The 43rd Spring, Devotion & Defiance, Getting Through to the President,
Old Country, Rex Steele: Nazi Smasher, Shake the Rain, Victoria Para Chino

World Premiere
THE 43rd SPRING
(Screening prior to Don't Call it Heimweh...)



A short film by Kirstin Steffen
Germany / 2004 / 11:40 minutes

Screening Time(s):
Sat. Oct. 16, 11:30am at
Woodstock Community Center in Woodstock

Synopsis:
Christa, Willy, and Katharina have been neighbors in a suburb
of Cologne, Germany, since February 1961.

Now in their seventies, the three look back on the formative
years that have gone by and the changes that have affected their
lives, and the lives of their families and neighbors.

The  film examines past and present hopes,
and the significance of being a “neighbor.”

Bio:
Kirstin Steffen was born in Cologne, Germany. With a degree
in history at the University of Cologne, she moved to Berlin,
where she studied political science. Kirstin attended a film program
at the University of Cologne and worked for several film and
TV production companies. The 43rd Spring  is her first documentary.
It was inspired by her grandmother.

Director: Kirstin Steffen
Music: Florian Bald

DEVOTION AND DEFIANCE
screening prior to The Forbidden Team

A short film by Kunga Palmo
USA / 2004 / 35 minutes

Screening Time(s):
Fri. Oct. 15, 7pm at Town Hall in Woodstock
&
Sat. Oct. 16, 2pm at
Catskill Mtn. Foundation II in Hunter

Synopsis:
This powerful film contains extensive footage from monasteries in Tibet
and chronicles the complex struggle of monks and nuns who defy the
Chinese government’s heavy-handed attempt at control.

Bio:
Kunga Palmo has worked on Tibetan issues for the past six years and
has traveled extensively in Tibet and to Tibetan refugee communities in
India and Nepal. Her interest in filmmaking began about 3 years ago, and since
then she has worked on production teams for a number of museum,
broadcast, and student films. Today, Kunga Palmo is a freelance video editor
and continues to work to promote human rights and self-determination for Tibetans. Devotion and Defiance is her first film.

Main Credits:
Director: Kunga Palmo
 

Visit Website

GETTING THROUGH
TO THE PRESIDENT
(precedes Off to War and POPaganda)

A short film by Emily and Sarah Kunstler
USA / 2004 / 7:28 minutes

Screening times:
Thurs. Oct. 14, 8:30pm at
Bearsville Theater in Woodstock

Fri. Oct. 15, 4:45pm at
Bearsville Theater in Woodstock


Sat. Oct. 16, 4:30pm at
Upstate Films II in Rhinebeck

Synopsis:
From May 5-8, 2004, the Documentary Campaign commandeered a
payphone in Washington Square Park to record telephone calls made to the
White House comment line by hundreds of New Yorkers.

Commentary:
A tongue and cheek accounting of democracy in
America under the Bush administration

Emily and Sarah Kunstler will appear on the
IN YOUR FACE panel, Sunday, Oct. 17, 10:30am at the Colony Cafe.

Bio:
Emily Kunstler graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with honors
and a BFA in film and video in 2000, and she is a graduate of the Whitney
Museum's Independent Study Program (2004). Emily worked as a video producer
for Democracy Now!, an independent national television and radio news program that broadcasts on the Pacifica Radio Network and on public access and satellite
television. She is co-founder of Off Center Productions, a documentary
production company dedicated to using video in the service of social justice.

With Off Center Productions, Emily directed and edited the films Tulia, Texas:
Scenes From the Drug War*, Patterns of Exclusion: The Trial of Thomas Miller-El,
In the Name of Security, and The Road to Justice.

Emily was an associate producer on The Documentary Campaign's Persons of
Interest, and directed Getting Through to the President.

Sarah Kunstler has a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from Columbia Law
School. Together with her sister, Emily Kunstler, she founded Off Center
Productions (www.off-center.com). She has worked as a freelance photojournalist
and as media director of the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice.

