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The 29th Annual Big Muddy Film Festival

February 22 – March 4, 2007

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ContentsDirector’s Welcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Film Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Community Outreach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Jurors’ Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Schedule of Screenings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9The John Michaels Film Award . . . . . . . . . 12In-Competition Films . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Non-Competition Films . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Big Muddy Staff and Organizing Committee . . 42Special Thanks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Big Muddy Sponsors . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Map of Venues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

front cover: “Romanian Refugee in the Vestibule of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome,” 2001. Photograph copyright © Vincenzo Guarnera

above: “Cypress Swamp,” 1997. Photograph copyright © Fern Logan

back cover: “Dogwood,” 2000. Photograph copyright © Fern Logan

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Director’s Welcome

One of the oldest film festivals in the U.S. affiliated with a university, the Big Muddy is proud to present a particularly diverse and rich program of in-competition and non-competition films for its 29th season.

Founded in 1979 by faculty member Mike Covell, the festival quickly made a name for itself thanks to Mike’s oversight and the dedication of many students. The Big Muddy Film Festival continues to operate out of the Department of Cinema and Photography at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Featuring the four main categories of filmmaking (animation, documen-tary, experimental, and narrative), the festival emphasizes documentary filmmaking, as a way of investigating the current state of the world.

Of critical concern today is the aftermath of the war in Iraq and issues of immigration, as people from poorer countries attempt to emigrate to countries of greater wealth. The Big Muddy is proud to present “The War Tapes,” produced by SIU alum Steve James, who will be on hand to introduce the film. Several films in this year’s program draw attention to the topic of immi-gration. The Big Muddy has consistently drawn attention to such issues, much like the Magnum photographers, who in the wake of WW2, went around the world photographing war zones and trouble spots, in the hope of changing the world.1 In its visuals, the Big Muddy is thus pleased to include the work of Italian photographer Vincenzo Guarnera, himself a former student of the civil rights’ photographer (and Magnum member) Leonard Freed (1929-2006). To paraphrase Godard, editing images is also a way of changing the world. Most of these documentaries are integrated into our in-competition showcases. All of them are included in our special all-day John Michaels showcase.

The Big Muddy is focused not only on the global but also on the local, and this fact is reflected immediately in its memorable name, a tributary of the Mississippi River that meanders throughout scenic southern Illinois. It is also reflected in its annual invitation to an Illinois-based artist (this year the Chicago critic of international renown, Jonathan Rosenbaum) as well as in its ongoing commitment to the local area. The Big Muddy continues to present its showcases in the surrounding communities of Southern Illinois, and this year Curt Sidorski, one of the Big Muddy’s graduate assistants, initiated and coordinated bringing the Big Muddy into several new communities, including a nursing home and the IMC’s Technology-Learning Center in Cobden. In its visuals, the Big Muddy is also pleased to include the distinguished work of SIU faculty members Dan Overturf and Fern Logan, and SIU MFA student John Corson.

The heart of the festival is of course its in-competition showcases. Out of over 240 entries from around the world, we have selected about 60 films; the films themselves suggested certain topics and we present them here in 20 programs. Besides Jonathan Rosenbaum, the Big Muddy welcomes this year two other distinguished jurors — French-born director of photography and filmmaker Babette Mangolte and filmmaker Amy Granat. The 29th edition of the Big Muddy offers a wealth of experimental and/or avant-garde films, and in addition to its two in-competi-tion experimental showcases, there are special screenings of both Mangolte and Granat’s work as well as highlights from the Canyon Cinema collection.

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2006 has left us bereft of a number of important filmmaking personalities, and the Big Muddy honors this year the following directors with one (or in the case of Huillet, two) screenings: Gillo Pontecorvo (b. 1919), Danièle Huillet (b. 1936), Robert Altman (b. 1925), and Shohei Imamu-ra (b. 1926). Thanks to the generous support of Kerasotes Theatres, we are showing more films on 35mm than ever before. In our non-competition showcases, we are exhibiting some of the best of contemporary world cinema, inaugurating the festival on Thursday, February 22, with the glorious Chinese film The World by Jia Zhang ke and closing it on Sunday, March 4 with Waiting for Happiness by one of the new talents of African cinema, Abderrahmane Sissako. Is there a theme in this year’s narrative films? Certainly one trend is in the growing tendency towards mutism in today’s global village, with characters barely verbally communicating (The World, Waiting for Happiness, 3-Iron, The Child), or if they do it is by text messaging.2 Redemp-tion also comes into play in a number of these films (Pickpocket, The Eel, and The Child).

It’s a privilege to join the Big Muddy Film Festival. I warmly thank the students of the Big Mud-dy’s Organizing Committee and Film Alternatives for their help in putting on this year’s festival. If you are a regular, I hope you will spread the word. And if this is your first Big Muddy, I hope you will take the time to explore its diversity, make some new friends, and spread the word.

Vive le Big Muddy!

Sally Shafto, Ph.D.Executive Director

P.S.: Plans are already under way for our 30th anniversary celebration in 2008 (February 15–February 24). The Call for Entries will go out in May and the deadlines will be: September 1 (early), October 1 (regular), and November 1, 2008 (late).

Please consider becoming a Friend of the Big Muddy and making a donation. See the form on p. 56 of this program.

1. 2007 is also the 60th anniversary of the Magnum cooperative. For more on the agency, see: <www.magnumphotos.com>.

2. For more on this tendency, see Emmanuel Burdeau, “News of the World,” Cahiers du cinéma, no. 602 (June 2005); Emmanuel Burdeau, “Reading, Writing & Arithmetic,” Cahiers du cinéma, no. 606 (Novem-ber 2005), both available at <www.cahiersducinema.com>.

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Film Alternatives

Film Alternatives is an SIU student organization founded in 1991, with the purpose of enriching the educational experience of students and the community through a common love of film. The organization and presentation of the Big Muddy Film Festival has always been our most important contribution to this goal, and we are proud to continue to bring a variety of films to the community that would not otherwise be seen.

In addition to the Big Muddy, Film Alternatives offers a variety of other programs throughout the year, including screenings, film shoots, discussions, and the Little Muddy Film Festival. The Little Muddy is a showcase of films from current SIU students and their peers, and will be running again this spring.

Film Alternatives is open to both students and members of the community from all disciplines with an interest in films or film making. If you are interested, please contact us by email at <kmckenna_filmalt@hotmail.com>. Thank you for supporting the festival, and enjoy the show.

Keith McKennaPresident of Film Alternatives

Community Outreach

The Big Muddy Film Festival takes tremendous pride in its ability to bring the best and latest in national and international cinema to the communities of Southern Illinois for the past 29 years. In addition to serving our loyal core audience within the local community and SIUC student body, to whom we are extremely indebted, the Big Muddy Film Festival also seeks to build an ever expanding viewership, reaching out to new audiences and bringing socially responsible and artistically innovative cinematic works to individuals whose access to such media might otherwise be limited.

Curt SidorskiCommunity Outreach Coordinator

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Juror Profile

Amy Granat

Amy Granat is a rising young star in avant-garde filmmaking. She grew up in Saint Louis, where her latent interest in filmmaking was nurtured by her step-dad who had a passion for 16mm and ham radios. As an undergraduate at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, she initially majored in studio art, until one day she picked up a movie camera. After making a few films she went to Bard’s resident filmmaker Adolfas Mekas for advice and quickly found her calling. After graduation, she worked at the New York Filmmakers’ Coop, where she had the opportunity to pursue her love of experimental cinema. Today, her abstract films generally dispense with a camera, as she damages the film emulsion in direct manipulation. Her work evokes many associations and succeeds in expanding the medium in new and exciting ways. Since

2003, Granat has been exhibiting her work internationally in art galleries as well as museums, including a solo exhibition of her spray paint films at the Centre d’Art in Neuchâtel, Switzerland (2005), a show of her scratch films at the Künstlerhaus Palais Thurn & Taxis, Bregenz, Austria (2003), and a show of her hole punch films at PS 1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City, New York (2005). In 2006, she exhibited in a group

show of splatter paintings (“Lovely Shanghai Music”), curated by Swiss artist John Armleider at the Zendai Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai, China and a group show (“Bunch Alliance and Dissolve”) at the Cincinnati Arts Center. Recently, she has been incorporating performance and curatorial activity into the exhibition of her own work (Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris, 2006). She is a member of “Cinema Zero,” an artists’ group that activates connections between artists of different generations and fosters experimentations across disciplines. The January 2007 issue of Artforum carries an in-depth profile on her work.1 She lives and works in New York City, and this spring, she looks forward to teaching a class on Contemporary Art at NYU.

1. See <www.artforum.com/inprint/id=12245>.

Image “Two Hole Punch Films (Installation)” courtesy of the artist.

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Juror Profile

Babette Mangolte

Born and raised in France, Babette Mangolte came of age with the French New Wave. In 1964, she became one of the first women accepted by the Ecole Nationale de la Photographie et de la Cinématographie in Paris. This school, known as “Vaugirard,” was founded by Louis Lumière in 1922. In the late 60s Mangolte

worked as an assistant camera on several feature films. In 1970, after shooting her first feature as Director of Photography — L’Automne by experimental filmmaker Marcel Hanoun — she became the first female director of photography in France. Her interest in experimental work led her to visit the US and the New York film scene in 1970. There she discovered dance, performance, and theatre and got involved in the Soho art scene of the early 70s. She has lived in New York since 1972.

As a cinematographer, Mangolte is well known for her work with: Chantal Akerman on Jeanne Dielman (1975) and News from Home (1976); Yvonne Rainer on Lives of Performers (1972) and Film about a Woman Who…; Jean-Pierre Gorin on Routine Pleasures (1986) and My Crasy Life (1991); and Sally Potter on The Gold Diggers (1983). She has also worked as a cinematographer for Michael Snow and has made films for Trisha Brown and Robert Rauschenberg.

