre and given a line of dialogue and prop to be incorporated into their productions. For the next 72 hours, they will pitch, write, shoot, and edit their films, turning them in at 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 9. The mentors who guide them through the 72-hour process (Rebecca Sonnenshine, Scott Prendergast, and Rom Alejandro) will host the films' premieres, and the assembled crowd will vote for an Audience Award. A jury of film professionals will also give one film its top prize, the Kalb Award, and the mentors will select a third prize winner. Following the screening, your ticket will get you into the celebratory Adrenaline Afterparty, featuring video projections, music, and refreshments, in the EMU Fir Room!
Official Site: http://cinemapacific.uoregon.edu/adrenaline-film-project
China (2008)
Directed by: Xiaogang Feng
Written by: Xiaogang Feng
Produced by: Chen Kuo-fu, Wang Zhonglei
Cinematography by: Lü Yue
Edited by: Miaomiao Liu
With: You Ge, Qi Shu, Xiao Che
Running Time: 130 min.
Xiaogang Feng is among China’s most famous and successful directors. He made his name in “ironic observational comedies” (Variety) and he is adept at creating a fresh romantic comedy for a modern audience. Feng’s enchanting and offbeat romantic comedy If You Are the One is one of China’s biggest box office hits of all time, so successful that it led to a sequel, If You Are the One 2, which opened in Beijing and Los Angeles this past December.
You Ge plays Qin Fen, an entrepreneur who has become a multimillionaire on the sale of his idea for a Conflict Resolution Terminal, a comically empty plastic tube. Deciding it’s time to settle down and find a wife, he puts out an ad on a dating website where he happens upon, among others, an old gay friend, a cemetery saleswoman, a pathological amnesiac, and a beautiful flight attendant. As he and the flight attendant, Smiley, played by Qi Shu, each determine they aren’t a good match, they part ways after having a drink. However, they run into one another again on a flight when Smiley is working and Qin is a passenger. It seems the two may be headed for love after all… if Qin is able to tear Smiley away from her married boyfriend.
Mailing address:
1277 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1277
Contact:
541-346-4231, 800-824-2714, or cinemapacific@uoregon.edu
© 2011 University of Oregon
An equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Cinema Pacific is sponsored by the UO Arts and Administration Program and UO Academic Extension, with support from University Relations, UO Cinema Studies, and the School of Journalism and Communication.
Cinema Pacific also receives major support from UO Libraries, East Asian Languages and Literatures, the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, the UO Confucius Institute, and additional support from the Office of International Affairs.