With Off Center Productions Sarah produced and directed the films Tulia, Texas:
Scenes from the Drug War, Patterns of Exclusion: The Trial of Thomas Miller-El,
In the Name of Security, and The Road to Justice.

*Tulia, Texas: Scenes From the Drug War received the
2003 Woodstock Maverick Award for BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY.

Main Credits:
Directors: Emily and Sarah Kunstler
Producer: Haskell King
Executive Producer: Lawrence Konner

Visit Website
 

OLD COUNTRY
(Screening prior to Don't Call it Heimweh...)


Directed by Mark Adam and Allen Kaeja
Canada / 2004 / 24 minutes

Screening Time(s):
Sat. Oct. 16, 11:30am at
Woodstock Community Center in Woodstock

Synopsis:
Old Country explores the dynamics of a community confronted with
the imminent brutality of war. Shifting allegiances and values challenge the
complex levels of relationship and connectedness. The ensemble cast shows
how the fabric of a society can be stretched and torn in dark times.

Commentary:
"A first-rate dance piece and an inventive telling of a Holocaust story. Lyrical, poetical, beautifully shot, edited, scored and cast. A winner!" (Barbara Pokras)

Bio:
Mark Adam, a former professional dancer with the National Ballet of Canada, has combined his twin passions of dance and film into a successful career since 1991. Allen Kaeja entered the field of dance after nine years of wrestling and judo. Recipient of the prestigious Paul D Fleck Award, Clifford E Lee Choreography Award, UNESCO Citation, Bonnie Bird Choreographic Award (U.K.), du Maurier Arts Foundation Award and KM Hunter Award, Allen has been creating dances since 1982. Allen has choreographed for eleven films and, with Mark Adam, co-directed seven award-winning dance films.

Visit Website

REX STEELE: NAZI SMASHER

Directed by Alex Woo
USA / 2004 / 10:30 minutes

Screening Time(s):
(preceding The Fittest)

Sat. Oct. 16, 9:30pm at
 Upstate Films II in Rhinebeck

 Sun. Oct. 17, 5:15pm at
 Town Hall in Woodstock

Synopsis:
""It is 1941, and the United States is at war with Nazi Germany.
The U.S. Government has just been informed that Eval Schnitzler has
occupied a remote location near the mysterious source of the Amazon River.
Convinced that his motives are more than leisurely, the United States sends
Rex Steele, Nazi smasher extraordinaire, to find and foil Eval¹s evil plans.
Rex flies into the Amazon with his sidekick, Miss Penny Thimble, and the
two embark on a journey full of action, adventure, and of course, Nazi smashing galore!"

Visit the Rex Steele Wbesite

SANGAM


Directed by Prashant Bhargava
USA / 2004 / 22 minutes

Synopsis:
Raj, a recent immigrant from India, and Vivek, a disillusioned Indian-American,
meet on a subway to Brooklyn.  As each longs for what the other takes for granted,
they must confront the currents that bind and divide them.

Commentary:

Amid the myriad short film entries at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, Sangam made itself felt with singular style. Prashant Bhargava emerges as a filmmaker with a poetic eye and a yearning soul."

"A bluesy, visually arresting meditation on urban isolation and the unshakeable tug of cultural identity." (Jan Stuart, Newsday)

Bio:
Prashant Bhargava is an award-winning filmmaker and designer, whose interest in
the arts began as a graffiti artist in his native chicago.

For the past eight years, as creative director of his own production company,
Prashant has designed and directed commercials, titles, and promos for such films
as John Frankenheimer's Path to War, Mira Nair's Hysterical Blindness, Raoul Peck's Lumumba, and Denzel Washington's Antwone Fisher. Notable projects include branding Cinemax's Reel Life documentary series and the HBO original series OZ,
Def Poetry Jam, and The Wire. Other projects include promotions for Blue Cross,
Blue Shield, Missy Elliot, Talib Kweli, Accenture, PBS, Bravo, and IBM.