In 1975 Mangolte finished her first film as director (What Maisie Knew), a film that today is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art. She has since directed several other films, most recently a video documentary (2003) about the making of Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959). Mangolte has an extensive archive of performance and dance photographs that she shot mostly in New York City in the 1970s and 1980s. Lately, she has turned to writing to reflect on her film and photo practice and on the interaction between aesthetics and technologies. She is currently working on an essay on Robert Bresson and finishing a film, Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramovic (2007).

For more information, see her web site: <www.babettemangolte.com>.

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Jonathan Rosenbaum

One of the most prominent film critics in the U.S. today, Jonathan Rosenbaum grew up in the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in Alabama, where his grandfather and father owned a small chain of movie theaters. At Bard College (outside of New York City)

in the early 60s, he majored in English, studied with the German teacher Heinrich Blücher (husband of Hannah Arendt), and dreamt of writing the next big American novel. The Sixties were particularly rich for budding cinephiles, and on weekends he went to the new Godard or Resnais release in Manhattan. At Bard, he was also a leading member of the student film club, where he had the honor of introducing Susan Sontag right after she published her celebrated essay, “Notes on Camp” (1964). In the late 60s, Rosenbaum moved to Paris where he worked briefly as an assistant to Jacques Tati, and appeared as an extra in Robert Bresson’s Four Nights of a Dreamer. After five years of living in Paris and two in London, where he worked at the British Film Institute, Rosenbaum returned to the US in the late 70s. He taught for several years at

UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara. In 1987, he was hired as the full-time film critic at The Chicago Reader in 1987.

Besides his weekly column for The Reader, Rosenbaum has authored many books on film, including: Film: The Front Line (1983), Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism (1995), Moving Places: A Life at the Movies (1980; reprint 1995), Essential Cinema (2004) and a monograph on Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man. His most popular work is Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Movies We Can See (2002). He regularly contributes to the French film journal Trafic and his much anticipated study of Orson Welles is due out this spring.

Greatly respected by filmmakers around-the-world, Rosenbaum is a major figure in American film journalism because he openly promotes the dissemination and discussion of foreign films. Indeed, he decries the limits that Hollywood and the general media put on foreign films, thus greatly reducing the number of foreign films that the average American has access to.

Juror Profile

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The numbers that appear before some titles below correspond to the numbers in the In Competition Films section of this catalog.

Thursday, February 22NOON Kerasotes University 8 The World 140m7:00 PM Student Center Auditorium The Battle of Algiers 125m8:00 PM Longbranch Coffeehouse 1. Portraits and Identities 84m

Friday, February 239:00 AM Soundstage, Room 1116 All Day John Michaels6:00 PM Longbranch Coffeehouse 8. American Stories 1 104m8:00 PM Wham, Room 105 11. Feature Doc.: Chernobyl 82m8:00 PM Longbranch Coffeehouse 15. Animation Showcase 83mMIDNIGHT Kerasotes University 8 Lost Highway 135m

Saturday, February 24 2:00 PM Student Center Auditorium 6. Global Economics 108m2:00 PM Wham, Room 105 9. American Stories 2 144m5:00 PM Wham, Room 105 2. War and its Aftermath 118m7:00 PM Student Center Auditorium Do the Right Thing 120mMIDNIGHT Kerasotes University 8 Annie Hall 93m

Sunday, February 25th 10:00 AM Kerasotes University 8 The Secret of Roan Inish 103mNOON Wham, Room 105 10. Women’s Stories 119m2:00 PM Student Center Auditorium 4. The Death Penalty 150m3:00 PM Wham, Room 105 5. Cuba Today 123m7:00 PM Student Center Auditorium The Eel 117m8:00 PM Longbranch Coffeehouse 16. Shorts Showcase 1 80m

Schedule of Screeningstime screening location film title running time

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Monday, February 26thNOON Kerasotes University 8 The Child 100m5:00 PM Student Center Auditorium 15. Animation Showcase 83m6:00 PM Longbranch Coffeehouse 18. Shorts Showcase 3 64m7:00 PM Student Center Auditorium Chronicle of Anna-Magdalena Bach 93m7:00 PM Yellowmoon Café 17. Shorts Showcase 2 76m8:00 PM Wham, Room 105 3. Remembering Hiroshima 88m8:00 PM Longbranch Coffeehouse 13. Experimental Showcase 1 64m9:00 PM Student Center Auditorium 12. A Little Humor 62m

Tuesday, February 27thNOON Kerasotes University 8 3-Iron 88m5:00 PM Student Center Auditorium Canyon Cinema 86m6:00 PM Longbranch Coffeehouse 17. Shorts Showcase 2 76m6:30 PM Student Center Auditorium Nashville 159m8:00 PM Longbranch Coffeehouse 14. Experimental Showcase 2 66m9:15 PM Student Center Auditorium 4. The Death Penalty 150m

Wednesday, February 28th NOON Kerasotes University 8 After Innocence 95m5:00 PM Student Center Auditorium 19. Narrative Feature: Dimension 111m 7:00 PM Student Center Auditorium Juror: Amy Granat8:00 PM Wham, Room 105 18. Shorts Showcase 3 64m9:00 PM Student Center Auditorium 20. Narrative Feature: Ephémères 82m

Thursday, March 1stNOON Kerasotes University 8 The Gold Diggers 89m5:00 PM Student Center Auditorium Pickpocket 76m6:00 PM IMC, Cobden 5. Cuba Today 123m7:00 PM Student Center Auditorium Juror: Babette Mangolte9:30 PM Student Center Auditorium 10. Women’s Stories 119m

Schedule of Screeningstime screening location film title running time

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Friday, March 2nd5:00 PM IMC, Cobden TBA7:00 PM Student Center Auditorium Juror: Jonathan Rosenbaum 8:00 PM Wham, Room 105 7. The Food We Eat 108m9:30 PM Student Center Auditorium 14. Experimental Showcase 2 66mMIDNIGHT Kerasotes University 8 Dr. Strangelove 96m

Saturday, March 3rdNOON Student Center Auditorium 3. Remembering Hiroshima 88m2:00 PM Wham, Room 105 16. Shorts Showcase 1 80m4:00 PM Wham, Room 105 13. Experimental Showcase 1 64m5:00 PM Student Center Auditorium Doc. on J-M Straub & D Huillet 95m7:00 PM Student Center Auditorium The War Tapes Introduced by Steve James 97m9:30 PM Student Center Auditorium 11. Feature Doc.: Chernobyl 82mMIDNIGHT Kerasotes University 8 Baadasssss! 109m

Sunday, March 4th10:00 AM Kerasotes University 8 Waiting for Happiness 95mNOON Wham, Room 105 2. War and its Aftermath 118m2:00 PM Interfaith Center John Michaels Award Winners5:00 PM Liberty Theatre Best of the Fest

Tickets

Screenings at Kerasotes University 8 Theatre and the Liberty Theatre are $5.Juror Presentations at the Student Center Auditorium are free.Screenings at the Yellowmoon Cafe, the Longbranch Coffeehouse, the Cobden IMC, the Inter-

faith Center and the Soundstage are free.All other screenings are $3.Full festival passes are available for $30.Passes may be purchased at each of the venues, or call: 618-453-8301.

Schedule of Screeningstime screening location film title running time

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The John Michaels Film Award

Sunday, March 4, 2 pm, at the Interfaith Center, Free

John Michaels was a generous person affiliated with the Big Muddy Film Festival during its formative years. This award honors his volunteer efforts for peace and justice organizations, human rights issues and his love of the natural world, and will be given to the film or films that best address those issues.

Each year the Big Muddy receives films that cover serious topics. The death penalty, Hiroshima, the trafficking of young women in the sex slave trade, global economics, the inhumane treatment of animals in industrial animal agriculture are just some of the topics of this year’s films. Our community jurors choose the films that they believe best display an intelligent and urgent message of social, political or ecological significance.

From left to right: Mike Covell, Edgar Barens, and John Michaels in Havana, 1985.

The screening and awards committee for the John Michaels Human Rights Film Award consists of the following people: Steve Banker, Ryan Claypool, Mike Covell, Georgeann Hartzog, Sarah Kanouse, Jyotsna Kapur, Paul Matalonis, Hugh Muldoon, and Mary O’Hara.

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In-Competition Films

1. PORTRAITS AND IDENTITIES. 84m. Thursday, February 22, 8 pm, Longbranch Coffeehouse. Free

The films in the following program were submitted as either documentary or experimental works, some in both categories.

Invisibilities. Dir Jennifer Proctor. USA. 2006. 11m.

A portrait of Ava Su Ganwei, a Chinese-American artist with invisible disabilities and conspicuous gifts. Created on 16mm, super 8, and digital video, this piece is a duet, a ‘contact improvisation’ between its subject and its maker.

A Shift in Perception. Dir Dan Monceaux. Australia. 2006. 16m.

A humanistic super 8 documentary short loaded with visual poetry and an air of nostalgia. Enter the worlds of three vision-impaired South Australian women as they lead you through their daily lives, dreams, fears and observations.

Cousin Kayste. Dir Stashu Kybartas. USA. 2006. 29m.

Stashu Kybartas visits Lithuania in search of the village where his grandfather was born. If the dissolution of the Soviet Union allows the filmmaker to easily cross borders to begin his search, the dearth of family memories makes this a strange and alienating odyssey. At the outset, it

seems highly improbable that he will find what he is looking for. Letter Beginning with Zero. Dir Susan Kim. USA. 2006. 20m.

A grandmother’s story about disappearance… A blind fortune teller… A granddaughter’s study of missing love letters…. Letter Beginning With Zero weaves together disparate stories and multiple formats to create an experimental essay about disappearance and ‘seeing.’ The video incorporates original hi8, digital video, super 8, hand processed 16mm film, home movies, and found images from archival science films.

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Me and Mom. Dir Mark Huelsbeck. USA. 2006. 8m.

What’s it like when your mother doesn’t know who you are anymore? A ‘one-shot’ doc, Me and Mom examines issues of identity and representation within the context of Alzheimer’s Disease.

2. WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH. 118m. Saturday, February 24, 5 pm, Wham, Room 105. $3Sunday, March 4, Noon, Wham, Room 105. $3

Eyeshot. Dir Diana Heise. USA. 2006. 20m.

