Woodstock Film Festival - Short Documentaries

SHORTS - FAMILY UNITS

9/20 - 3:30pm at Kleinert/James ($8)

9/22 - 4pm at Upstate II ($8)

A short documentary by Benita Raphan and Clayton Hemmert
2001 USA 11 min

A film about John F. Nash Jr., a professor at Princeton University, who was diagnosed wioth paranoid schizophrenia in the 1950's shortly after writing a brillian papaer entitled, Essays on Game Theory. Nearly forty years later, Dr. Nash would win a Nobel prize in Wconomics for that very same paper.

Benita Raphan is a graduate of the Royal College of Art in England and the School of Visual Arts. Raphan has made three films for Channel 4 Television in England, garnering Gold Medals from the Broadcast Designer's Association, and from the art Director's Club in NYC and Paris.

Clayton Hemmert helped found the editorial house Crew Cuts. A winner of many awards for editing and a keen observer, with a talent for editing performance and narrative comedy, Hemmert has since contributed to high profile, national commercials. Hemmert decided to become an editor because, "... it encompasses all aspects of the commercial process".

Script by Benita Raphan, Clayton Hemmert and Dr. Frank T. Miller

Edited by Clayton Hemmert

Sound designer: Marshall Grupp

Executive Producer: April Jaffee

Composer: Pierre Foldes

Bass Clarinet: Dr. Ronald Odrich

Voice Over Experts: Dr. William T. Carpenter Jr., Dr. Charles Holt and Dr. Bernardo Huberman

Cinematography: Dave Morabito, Glen Mordeci and Scott Kincaid

Painter: Vincent Van Gogh

HOWRAH HOWRAH

A Short Documentary by Till Passow

2001 – GERMANY/INDIA – 26 min – Student

Howrah Station is the central station of Calcutta, India and one of the largest stations in Asia. Apart from its importance as a junction for transients and cargo transports, Howrah Station epitomizes the circuit of life of a major Indian city. It is a place of extraordinary intensity and extreme polarities. Howrah Howrah leads to this place full of life, movement, joy and affliction and shows the versatility of Calcutta and the chaos anarchically carving one’s way through the microcosm of the station.

Till Passow bas born in Munich, Germany and was a trainee in the props department of the Frankfurt am Main city theatres. He was an assistant and trainee interviewer on the Steven Steven Spielberg project “Survivors of the Shoah”. He spent 8 months in Calcutta to shoot and for post production on Howrah Howrah under a grant sponsored by the Goethe Institute as part of the German Festival in India 2000/2001 amd a DAAD grant.

Producer: Jan Finche

Director, Screenwriter: Till Passow

Cinematographer: Lars Lenski

Editor: Sudip Chattogadhyaya

Music: Gautam Ghosh

Sound: Marcus Robbin, Sudeep Chakravarty

I CALL MYSELF PERSIAN

A Short Documentary by Tanaz Eshaghian & Sara Nodjoumi

2002 – USA – 27 min

“I always say I am Iranian, but I am Jewish…because I am afraid they might think of me as a terrorist...or a backward person” says one Iranian woman in I Call Myself Persian – an honest and candid look at how Iranians living in the U.S. are often made to feel as though they are somehow responsible for anti-American activities.

From the Iran hostage crisis of ’79 to the WTC attacks, images of hostile Iranians and Middle Easterners have been well-ingrained in the American psyche, but no informed images come to mind representing Iranians living on American soil. The Iranian Revolution took place in 1979, after which over one million Iranians fled the country. Since then hundreds of thousands of Iranians have been living in the United States. I Call Myself Persian lets Iranian-Americans speak of how their identities are affected by being made to feel like outsiders in a country they now call home.

One young woman remembers how during the Iran hostage crisis of ’79 she made sure to “always say I’m Persian, because if you say you’re Iranian…forget it.” Author Edward Said and video artist Shirin Neshat reflect on the demonization and dehumanization of the East” by the media, and offer ways on how we can begin to better understand the East now, when current political upheavals make it absolutely necessary to do so.

I Call Myself Persian will bring a rather unknown minority group to the public, helping make Iranian immigrants better understood and more accepted into the larger American society.

Producer: Tanaz Eshaghian

Directors: Tanaz Eshaghian & Sara Nodjoumi

TAKIE PRAWDY (THESE TRUTHS)

A Short Film Documentary by Barbara (Basia) Winograd

2001 – Poland/USA – 32 min - Lodz Film School, Poland

In the Spring of 2000, two film students from the national Polish film school in Lodz decided to make a film about the question that had been going around and around in their heads for many years: is life really better in America?

Basia Winograd grew up in New York, but moved to Poland in her mid-twenties. Pawel Gula lived in Poland all his life, but was at the time considering moving to America to find more career opportunities as a cinematographer. The duo spent over a month talking to all varieties of Polish immigrants, from defeated alcoholics on the streets of Greenpoint to wealthy businessmen. Some highlights included a 78-year old woman who had been in America for 30 yeas and still didn’t speak a word of English, a taxi cab driver turned successful philosopher/businessman, and a tennis coach with serious delusions of grandeur. Funny and sad, the film digs deep into the question of what role money plays in human happiness.

Producer: Barbara Winograd

Co-producer: Mirek Debinski

Director, Screenwriter: Barbara Winograd

Cinematographer: Pawel Gula

Editor: Gabrysia Kolodzej

Composer: POLATINO

Sound: Jarek Wirowski

TOHOKU: HITCHHIKING JAPAN

A Short Film Documentary by David Shuff

2000 – Japan/USA – 7 min

Tohoku is the name given of the northern region of Japan’s central island of Honshu. Mostly rural, Japan’s “Deep North” is thought of in much the same way as America’s “Deep South” that being anything from backwards to beautiful. This film was shot entirely while hitchhiking through this region. Less a travel narrative than a movie about sensations, it focuses on the mannerisms of peoples and resonant energies of places. It creates a direct connection between the viewer and the subject. As ambitious as it is simple, Tohoku aims to show the incredible diversity that exists throughout Japan but goes largely unseen by Westerners.

David Shuff creates works of every nature: narrative, documentary and experimental. To date his works have screened in over 20 international film festivals, his film Pocket Watch airing on PBS television. Beyond his own films, David regularly creates collaborative works with Ben Coccio (5:45 AM currently airing on IFC) through their production company, Professor Bright films.

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