The 43rd Spring,
Devotion
& Defiance,
Getting Through to the President,
Old Country,
Rex
Steele: Nazi Smasher,
Shake the Rain,
Victoria
Para Chino |
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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
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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
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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!"
Bio:
After attending high school in Hong
Kong, Alex Woo returned to the
United States to attend college at New
York University's Tisch School of the
Arts.
He recentely graduated from the
undergraduate Film/TV Production program,
where he won the Russell Hexter Filmmaker
Award, and the Richard Protovin
Award for Excellence in Animation. He has
spent the past three years working
on his first film, Rex Steele: Nazi
Smasher, which has won numerous awards
at festivals around the US, including the
prestigious Student Academy
Award and the Director's Guild of
America Student Filmmaker Award.
He will also be participating in next
years Cannes Film Festival as
part of Kodak's highly selective Emerging
Filmmakers Program.
Composer Bio:
Ryan Shore has been composing
professionally for film for the past
seven years and has over 35 films to his
credit. His recent scores include
"Harvard Man", "Scout's Honor", "Vulgar",
the Sundance Film Festival drama "Lift",
"Coney Island Baby", the Student Academy &
Emmy Award® winning short film,
"A Letter from the Western Front", and
most recently, "Rex Steele: Nazi Smasher",
for which he recorded with and conducted
the 110 piece Czech Philharmonic & Choir.
Ryan was honored by Academy Award® winning
composer Elmer Bernstein
with the "Elmer Bernstein Scoring
Award" at the Woodstock Film Festival
for his score for the short film
Cadaverous. His score for
Shadowplay
(which won the Student Academy Award® &
Emmy Award® for
Best Animation in 2002) won him the
prestigious Clive Davis Award for
Outstanding Achievement in Music. Ryan
also composed the musical identities for
A&E's Biography Magazine and History
Channel Magazine, and was music producer
for the Saturday Night Live Studios
theatrical logo which can be seen before
all SNL films.
This is the fifth year in a row that Ryan
shore
has scored a film appearing at the
Woodstock FIlm Festival.
Visit the Rex Steele Wbesite
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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
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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
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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
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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
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