“After 30 years of silence, my uncle unearthed his collection of 8mm film reels, 35mm slides, and objects from his tours in Vietnam and his membership in the National Guard. The video is a subjective investigation of violence, history, and representation through these materials from his Army

career. I use his thoughts and his photography to consider the violence that he both endured and participated in. This was the most significant experience in his life. Instead of a polarized discussion of anti- or pro-war, Eyeshot is devoted to considering the emotional and intellectual scars that warfare inflicts.” –Diana Heise

Building Bridges. Dir Jeanine Butler. USA. 2006. 13m.

Meet Amira, Snjezana and Ifeta: the women of the Mostar Women’s Citizen Initiative in Bosnia. They are an exceptional group of community leaders, political activists and ordinary citizens who launched a joint effort to transcend ethnic and religious strife in a country fractured by war. With narration provided by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Building Bridges recounts the inspirational story of this remarkable group of women who set aside sharp differences to produce a new law protecting women and their families.

Hidden Wounds. Dir Iris Adler. USA. 2006. 57m.

This is the story of three soldiers returning to civilian life, after serving in Iraq. It’s estimated that one in five soldiers returning from Iraq will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Nate Fink was a platoon commander in an elite Marine unit in Afghanistan and Iraq, but on his return to the U.S. he became seriously depressed. Russell Anderson served in the Army in the late 60s, and in 2004 volunteered for Iraq. Hostile and depressed after his return, he refused to seek counseling, considering it a sign of weakness. Jeff Lucey joined the Marine Reserves out of high school. Returning

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home, he began drinking heavily, experienced panic attacks and became increasingly despondent.

The Unbroken Circle. Dir John C. Ludwig. USA. 2006. 28m.

The Unbroken Circle, a trilingual film (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, using native language speakers), tells the “true-to-life” story of an Israeli family and a Palestinian family in Israel, and reflects the real struggles endured in their daily lives.

3. REMEMBERING HIROSHIMA. 88m.Monday, February 26, 8 pm, Wham, Room 105. $3Saturday, March 3, Noon, Student Center Auditorium. $3

Orizuru. Dir Junya Sakino. USA. 2006. 14m.

“The year 2005 marked the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and it seems that many have forgotten the events of that time. This, however, is not true in my hometown of Hiroshima where many still suffer from the effects of radiation caused by the atomic bomb — the first nuclear weapon ever

used in the history of warfare. The title Orizuru translates into English as ‘paper crane,’ and it has become a symbol of peace in part from the legend, which says that anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes will have their dreams come true. Although the characters of the film are fictionalized, every incident is based on the historical events. Today, more than ever the world seems to be confronted with complicated nuclear warfare questions.” –Junya Sakino

The Cats of Mirikitani. Dir Linda Hattendorf. USA. 2006. 74m.

“Make art not war” is 80-year-old Jimmy Mirikitani’s motto. Born in California and raised in Hiroshima, by 2001 he was living on the streets of New York. How did he end up there? The answer is in his art. In wind, rain and snow Mirikitani could be found on a corner in Soho drawing pictures of bleak internment camps, whimsical cats and the angry flames of the atomic bomb. When a filmmaker stops to ask about Mirikitani’s art, a friendship begins that will change both of their lives. In the landscape of post-9/11 New York, the two embark on a tumultuous journey into the past. The Cats of Mirikitani is an intimate exploration of the lasting trauma of war and the healing power of art.

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4. THE DEATH PENALTY. 150m. Sunday, February 25, 2 pm, Student Center Auditorium. $3Tuesday, February 27, 9:15 pm, Student Center Auditorium. $3

Race to Execution. Dir Rachel Lyon. USA. 2006. 60m.

Race to Execution explores the deep and disturbing link between race and the death penalty in America. Following the stories of two Death Row inmates — Madison Hobley of Chicago, Illinois and Robert Tarver of Russell County, Alabama — the film interweaves their compelling personal stories together with groundbreaking scholarship.

Execution. Dir Steven Scaffidi. USA. 2006. 90m.

In 1995, two filmmakers gain unprecedented access to death row and the final 7 days of one man’s life before his execution by electric chair. As the warden comes closer to his 5th execution and the condemned man struggles to come to grips with the 5 murders he has committed, the filmmakers’ battle over how far to take their documentary. Even when the filmmakers are eventually able to record the execution with hidden cameras, the warden confiscates the footage. It is not until 10 years later that the footage is returned and the filmmakers can edit and sell their film — if they can agree on what the film should be about.

5. CUBA TODAY. 123m. Sunday, February 25, 3 pm, Wham, Room 105. $3Thursday, March 1, 6 pm, IMC, Cobden. Free

Those I Left Behind. Dir Lisandro Perez-Rey. USA. 2006. 45m.

Trapped between the sea and the politics of governments, Cuban families on either side of the Florida straits have endured nearly a half-century of separation and loss. Filmed in both the United States and Cuba, this documentary explores the transnational

ties that bind Cuban-Americans in the United States to their families still living on the island and sheds light on the controversial new travel restrictions imposed by the U.S. Government and its emotional impact on the lives of four Cuban families.

Cuba: A Lifetime of Passion. Dir Glenn Gebhard. USA. 2006. 78m.

With unprecedented access to “both” Cubas on either side of the Florida straits, Cuba: A Lifetime of Passion looks at the existing reality.

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6. GLOBAL ECONOMICS. 108m.Saturday, February 24, 2 pm, Student Center Auditorium. $3

Asparagus! A Stalk-umentary. Dirs Anne de Mare and Kirsten Kelly. USA. 2006. 75m.

Thirty years ago, Oceana County, Michigan proclaimed itself the “Asparagus Capital of the Nation!” Hailed as “Green Gold,” asparagus was exactly what this poor rural community needed, a spring cash crop at the end of a long cold winter. Then, in a twist of fate, the U.S. War on Drugs ushered in a free-trade agreement that threatened to take it all away. Virtually overnight, Oceana’s asparagus farmers found themselves caught in the middle of a turbulent global economy. This is the story of one rural American community scrambling to keep its proud identity against impossible odds. Asparagus!

journeys to the heart of the asparagus capital of U.S. to discover why one little vegetable matters so much.

Power on the River. Dirs Anna Kongs and Eliot Fisher. USA. 2006. 33m.

Power on the River documents what happens when the global corporate vision of progress enters into the lives of small rural communities in the interior of Brazil. A new hydroelectric dam is being completed by the Consortium, a state energy company and a Brazilian multinational mining corporation. According to the Consortium, everything possible is being done to help the region adjust to the changes the dam will bring, but those living along the river and in the relocated town displaced by the dam tell a different story. A look at the often-ignored consequences of hydroelectric power production and who and what gets sacrificed in the process.

7. THE FOOD WE EAT. 108m. Friday, March 2, 8 pm, Wham, Room 105. $3

Sustainable Table: What’s on Your Plate. Dir Mischa Hedges. USA. 2006. 52m.

Sustainable Table takes an unadulterated look into the food you eat. What’s on your plate? Where does it come from? What effects does it have on the environment and your body? And what can you do to help?

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Beyond Closed Doors. Dir Hugh Dorigo. USA. 2006. 56m.

Beyond Closed Doors examines the science, ethics and politics of animal agriculture. Leading world experts take the viewer beyond the rhetoric of important issues in agriculture, rarely covered by the mainstream media, yet have the potential to affect the lives of all Americans.

8. AMERICAN STORIES 1. 104m. Friday, February 23, 6 pm, Longbranch Coffeehouse. Free

Up the Ridge. Dirs Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirby. USA. 2006. 54m.

A shocking new documentary on the plight of urban prisoners in remote rural prisons. Up the Ridge explores the violation of basic human rights through the story of an Appalachian prison, and the political expediencies that bring communities into racial and cultural conflict with tragic consequences.

Hurricane Katrina Stories. Dir John Menszer. USA. 2006. 29m.

Hurricane Katrina tested New Orleanians’ character. Some found an inner strength that helped them save others. This documentary explores the ways in which ordinary people became heroes. While the national news reported widespread looting and violence, there were local people quietly helping and saving their neighbors.

Exposing Homelessness. Dir Kerri Gawryn. USA. 2006. 21m.

Exposing Homelessness tells the story of three formally homeless women who participated in a photography workshop where they were given 35mm cameras and instructed in the art of black and white photography. Drawing on their personal experience, they were asked to use photography to express their insight into the issue of homelessness so that viewers could be exposed to a more complex and deep examination of the problem. The contrast they present to commonly held stereotypes of people who become homeless, inevitably compels viewers to re-examine their own beliefs on homelessness.

9. AMERICAN STORIES 2. 144m.Saturday, February 24, 2 pm, Wham, Room 105. $3

The New Los Angeles. Dir Lynn Goldfarb. USA. 2006. 55m.

The New Los Angeles depicts an extraordinary city poised to reframe America’s dialogue about urban political and economic change. This powerful documentary takes the viewer

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on a journey from the bitterly fought, racially driven elections that brought Mayor Tom Bradley to power in 1973, to the historic 2005 election of LA’s first Latino mayor in more than 130 years, Antonio Villaraigosa. Along the way, The New Los Angeles examines how race, labor and immigration have shaped and continue to reshape the city’s political life and landscape.

We are Here (Estamos Aquí). Dir Sharon Baker. USA. 2006. 89m.

Facts, fear, and hope — the humanity behind the headlines in the current U.S. immigration debate is seen through the experience of a small New England town where an estimated 10,000 Guatemalans have arrived over the last decade.

10. WOMEN’S STORIES. 119m. Sunday, February 25, Noon, Wham, Room 105. $3Thursday, March 1, 9:30 pm, Student Center Auditorium. $3

Like a Ship in the Night. Dir Melissa Thompson. USA. 2006. 30m.

Abortion is illegal in Ireland, punishable by life imprisonment. And yet at least 8,000 women a year travel to England for abortions. They make this journey in secret and return in silence. Like a Sbip in the Night follows Mary, Louise and Siobhan as they plan their journeys across the Irish sea.