His work has appeared in numerous festivals and has been recognized
by the New York Foundation of the Arts, the Broadcast Designers
Association, and Adobe Systems.

Prashant is currently developing a feature film. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Main Credits:
Director, Screenwriter, Editor: Prashant Bhargava
Producer: Mark Mann
Cinematographers: Cybel Martini, Jay Silver
Music: Qasim Ali Naqui

Visit Website
 

SHAKE THE RAIN
(screening prior to Making Grace)
 

Directed by D. Robin Hammer
USA / 2004 / 13 minutes

Screening Time(s):
Sat. Oct. 16, 3pm at
Woodstock Community Center
&
Sun. Oct 17, 5:15
Woodstock Community Center
as part of Short Docs

Synopsis:
In a dramatic reading of powerful and courageous original writing, author
Tennessee Jones speaks of gender, desire, brutality, and hope in a beautifully
drawn account. Eloquent, sensitive, and keenly observed, the text then combines
with the filmmaker’s art to bring about a unique expression of storytelling of a
multi layered truth, and glimpses into aspects of one Appalachian childhood.

Commentary:
D. Robin follows up her screening of Thorn Grass (WFF 2003)
with another haunting, poetic expose. (Laurent Rejto)

Bio:
D. Robin Hammer is an independent filmmaker, interested in themes of social
justice and community healing, who often brings a spiritual and psychological
perspective to the politics of social violence. Robin’s work is based on the premise
that word and image can serve both truth and hope, as well as the individual and collective life of people, in powerful ways. Hammer is owner/founder of Light Circle
Films LLC in Boulder, Colorado, where she may be found wearing various hats (simultaneously or consecutively) as producer, director, editor, cinematographer,
and writer. Light Circle Films, LLC has produced such award-winning films as:
One, Intersextion, Thorn Grass, Light Dance and Matt Kailey: A Conversation.

Main Credits:
A Light Circle Films Production
Featuring: Tennessee Jones

Contact Info

 

World Premiere
VICTORIA PARA CHINO
(screening prior to Mojados & The World According to Bush)

Directed by Cary Fukunaga
USA / 2004 / 13 minutes

Screening Time(s):
Thursday. Oct. 14, 7:30pm at
Upstate Films 2 in Rhinebeck

Fri. Oct. 15, 12pm at
Bearsville Theater in Woodstock

 Sat. Oct. 16, 1pm at
Town Hall in Woodstock

Synopsis:
In 2003 a refrigerated truck carrying more than eighty
undocumented immigrants from the Mexican border drove into the heartland
of Texas, where a deadly combination of heat and overcrowding led
to tragedy. This is the story about that journey.

Commentary:
WOW!! A masterful short. Fukunaga uses a confined
space with broad emotion and suspense. (Laurent Rejto)

Bio:
Cary Fukunaga graduated with a degree in history from the University of California,
Santa Cruz and L'Institut d'Ètudes Politique (IEP) de Grenoble. He has traveled extensively throughout Southeast Asia, Europe, and Latin America, where
he studied and photographed the aftermath of neocolonialism. He began learning
the craft of filmmaking four years ago while crewing on music videos and
commercials in Los Angeles, and is now happily pursuing an M.F.A. in directing
at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Main Credits:
Director: Cary Fukunaga
Producers: Rodrigo Guardiola, Gabriel Nuncio, Patricio Serna, Cary Fukunaga
Screenwriters: Cary Fukunaga, Patricio Serna
Cinematographer: Robert Hauer
Editor: Barry Stricke

Contact Info

 

Films, Panels and Concerts by name and category

Wednesday/Thursday - Friday - Saturday - Sunday
When ordering tickets, please consider the distance between Woodstock, Rhinebeck and Hunter.
Click here for more info and directions

*Schedule is subject to change
Tinker Street, Upstate Films and the Catskill Mountain Foundation Theater are 35mm facilities.
Upstate and CMFT will also screen beta sp and digibeta films.
Bearsville, Mountain View, WCC are are beta sp & digibeta