Sex Slaves. Dir Ric Esther Bienstock. Canada. 2005. 89m.

Sex Slaves is a gripping documentary exposé inside the global sex slave trade in women from the former Soviet Bloc. Part cinéma vérité, part investigation, Sex Slaves puts a human face on this most inhumane of contemporary issues.

11. FEATURE DOCUMENTARY. 82m.Friday, February 23, 8pm, Wham, Room 105. $3Saturday, March 3, 9:30 pm, Student Center Auditorium. $3

Sun and Death: Chernobyl and After… Dir Bernard Debord. France. 2006. 82m.

On April 26, 1986, a nuclear explosion released a toxic cloud at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine. In the following days, this plume spewed 70% of its radioactive fallout over Belarus, whose border is just seven kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear power station. The world-at-large was unsuspecting, and it quickly forgot that the remainder of the fatal nuclear deposit was released over the northern hemisphere. This film concentrates entirely on Belarus, whose population in the twenty years since the disaster has been

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condemned by the effects of ingesting small doses of radioactivity. This film gives witness to the process of slow death, reveals the imminent genetic catastrophe, and unties the threads of the international conspiracy of silence, all of which threaten the immediate future of Belarus.

12. A LITTLE HUMOR. 62m. Monday, February 26, 9 pm, Student Center Auditorium. $3

Gimme Green. Dirs Isaac Brown and Eric Flagg. USA. 2006. 27m.

Lawns are undeniably an American symbol. But what do they really symbolize? Pride and prosperity? Or waste and conformity? Gimme Green is a humorous look at America’s obsession with the residential lawn and the effects it has on our environment, our wallets, and our outlook on life.

Tour de Donut. Dirs Jim Klenn and Steve Kelly. USA. 2006. 35m.

“The Tour de Donut,” a spoof of the Tour de France, began in southwestern Illinois back in 1989, with about a dozen participants. Now, more than 500 riders line up each year to ride the 30-mile course. For each donut eaten during the ride, five minutes is subtracted from that person’s time. During his first attempt in the event, schoolteacher/former bike racer Tim Ranek finished respectably. Certain of victory, Tim returned two years later enlisting the help of two elite cyclists to push/pull him to the finish. Can they help Tim get his just “desserts”?

13. EXPERIMENTAL SHOWCASE 1. 64m. Monday, February, 26, 8 pm, Longbranch Coffeehouse. FreeSaturday, March 3, 4 pm, Wham, Room 105. $3

My Person in the Water. Dir Leighton Pierce. USA. 2006. 6m.

A woman moving in the water and the gaze of a man, both seen from beneath the water, elaborated by the vectorizing force of sound, lead the viewer toward an effervescence of feeling — a desire for union amidst the knowledge of separateness.

Breathing Lessons. Dirs Claudia Esslinger, Ron Estes and Leslie Seiters. USA. 2006. 10m.

Breathing Lessons poetically traces a longing for oxygen through one family’s history. It uses narration, symbolic movement, visceral props and rhythmic music to evoke a mood of memory and loss.

Alice Sees the Light. Dir Ariana Gerstein. USA. 2006. 6m.

A poetic meditation on light pollution.

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Through these Trackless Waters. Dir Elizabeth Henry. USA. 2006. 13m.

A found footage film where the ecology of the planet connects with the ecology of our minds. In the waking dream, all is juxtaposed and, as Kuleshov discovered, all is related.

Pillow Girl. Dir Ronnie Cramer. USA. 2006. 8m.

A sound-art work originally created for the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver by musician-artist Ronnie Cramer, who scanned the covers and inside pages of a number of lurid, vintage paperbacks, then ran the

collected image and text data through a variety of synthesizers. The resulting sound files were then processed and remixed into the soundtrack for the Pillow Girl film; the visual portion of the film makes use of over 200 covers, with one illustrated figure morphing into the next every two seconds.

Memo to Pic Desk. Dirs Chris Kennedy and Anna van der Meulen. USA. 2006. 6m.

An idiosyncratic look at staging in news photography, using materials from the archives of a Toronto daily. Moral codes, delinquency and autonomy are pulled into an altered coherence, as vintage photos are examined next to their typewritten paper trail.

Invisible City. Dir Jack Cronin. USA. 2006. 11m.

Invisible City was filmed in Detroit over the course of three years. Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Le città invisibili, where the Italian author suggests that what constitutes a city is not so much its physical structure but the impression it makes upon its visitors. The film is loosely organized into four segments representing spring, summer, fall, and winter.

Fall. Dir Kathryn Ramey. USA. 2006. 5m.

From the tale of Icarus to Plato’s cave analogy and through the fragile materiality of hand processed 35mm film, Fall relates the pain of acquiring knowledge as a girl becomes a woman and one becomes two. Fall was shot with a hand crank Parvo (35mm camera) a few months after the birth

of the filmmaker’s son and the final edit was completed during a residency at Yaddo Corporation.

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14. EXPERIMENTAL SHOWCASE 2. 66m. Tuesday, February 27, 8 pm, Longbranch Coffeehouse. FreeFriday, March 2, 9:30 pm, Student Center Auditorium. $3

Ground Zero, New York 2005. Dir Viviane Vagh-Levine. France. 2005. 8m.

“I chose to shoot Ground Zero, New York 2005 in black and white super 8 film because of its poetic as well as rare qualities — it seemed somehow appropriate to capture what I saw in people’s eyes as they went about their lives, four years later. This was the soil of post-9/11 New York and the doves sitting in one of the destroyed buildings

around Ground Zero seemed symbols of hope for a new beginning.” –V. Vagh-Levine

The Passenger. Dir Kathryn Ramey. USA. 16m. “The Passenger is a 16-minute, 16mm, experimental film utilizing processes of hand manipulation (optical printing, hand processing, painting/scratching on the film) that are characteristic of my work. My mother suffered from severe depression and mania throughout her life. On August 27, 2004 she succumbed to complications brought about by severe hypertension and her psychotropic medication. At the funeral I was the only one of her children to speak. I said she had perfect penmanship, and loved to dance and sing. The latter were her gifts to me. In The Passenger, the physical reworking of the film surface serves as a signifying device for the process of building a life, becoming a mother, and repairing that which is broken between my mother and myself.” –Kathryn Ramey

Her Heart is Washed in Water and then Weighed. Dir Sasha Waters. USA. 2006. 13m.

When you die, everything you know disappears; this film is a love letter to the abject beauty of human frailty in three short acts. Her Heart is Washed in Water and then Weighed is a complex meditation on mobility, monuments and mortality. Filmed in Rome, Italy and Iowa

City, Iowa, the film takes its title from a procedure in the autopsying of a human corpse.

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Pump. Dir Sinisa Kukic. USA. 2006. 5m.

Pump is an experimental short that involved mounting a super 8 camera to a various parts of fixed gear bicycle and riding around the city of San Francisco. Inspired by the city symphonies of Dziga Vertov, Pump molds the urban energy of its compositions with a more visceral moving perspective. The physicality of a bicycle offers a personal

viewpoint that humanizes movement through industrial spaces and hybridizes traditions of hand-held and automotive camera movement.

Out of (K)nowhere: A Film by Anne Prat. Dir Christian Lebrat. France. 2006. 24m.

“Very little was left of the film by Anne Prat, a brilliant young woman who studied cinema with me at the University of Paris in the 1970s. She was no ordinary student. Three weeks before summer break in 1976, although she had not participated in any of the practical filmmaking

sessions, she presented to the class a short, shot in the Brakhage style, a film which surprised us all by its technical mastery. She informed me that she was going to stop studying and go to Australia, and that her film was just the beginning of a larger, more complicated cinematographic work. She left the material for her film in a big box at the university, and asked me to pick it up. At that time, I had no idea I would never see her again …” –Christian Lebrat “Christian Lebrat’s attempt to reconstruct an unfinished film project of one of his former students, Anne Prat. The film is both a re-interpretation of the classics of the avant-garde and the expression of a personal vision with a sound-track mixing music, silence, and birds.” –Richard Colas

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15. ANIMATION SHOWCASE. 83m.Friday, February 23, 8 pm, Longbranch Coffeehouse. FreeMonday, February 26, 5 pm, Student Center Auditorium. $3

The Meatrix II: Revolting. Dir Louis Fox. USA. 2006. 4m.

The Meatrix II: Revolting is the sequel to the award-winning smash hit The Meatrix. The film, a humorous spoof on The Matrix takes a look at the gap between our illusions about where food comes from and the reality of industrial meat and dairy production.

Little Strong. Dir Kuo-Ting Kao. USA. 2006. 7m. A band of cockroaches fight for their right to exist.

The Touch. Dir Vanessa Woods. 2006. USA. 3m.

The Touch is a meditation on Anne Sexton’s poem of the same name. The film examines melodies within spoken, written and visual language and how they can interact. Because the subject of the poem deals specifically with the idea of touch, the film sustains a highly tactile, textural quality.

Mirage. Dir Youngwoong Jang. USA. 2006. 8m.

“Mirage is a story about my life as a collector having endless desires. The main character is a bio-mechanic robot who has to fill his glass chest with water in order to sustain his life. This story happens in water but the robot cannot recognize it. He just wants to get more water. The robot character appears with a small stem.

He squeezes a small stem to get a drop of water and takes it into his glass chest. He continues to collect water droplet from small stems to huge stems. During his journey, he meets a fish. Both need water.” —Youngwoong Jang

Look for Me. Dir Laura Heit. UK. 2005. 4m. What would you do if you woke up one day and you discovered you were invisible?

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Phantom Canyon. Dir Stacey Steers. USA. 2006. 10m.

A young woman encounters enormous insects and an alluring man with bat wings in this surreal recollection of a pivotal journey. This animated film was made by photographing over 4,000 handmade collages and features the figures from Eadweard Muybridge’s human motion studies.

Idea Development. Dir Dane Webster. USA. 2006. 4m.

This film follows a writer’s journey through the ever-changing landscape of the creative process. Beginning with the initial confrontation between himself and the blank page, the writer begins building an idea with the first initial clicks at his typewriter. This soon leads him into the bright, sunlight world of the imagination and a new vehicle for his creativity…a flying machine.

Dinner Table. Dir Song E. Kim. USA. 2006. 3m.

A couple takes a surreal turn as they share a meal.

Anger Stone. Dir Dave Ryan. USA. 2006. 6m.

Images hidden in your head shape who you are.

Atomic Banana. Dir Erik Kling. USA. 2006. 5m. Atomic Banana is a dark comedy about an intellectually enhanced chimpanzee who squirms under the oppressive hands of his tyrannical master, Dr. Seymour Heintzenfrauser. Wanting to enjoy the simple pleasures of an atomically synthesized banana and his favorite computer game, ‘Banana Kong,’ the chimp risks a beating by his brutal master. Unfortunately, Heitzenfrauser is always near, ready to pounce on his every move. And just as the chimp’s world seems quiet and stable, a twisted future awaits him.

Linear Progression. Dir Kat Kosmala. USA. 2006. 4m.

Strange creatures! Beautiful animation! Grass! What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Such conundrums and charm abound in Linear Progression.

The Dollhouse. Dir Tara Beyhm. USA. 2006. 10m.

This is a story about a young girl who becomes obsessed with a dollhouse after a classmate receives one as a gift. It is a story that celebrates the handcrafted versus the store bought, and the bond that forms between a daughter and her father.

The Ghost of Sam Pekinpah. Dir Jason Brewer. USA. 2006. 15m.

A young, gritty cowboy named Jack Yeager stirs up the town of Deep Sands, Utah, and wakes the ghost of legendary filmmaker Sam Peckinpah.

Together they march into the heart of Hollywood on a mission to put the capital “W” back in Western.

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16. NARRATIVE SHORTS SHOWCASE 1. 80m.Sunday, February 25, 8 pm, Longbranch Coffeehouse. FreeSaturday, March 3, 2 pm, Wham, Room 105. $3

Lone Elm. Dir Gregory Sheffer. USA. 2006. 14m.

In the closing days of the Civil War, Jacob, a recently freed slave, makes his way across the Kansas prairie in search of a new life. After a tragic encounter with Confederate soldiers, Jacob faces a crucial decision that will test the limits of his faith and newfound freedom.

Beowulf. Dir Tom Kingdon. USA. 2006. 28m.

In a world both ancient and modern, a king is terrorized by a monster. Using the ideas and techniques of Polish theatre director and acting theorist Jerzy Grotowski (1933-1999), this experimental narrative extends the expressive potential of performance and camera work.

“Theatre — through the actor’s technique, his art in which the living organism strives for higher motives — provides an opportunity for what could be called integration, the discarding of masks, the revealing of the real substance: a totality of physical and mental reactions. This opportunity must be treated in a disciplined manner, with a full awareness of the responsibilities it involves. Here we can see the theatre’s therapeutic function for people in our present day civilization. It is true that the actor accomplishes this act, but he can only do so through an encounter with the spectator — intimately, visibly, not hiding behind a cameraman, wardrobe mistress, stage designer or make-up girl — in direct confrontation with him, and somehow ‘instead of’ him. The actor’s act — discarding half measures, revealing, opening up, emerging from himself as opposed to closing up — is an invitation to the spectator. This act could be compared to an act of the most deeply rooted, genuine love between two human beings — this is just a comparison since we can only refer to this ‘emergence from oneself’ through analogy. This act, paradoxical and borderline, we call a total act. In our opinion it epitomizes the actor’s deepest calling.” –Jerzy Grotowski

The Visitors (Die Besucher). Dir Ulrike Molsen. Germany. 2006. 38m.

Karla hosts a couple in trouble. The visitors occupy her apartment as if it were their own. They involve the young woman in contradictory and dangerous lies and familiarities until Karla is almost unable to breathe anymore.

She can’t find out who is telling the truth, and gets forced into helping them both. Like Sugar says: people love to talk about all the grand things they experience or dream of. But sometimes just one small mistake can turn your life upside down.

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17. NARRATIVE SHORTS SHOWCASE 2. 76m.Monday, February 26, 7 pm, Yellowmoon Café. FreeTuesday, February 27, 6 pm, Longbranch Coffeehouse. Free

Chronicles of Impeccable Sportsmanship. Dir Erika Tasini. USA/Italy. 2006. 7m.

The endless contentions between a competitive couple, as seen through the curious eyes of their perceptive and enterprising little girl. Chronicles of Impeccable Sportsmanship was commissioned by the Slamdance Film Festival as part of a selective program for alumni filmmakers.

An Open Door. Dir Sean Jourdan. USA. 2006. 19m.

As her world falls apart, Michelle Watson must convince her husband that the price of keeping their marriage together is worth the cost of keeping a secret between them.

Security. Dir Mark Edginton. USA. 2006. 14m.

A cache of encrypted documents is discovered in a park in Brooklyn, setting off a cat-and-mouse game between authorities and a shadowy cell.

Janie. Dir Christine Shin. USA. 2006. 18m.

Janie (9) has a perfect life as a single daughter in a loving family. Her life, however, gets completely shattered when Ben (5), her little brother she never knew existed, unexpectedly shows up to live with her family.

Motel De Palma. Dir Boaz Armoni. Israel. 2006. 18m.

Ruben is a professional writer suffering from a creative depression affecting his marital life. A night spent in a louche motel, however, will enable him to make the necessary changes in his work and marriage.

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18. NARRATIVE SHORTS SHOWCASE 3. 64m. Monday, February 26, 6 pm, Longbranch Coffeehouse. FreeWednesday, February 28, 8 pm, Wham, Room 105. $3

Moviebonics. Dirs Donald P. Unverrich and Lance Miller. USA. 2006. 7m.

See the bizarre rituals of the cinema obsessed!

When We’re Old and Love Means Nothing. Dir Danny Goodman. USA. 2006. 14m.

When Jeremy finds Alex sitting in her favorite New York photo gallery, they begin a discussion that will make or break their relationship. But a series of flashbacks offer revelations and twists that show that all is not what it initially seems to be.

Songbird. Dir John Thompson (SIU, ’02). USA. 2006. 6m.

“Songbird” is a Gothic tale about a trapped housewife who breaks free from her overbearing husband…

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The Father, Unblinking. Dir Ziggy Attias. USA. 2006. 23m.

In rural America, a father discovers his young daughter dead of fever and decides to bury her secretly, without informing his wife. Fine Art Magazine describes this story as “Imaginative and original, a wonderfully sensitive, moving and compelling dark tale.”

Silence is Golden. Dir Chris Shepherd. UK. 2006. 14m.

“My neighbor’s a right looney. He’s always banging on our walls. I’m used to it. I think other people’s houses are really weird. There’s no knocking–right?”

19. NARRATIVE FEATURE. 111m.Wednesday, February 28, 5 pm, Student Center Auditorium. $3

Dimension. Dir Matthew Scott Harris. USA. 2006. 111m.

After causing an accident that results in the loss of his family, the owner of a hardware store is contacted by God. The two enter into an agreement. The agreement requires the hardware store owner to offer any customer who enters his store and purchases a folding ruler the opportunity to change their life in any way they desire by the dimension of three inches. In return, God will allow the owner to see his family again.

20. NARRATIVE FEATURE. 82m. Wednesday, February 28, 9 pm, Student Center Auditorium. $3

Ephémères. Dir Pascal Bonnelle. France. 2006. 82m.

One night, in Paris, François meets Léa. Both of them share a similar wanderlust and distress. At the same time, a mysterious man is asking two actors, Pierre and Claire, to rehearse this scene he has written. So, with this staging, the enigmatic man is hoping to see his story becoming real, like a dream that

would comes true. But dreams are ephemeral — they die at dawn.

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Non-Competition Films

Thursday, February 22Kerasotes University 8. 35mm. $5The World. NoonIntroduction by Wei Zhang.

The World (Shijie). Dir Jia Zhang ke. China. 2004. In Mandarin and Shanxi dialect with English subtitles. 140m.

Acclaimed Chinese director Jia Zhang ke casts a compassionate eye on the daily loves, friendships and desperate dreams of the twenty-somethings from China’s remote provinces who come to live and work at Beijing’s World Park. A bizarre cross-cultural pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center, the World Park features lavish shows performed amid scaled-down replicas of the world’s monuments. From the sensational opening tracking shot of a young dancer’s backstage quest for a Band-Aid to poetic flourishes of animation and clever use of text-messaging, Jia pushes past the kitsch potential of this surreal setting — a real-life Beijing tourist destination. The Village Voice has hailed Jia Zhang ke as “the world’s greatest filmmaker under forty,” and The World is his funniest, most inventive and touching work to date.

“The best new film I saw anywhere in 2004.” –Jonathan Rosenbaum

Thursday, February 22Student Center Auditorium. DVD. $3The Battle of AlgiersHomage to Gillo Pontecorvo7 pm

The Battle of Algiers. Dir Gillo Pontecorvo. Italy/Algeria. 1966. In French and Arabic with English subtitles. 125m.

Internationally acclaimed, the staggering newsreel-like authenticity of the staged street riots and vital performances of the actors give The Battle of Algiers a unique dramatic impact on this detailing of the Algerian

revolt against the French. The film is loosely based on the account of one of the military commanders of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), Saadi Yacef (who plays a fictionalized version of himself) and the film begins and ends from the point of view of Ali La Pointe (Brahim Hagiag), who corresponds to the historical figure of the same name. Nonetheless, the film is a relatively even-handed account of the Franco-Algerian conflict. One of the only professional actors in the film is Jean Martin who plays the French Colonel

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Mathieu, a composite of several historical figures. Although it won the Golden Lion at the 1965 Venice Film Festival, the film was immediately banned by the French government. In the early 70s, it had another brief release in France when it was again censured. In fact, the film received wide release in France only in 2004, as a result of its having been screened at the US Pentagon in 2003 as a primer for dealing with guerilla warfare. The cinematography by Marcello Gatti and the sound track by Ennio Morricone add much to the film’s magisterial force and conviction. Absolutely not to be missed.

Friday, February 23Kerasotes University 8. 35mm. $5Lost HighwayMidnight

Lost Highway. Dir David Lynch. USA. 1997. 135m.

Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) is a jazz saxophonist who suffers from recurrent nightmares. The passion has gone out of his relationship with his wife

Renee (Patricia Arquette) whom he suspects of infidelity. His dreams are haunted by a white-faced androgynous figure, and one night, Fred encounters and confronts his nocturnal interloper at a party. When Renee is murdered that night, Fred is imprisoned, though he has no memory of what has happened. From there, the plot of Lost Highway takes an unexpected swerve, abandoning all conventional intelligibility. Flaunting Lynch’s usual domesticated surrealism and exploring the frailty of human identity, Lost Highway crafts a disorienting atmosphere where time and space are out of joint and a multiplicity of dualities fold in upon themselves. In this visually impressive film, David Lynch (Eraserhead, Blue Velvet) remains faithful to his obsessions and intentions, making him a true American auteur.

Saturday, February 24Student Center Auditorium. 16mm. $3Do the Right Thing.7 pm

Do the Right Thing. Dir Spike Lee. USA. 1989. 120m.

Because Spike Lee is an African-American man who addresses the subject of anger, he is frequently dismissed by white America as an angry black male. But in his most famous film, Lee presents his stylized realism that explores with empathy and sadness the way race affects, and too often still defines, life in this country. Based on an actual incident, the film allegorizes racial tensions, intensified by a steamy summer day in Brooklyn, New York. In the end, a young black man is murdered by the mostly white police force, and a pizzeria is destroyed by a mostly black mob. The riot is triggered by the film’s main character Mookie, played by Lee. Did Mookie do the right thing? Spike Lee’s film offers no simple answers.

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Saturday, February 24Kerasotes University 8. 35mm. $5Annie Hall. Midnight

Annie Hall. Dir Woody Allen. USA. 1977. 93m.

Woody Allen plays a neurotic New York comic who has trouble with relationships and lives life to observe, discuss, and ridicule it. Structured as

fast-paced stream of consciousness, Annie Hall is both a guide to romantic relationships in the 1970s and an intimate glimpse into the now familiar psychological inner workings of its maker. Loosely structured around Alvy Singer’s (Woody Allen) romantic involvement with the title character (Diane Keaton), the film follows the couple’s meeting, partnering, bickering, and eventual parting. Although the story is universal, the approach remains as fresh today, thirty years later. Representing the best of Allen’s pseudo-autobiographical formulations of his constructed on-screen persona. Annie Hall reminds us that humor at its best is a function of the intellect. Not surprisingly, Annie Hall won four Oscars, including best actress and best director.

Sunday, February 25Kerasotes University 8. 35mm. $5The Secret of Roan Inish. 10 amSuitable for children.

The Secret of Roan Inish. Dir John Sayles. USA/Ireland. 1994. 103m.

Positioned precariously at the meeting of land and sea, history and mythology, John Sayles’ The Secret of Roan Inish seeks to reclaim the truths of the past from an uncertain future. The film

centers on Fiona, a young Irish girl sent to live with her grandparents in a fishing village. Inspired by the legend that one of her ancestors married a Selkie, a seal who is part human, Fiona and her cousin search the island for both her little brother and a place where her family and their fantastic history can dwell in perpetuity. Beautifully shot by Haskell Wexler, The Secret of Roan Inish is an ageless tale that successfully explores the cultural truths of legends.

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Sunday, February 25Student Center Auditorium. DVD. $3The Eel (Unagi).Homage to Shohei Imamura.7 pmIntroduction by Tomoe Ishii

The Eel (Unagi). Dir Shohei Imamura. Japan. 1997. In Japanese with English subtitles. 117m.

The films of Shohei Imamura (Vengeance is Mine, The Ballad of

Narayama) are a potent mixture of blood and ice with a surface of cool, almost scientific detachment set against a roiling underside of violence, anarchy, and eroticism. Winner of the Cannes Palme d’Or, The Eel is a highly original blend of quirky black comedy, offbeat romance and surreal fantasy. Yamashita, an uptight businessman savagely murders his adulterous wife. Paroled eight years later, he settles in a remote seaside community, where he confounds his neighbors with his peculiar attachment to his pet eel. Keiko, a would-be suicide whose life he reluctantly saves, disrupts his eel-like existence. The Eel is finally about accepting obligation, both to oneself and to others, and the common phrase “obligato,” quietly uttered at the film’s climax has never resounded more movingly or meaningfully. The Eel won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1997.

Monday, February 26Kerasotes University 8. 35mm. $5The Child (L’Enfant). Noon

The Child (L’Enfant). Dirs Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne. Belgium. 2005. In French with English subtitles. 100m.

“For the past decade, the Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have been building one of the most

passionately engaged bodies of work in contemporary cinema. Like the Dardennes’ other recent fiction films (La Promesse, Rosetta and The Son), The Child takes place in an industrial town far from the tourist cathedrals and squares. The story opens with Sonia (Déborah François), a pretty young blonde with a newborn son, Jimmy, in tow. She is anxiously searching for the man we soon learn is her boyfriend, Bruno (Jérémie Renier). When she finds him, he greets her warmly but barely registers the mewling bundle in her arms. The next day, while Sonia’s attention is directed elsewhere, Bruno sells Jimmy on the black market. Why make a film about Bruno? The same might be asked about Raskolnikov. Like Robert Bresson, whose Pickpocket informs The Child and is itself a loose reworking of Crime and Punishment, the Dardennes are not interested in passing

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judgment on a grievously flawed character. Rather, what interests the Dardennes — what invests their work with such terrific urgency — is not only how Bruno became the kind of man who would sell a child as casually as a slab of beef, but also whether a man like this, having committed such a repellent offense, can find redemption.” The Child won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2005. –Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Monday, February 26Student Center Auditorium. DVD. $3The Chronicle of Anna-Magdalena Bach. Homage to Danièle Huillet7 pm

The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach. Dirs Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet. Germany/Italy. 1968. In German with English subtitles. 93m.

The directors’ best-known film “is, in the first of its many paradoxes, both insistently severe and intensely pleasurable. The nominal subject is the life of Johann Sebastian Bach as told by wife Anna Magdalena…. The Straubs’ professed aim was to use the 18th-century composer’s music ‘not as accompaniment but as esthetic material’; accordingly, the film is mostly composed of live performances of Bach’s cantatas, arias, and requiems, staged in static tableaux. Rigorously shorn of suspense and drama, the narrative (the death of Bach’s children, problems with patrons, his encroaching blindness) is tossed off as narration over authentic letters and engravings, and the notion of ‘acting’ is rejected as ruthlessly as in the sternest Bresson — as Mr. and Mrs. Bach, respectively, harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt, and singer Christiane Lang are asked not to ‘play’ characters, but to lend their bodies and voices to the camera, every inflection scrubbed off. If in print that sounds like an exercise in arctic formalism, Chronicle is first and foremost a reminder of how essential a role the senses play in the act of experiencing film — through the beauty of its music and the limpidity of its images, it invites not ‘alienation’ but complete immersion, so that ‘spectacle’ can be reconstructed through contemplative analysis.” –Fernando Croce, Slant magazine

Tuesday, February 27Kerasotes University 8. 35mm. $53-Iron (Bin-jip). NoonIntroduction by Kwang-Woo Noh

3-Iron (Bin-jip). Dir Kim Ki-duk. Korea. 2004. In Korean with English subtitles. 88m.

Born in 1960, Kim Ki-duk is on the vanguard of Korean cinema and

3-Iron is his eleventh film. In 2004, he received the best director award at the Berlin Film Festival for The Samaritan Girl and at the Venice Film Festival for 3-Iron. One of his recurrent themes is the repression and brutality of modern civilization. Audiences

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occasionally misinterpret and dislike the graphic violence of his early works. But besides their violent images, his early films are also characterized by a desire for redemption. More recently, he has begun mitigating violence with greater subtlety, symbolism and poetic realism. 3-Iron is a great achievement in simplicity, minimalism and aesthetics of space. –Kwang-Woo Noh

Tuesday, February 27Student Center Auditorium. 16mm. $3Highlights from the Canyon Cinema Collection. 86m. 5 pm

Highlights from the Canyon Cinema Collection, curated by Dominic Angerame.

“Canyon Cinema is one of the world’s premier distributors of experimental and avant-garde films. Canyon Cinema’s inventory contains more than 3000 motion picture films for rent and sale, and represents the work of 325 filmmakers from all over the globe. Tonight’s program represents a sampling of a few of the films that are currently in distribution. They demonstrate various experimental techniques that are used by experimental film artists.The two films of Len Lye Kaleidoscope and Colour Flight are known as ‘direct films’ in that they were created by painting directly onto the surface of the film. Stan Brakhage’s Night Mulch and Very use a similar process, with the paint being applied directly over pieces of Hollywood film trailers. Kenneth Anger’s beautifully lyrical film Eaux d’artifice (Waterworks) was filmed in 1953 in Tivoli, Italy with music by Vivaldi. Donna Cameron’s Autumn Leaves combines representational footage with a special paper emulsion process created by the filmmaker. Maia Cybelle Carpenter’s Working Portraits showing the beauty of hand-processed film was shot in June 2000 at Phil Hoffman’s Independent Image-Making Workshop in Canada. Alone, Life Wastes Andy Hardy is a comic found footage film musical, while Angelina Krahn’s film Stigmata Sampler was literally stitched together through the use of a sewing machine. Frédérique Devaux’s film Ellipses is a collage film created from bits of pieces of torn and broken film fragments. Phil Solomon’s Psalm III: Night of the Meek features images that seem to emerge from a molten lava of film emulsion depicting found images from Berlin in the 1930’s. I hope you enjoy tonight’s program as much as I had in curating it.” –Dominic Angerame, Director, Canyon Cinema

Tuesday, February 27Student Center Auditorium. 16mm. $3Nashville. Homage to Robert Altman6:30 pm

Nashville. Dir Robert Altman. USA. 1975. 159m.

On November 20, 2006 filmmaker Robert Altman (MASH, Short Cuts) lost his battle with cancer. The Big Muddy Film Festival acknowledges and honors the body of work of this Kansas City-born director with a special screening of his masterpiece of Americana, Nashville. Filmed and released during the immediate post-Watergate era, Nashville in typical Altman fashion follows no fewer than a dozen characters through several days of

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a country music festival in Tennessee. Half-musical, half-dark political satire, Nashville features a large cast of actors improvising overlapping dialogue, a technique that would become synonymous with Altman’s style of filmmaking. Nashville serves as an excellent example of the creative excitement and spirit of innovation that a vanguard of film artists, including Altman, managed to force into mainstream Hollywood during the 1970s.

Wednesday, February 28Kerasotes University 8. 35mm. $5After Innocence. Noon

After Innocence. Dir Jessica Sanders. USA. 2005. 95m.

Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, “Jessica Sanders’s documentary confirms many of the worst fears about weaknesses in the American criminal-justice system. In examining the cases of seven men

wrongly convicted of murder and rape and exonerated years later by DNA evidence, the film reinforces the queasy feelings you have while following high-profile criminal trials. The film, written by Ms. Sanders and Marc Simon, was made in collaboration with the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic founded in 1992 by the lawyers Barry C. Sheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan. The clinic handles only cases in which post-conviction DNA testing can yield conclusive proof of innocence. Its work has helped exonerate more than 160 people, and it estimates that DNA testing could free thousands more.” –Stephen Holden, The New York Times

Wednesday, February 28Student Center Auditorium. 16mm and DVD. FreePresentation/Performance by Juror Amy Granat. 7 pm

Part 1Rabbit’s Moon (long version). Dir Kenneth Anger. 1972. 16mm. 14m.Moon Play. Dir Marie Menken. n.d. 16mm. 5m.Roadfilm. Dir Standish Lawder. 1970. 16mm. 2m.The Very Eye of the Night. Dir Maya Deren. 1959. 16mm. 15m.For Georgia O’Keefe. Dir Hollis Frampton. 1976. 16mm. 3m.

“‘Rabbit’s Moon’ seems to me your finest film, most perfect and, oh all together finest!, of the sharpest clarity. Beautiful, yet beauty balanced by dreadful necessity, so that it is an emblem of the soul’s experience: signature…. And I think my turn-of-mind here especially appropriate because I also saw this film as your autobiography, all the figures in it aspects of yourself, its magical progress a kind of ‘story of your life.’” –Stan Brakhage

Part 2: Amy Granat’s Films

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Thursday, March 1Kerasotes University 8. 35mm. $5The Gold Diggers. NoonIntroduction by Dr. Deborah Tudor and Babette Mangolte.

The Gold Diggers. Dir Sally Potter. England. 89m. Cast: Julie Christie, Colette Laffont. Director of Photography: Babette Mangolte.

The first feature from the director of Orlando, The Tango Lesson, and The Man Who Cried is a key film of early Eighties feminist cinema, embracing a radical, experimental structure and

made with an all-women crew. Colette (Colette Laffont), a black French woman working in the City as a computer operator at a bank, begins to investigate the significance of the figures she copies, despite discouragement from her male bosses, and discovers gold to be the secret key to the circulation of money. Ruby (Julie Christie), a beautiful, blonde star, is a cipher passed from man to man in a ballroom until she’s rescued by Colette who bursts in on horseback. Through Colette’s questioning, Ruby begins to understand her role as a woman and cinematic icon, pursuing her own memories and the history of movie heroines.

“Crammed with metaphors and metamorphoses involving ice and gold, film and feminism, politics and pleasure… Visually entrancing… An absorbing pleasure.” –City Limits

“A feminist sci-fi musical extravaganza… Remains consistently fresh and unpredictable.” –Sight and Sound

Thursday, March 1Student Center Auditorium. DVD. FreePickpocket. 5 pm

Pickpocket. Dir Robert Bresson. France. 1959. In French with English subtitles. 76m.

“Bluntly put, to not get Bresson is to not get the idea of motion pictures — it’s to have missed that train the Lumière

brothers filmed arriving at Lyon station 110 years ago. The late French filmmaker made 13 features over the course of his 40-year career; each is a drama of faith so uncompromising as to border on the absurd. Bresson’s actors do not act, they simply are; his favorite effect is the close-up. His movies may be cerebral, but their effect is primarily

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emotional — or physiological. They naturally induce a state of heightened awareness. Some might call it ‘grace.’ … The opening title, ‘This film is not a thriller,’ has the effect of Magritte’s famous surrealist painting ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’…. Indeed, Pickpocket might be described as a solemn carnival of souls. There’s something almost medieval about it. The city is inhabited by angels — fallen and otherwise. In the movie’s most elaborate scene, the antihero and his cohorts create an assembly line of theft at the Gare de Lyon. These unstoppable blank-faced thieves descend like a plague upon the world. Ultimately inexplicable, this concentrated, elliptical, economical movie is an experience that never loses its strangeness.” –J. Hoberman

Thursday; March 1Student Center Auditorium. FreeFilms by Juror Babette Mangolte. The Models of Pickpocket and “Water Motor.”7 pmIntroduction by Babette Mangolte.

The ‘Models’ of Pickpocket (Breaking Silence) (Les Modèles de Pickpocket). Dir Babette Mangolte. France. 2003. In French with English subtitles. 89m.

“In this personal and poetic documentary, Babette Mangolte — possibly the best cinematographer now working in experimental cinema (she’s also shot major films by Chantal Akerman, Richard Foreman, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Marcel Hanoun, Sally Potter, Jackie Raynal, Yvonne Rainer, and Michael Snow) — interviews the three leading performers from Robert Bresson’s wondrous 1959 Pickpocket. Bresson wanted to convey directly, without acting, the spiritual essence of individuals, which is why he called his performers ‘interpreters’ or ‘models.’ These three were clearly marked by the experience of working for him, and as Mangolte moves from France to Austria to Mexico meeting them she seems as responsive to their self-aware vibrancy and as respectful of their mysteries as Bresson was.” –Jonathan Rosenbaum

Water Motor. Dir Babette Mangolte. USA. 1978. 16mm. 7m.

“The image fades in. For two seconds Trisha is there standing motionless, then she starts to dance her solo ‘Water Motor,’ indeed moving as quickly as water. The movements are so fast and intricate that you feel you are missing half of it. When the dance is finished Trisha is standing motionless as in the beginning but closer to the camera and the image fades to black. The image fades in again on Trisha doing the same dance, but this time in slow motion (shot at 48 frames per second) and the movement takes on a luscious quality that informs the viewer of what was missed before.” –Babette Mangolte

“One of the best dance films ever made.” –Yvonne Rainer

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Friday, March 2Student Center Auditorium. FreePresentation by Jonathan Rosenbaum: “The Present and Future of Film Criticism” 7 pm

Friday, March 2Kerasotes University 8. 35mm. $5Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Midnight

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Dir Stanley Kubrick. UK. 1964. 96m.

“Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both

for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless distinguishable, post-war environments: one where you have twenty million people killed, and the other where you have a hundred and fifty million people killed.” –General Buck Turgidson

With these words, the air force general played by George C. Scott urges the president to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on his nation’s enemies. Stanley Kubrick’s dark comedy intelligently lampoons such rational insanity with the precision of a tactical missile. Satirizing both the military industrial complex and the anachronistic hyper-masculinist tribalism in which it is rooted, Dr. Strangelove has ingrained itself within our collective consciousness as few motion pictures have. It is the quintessential “Cold War” film, but it also transcends such historical limits. The absurdity of the institutions satirized by Kubrick and Peter Sellers (truly memorable in his 3 distinct roles) remains lamentably persistent. As long as there is war, generals, and bureaucrats, Dr. Strangelove will maintain its sad hilarity and scary relevance.

Saturday, March 3Student Center Auditorium. DVD. $3Where Does Your Buried Smile Lie? (Où gît votre sourire enfoui?). Homage to Danièle Huillet. Introduction by Jonathan Rosenbaum. 5 pm.

Where Does Your Buried Smile Lie? (Où gît votre sourire enfoui?). Dir Pedro Costa. France/Portugal. 2001. In Italian and French with English subtitles. 95m.

The Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa filmed Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub as they edit their film Sicilia! During that process, Straub and Huillet talk about general and particular aspects of the movie industry, in an extremely interesting dialogue.

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Saturday, March 3Student Center Auditorium. DVD. $3The War Tapes. Introduced by SIU alum and one of the film’s producers, Steve James. 7 pm

The War Tapes. Dir Deborah Scranton. Prod Steve James. USA. 2006. 97m.

The War Tapes is Operation Iraqi Freedom as filmed by Sergeant Steve

Pink, Sergeant Zack Bazzi and Specialist Mike Moriarty. These and other soldiers captured over 800 hours of footage, providing a glimpse of their lives in the midst of war. The result is a raw portrait of three men as they face, and struggle to understand, their duty. Steve is a wisecracking carpenter who aspires to be a writer. Zack is a Lebanese-American university student who loves to travel and is fluent in Arabic. Mike is a father and resolute patriot who rejoined the army after 9/11. Each leaves a woman behind — a girlfriend, a mother, and a wife. Directed by Deborah Scranton and produced by Robert May (The Fog of War) and Steve James (Hoop Dreams), The War Tapes won the award for Best Documentary at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival and Best International Documentary at the inaugural 2006 BritDoc Festival.

Saturday, March 3Kerasotes University 8. 35mm. $5Baadasssss! Midnight

Baadasssss! Dir Mario Van Peebles. USA. 2003. 109m.

In Baadasssss director Mario Van Peebles dramatizes and documents his father’s struggles to make his 1971 landmark film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song that no Hollywood studio would produce. In that film, Melvin Van Peebles pushed the boundaries of the color line in Hollywood, ultimately helping to found independent black cinema. Playing his father, Mario depicts a man doggedly determined to complete his film at all costs; the film can serve as a manual

for guerrilla filmmaking techniques. Disguising his film as a porn flick to avoid union regulations, Melvin blows up cars (without permits), casts his 12-year-old son in a scene with a prostitute, bounces checks, lies, and even manhandles a crew member in order

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to achieve his vision. Melvin also insisted upon a racially diverse crew, training many minority crew members on the job, committed to creating a cinema by African-Americans for African-Americans. The father and son relationship between subject and director is compelling, but not central. Instead, the film succeeds in humanizing its protagonist, ego and all, and shows how he turned a low-budget thriller into a cultural milestone.

Sunday, March 4Kerasotes University 8. 35mm. $5Waiting for Happiness. 10 am

Waiting for Happiness. Dir Abderrahmane Sissako. Mauritania/France. In French and Hassanya with English subtitles. 95m.

Considered the most important African filmmaker to have emerged in the past

decade, Sissako beautifully observes the mosaic of life in a small seaside village on the West Coast of Africa where the inhabitants have created their own kind of modern world. A poetic reflection on the themes of exile, travel, home and displacement. The film won the International Critics’ Award at Cannes in 2002.

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Big Muddy Staff

Sally Shafto, Executive Director

Curt Sidorski, M.F.A., Graduate Assistant

Kwang-Woo Noh, Ph.D., Graduate Assistant

Lindsay Greer, M.F.A., Graduate Assistant

Lloyd Dunn, Graphic Designer

Vincenzo Guarnera, Photographer

Big Muddy Organizing Committee

Curt Sidorski (Community Outreach Programmer, Juror Liaison, Venue Coordinator, Pre-Screening Coordinator, Technical Advisor, Programming Committee Member)

Kwang-Woo Noh (Pre-Screening Coordinator, Film Coordinator, Features Coordinator, Programming Committee Member, Program Editor)

Lindsay Greer (Juror Liaison, Pre-Screening Coordinator, Ad Sales Coordinator, Craft Coordinator, Press & P.R. Coordinator, Programming Committee Member, Program Editor)

Eriko Ami (Merchandise Assistant, Film Coordinator, Programming Committee Member)

Kate Balsey (Juror Liaison, Ticket Collector)

Dan Boomgarden (WSIU Ad Designer, Technical Advisor, Programming Committee Member, Community Outreach Coordinator)

Bryan Brown (Merchandise Salesperson, Programming Committee Member, Community Outreach Coordinator)

Trenton Carson (Ad Sales Coordinator, Merchandise Salesperson, Ticket Collector, Programming Committee Member)

Ryan Claypool (Technical Advisor, Programming Committee Member)

Meghan Currey (Ad Sales Coordinator, Technical Advisor, Programming Committee Member)

Billy Floyd (Ticket Collector, Flier Distributor)

Brian Gallagher (Juror Liaison, Technical Advisor)

Aygul Idiyatullina (Graphic Designer, Graphic Design Liaison to the Designer)

Tomoe Ishii (Film Coordinator, Merchandise Salesperson, Programming Committee Member)

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Andy Jones (Merchandise Salesperson, Programming Committee Member)

Jared Kennedy (WSIU Ad Designer, Technical Adviser, Programming Committee Member)

Jonathan Logwood (Ticket Collector)

Sean Loftus (Technical Advisor)

Keith McKenna (Merchandise Salesperson, Programming Committee Member)

Suzanne Milano (Merchandise Coordinator, Craft Coordinator, Graphic Designer, Press Coordinator, Programming Committee Member)

Robyn Reeves (Ad Sales Coordinator, Programming Committee Member)

Natsumi Shibata (Film Coordinator, Programming Committee Member, Merchandise Salesperson)

Justin Skarrin (Merchandise Salesperson)

Jennifer Van Brooker (Photographer)

Tom Vasilij (Merchandise Salesperson, Programming Committee Member, Technical Advisor)

Brian Wilson (Juror Liaison)

Jason Zenz (Technical Supervisor, Community Outreach Coordinator, Programming Committee Member)

Wei Zhang (Film Coordinator)

Pre-Screening Committees

Najjar Abdul-Musawwir

Dan Boomgarden

Bryan Brown

Ryan Claypool

Meghan Currey

Stuart Fischoff

Rachel Gordon-Fischoff

Lindsay Greer

Tomoe Ishii

Jared Kennedy

Cheonae Kim

Wago Kreider

Rachel Malcolm-Woods

Antonio Martinez

Keith McKenna

Suzanne Milano

Jay Needham

Kwang-Woo Noh

Keun-Pyo Park

Nick Yeck-Stauffer

Sally Shafto

Bob Shapiro

Natsumi Shibata

Curt Sidorski

Dee Tudor

Tom Vasilij

Brian Wilson

Marvin Zeman

Jason Zenz

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Special Thanks

Members of SIU-C

Najjar Abdul-Musawwir (Assistant Professor, School of Art & Design), Steve Banker (SIU Office of Research & Development), John Corson (MFA ’07, Department of Cinema & Photography), Mike Covell (Assistant Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography, Community Activist and Organizer), Renee Dillard (Director of Fundraising, WSIU), Stuart Fischoff (Screenwriter and Psychologist), Rachel Gordon Fischoff (Script Consultant), Georgeann Hartzog (R.N., St. Joseph Hospital), Ron D. Graves (Development Officer, MCMA), Candy Isberner (Executive Director, WSIU), Sarah Kanouse (Assistant Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography), Jyotsna Kapur (Associate Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography, Community Activist and Organizer), Cheonae Kim (Artist-in-Residence, School of Art & Design), Wago Kreider (Assistant Professor, Department of Radio & Television), Fern Logan (Associate Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography), Rachel Malcolm-Woods (Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography), Paul Matalonis (Attorney, Land of Lincoln Legal Services), Antonio Martinez (Assistant Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography), Hugh Muldoon (United Campus Ministries/Interfaith Center), Jay Needham (Assistant Professor, Department of Radio & Television), Mary O’Hara (Professor, John Logan College), Dan Overturf (Associate Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography), Dean Manjunath Pendakur (College of Mass Communication & Media Arts), Christy Poggas (Fine Arts Fee Committee), Tommie Rayford (Assistant to the Chair, Department of Cinema & Photography), Rhonda Rothrock (Front Office Manager, Department of Cinema & Photography), Roger Trexler (Printing/Duplicating Service), Dee Tudor (Chair & Associate Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography), Shannon Wimberly (Printing/Duplicating Service), and Marvin Zeman (Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics)

Additional Special Thanks

Dominic Angerame (Canyon Cinema), Eric Di Bernardo (Rialto Pictures), Sarah Finklea (Janus Films), Charlie Geocaris (SIU ’83, Nevada Film Office), George Grigus (SIU ’83, Silent Partner Films), Jonathan Howell (New Yorker Films), Steve James (SIU ’84, Filmmaker and Producer), Todd Klein (Silent Partner Films), Anastasia Kousakis (SenArt Films), Nicole Pudlowski (Swank Motion Pictures), Paul Seiler (Kerasotes Theater), M. M. Serra (New York Filmmakers Coop), Cindy Shuck (Kerasotes Theater), Encarnacion M. Teruel (Illinois Arts Council), Klaus Volkmer (Deutsches Filmmuseum, Munich), and Christine Whitehouse (British Film Institute, London)

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Big Muddy Sponsors

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Northwestern University Dissertation Sisters Salute the Big Muddy!

Thank you to Silent Partner Films for inaugurating the

Big Muddy Film Festival Endowment

Silent Partner Films

1130 W. Monroe St. Chicago, IL 60607

312-733-9808 Fax 312-733-1536

todd@spfilms.com

Key

❶ Student Center Auditorium❷ Longbranch Coffee House, 100 E. Jackson❸ Interfaith Center, 913 S. Illinois Ave.❹ Cinema Soundstage, Mass Communications Building, Room 1116❺ Liberty Theatre on Walnut (W. Rt. 13) Murphysboro❻ WHAM Auditorium, Room 105❼ University 8 Theatre, 1370 W. Main❽ Yellowmoon Cafe, 110 N. Front St., Cobden❾ Illinois Migrant Council, Technology Learning Center, 111 South Appleknocker, Cobden

Map of Venues

Friends of the Big Muddy Film Festival$500+ Benefactor✦ Our undying gratitude✦ 2 All Events Passes✦ 2 Commemorative T-shirts✦ 2 BMFF mugs✦ 1 Festival poster✦ Recognition in the Festival program

$100+ Angel✦ Choice of: 2 All Events Passes; or 1

All Events Pass and 1 T-shirt; Plus:✦ 1 BMFF mug✦ 1 Festival poster✦ Recognition in the Festival program

$50+ Patron✦ 1 All Events Pass✦ 1 BMFF mug✦ 1 Festival poster✦ Recognition in the Festival program

$25+ Friend✦ 1 All Events Pass✦ 1 Festival poster✦ Recognition in the Festival program

Under $25 Fan✦ 1 Festival poster✦ Recognition in the Festival program

Yes, I want to be a part of the continuing growth of the Big Muddy Film Festival.

_____ $500+ Benefactor

_____ $100+ Angel

_____ $50+ Patron

_____ $25+ Friend

_____ Up to $25 Fan

Donation amount $ _____________________________Please make checks payable to:Southern Illinois University Carbondale

_____ I would like to be notified of upcoming events.

Name _________________________________________Address _______________________________________City ___________________________________________State ___________________ Zip _________________Phone _________________________________________E-mail _________________________________________

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Danièle Huillet as a young girl. Photo courtesy Klaus Volkmer.

“Dogwood” (2000). Photograph by Fern Logan.

Big Muddy Film FestivalDepartment of Cinema and PhotographyCommunications BuildingSouthern Illinois University Carbondale1100 Lincoln DriveCarbondale, IL 62901-6610

info@bigmuddyfilm.comwww.bigmuddyfilm.comtel. 618 453–8301fax 618 453-2264