Woodstock Film Festival - SHORTS PROGRAMMING: Family

WFF BLOGS: August 9, 2013 • Hudson Valley Catskills

The 14th Annual WOODSTOCK FILM FESTIVAL Provides Sneak Peek at 2013 Lineup,
starting with its SHORT FILMS selections as it leads up to 125+ events beginning October 2-6 festival

Leading up to the official reveal of the full festival lineup, WFF is bringing you a bi-weekly sneak peek at the ten unique short film programs that have made the cut for 2013. Check out these special previews to gear up for the full reveal later this season. Past reveals include the programs Conversations and Dystopia.

Separately, coming announcements will provide special highlights of some o+f the premieres of the full-length documentaries and narratives from across the country and the globe, as well as special honorary awards, expected appearances and exciting events.

The full lineup of over 125 films, panels, concerts and events will be announced at the beginning of September. If you are interested in a full festival pass, they are very limited and online at FULL PASS.

FAMILY

“Family," the third of our featured shorts programs, explores the structures and strengths of familial ties, redefining conventional roles and responsibility. “Family" features one film that was locally produced in the Hudson Valley.

Featuring 1982, Boneshaker, The Early Birds, Relics, The Earth, The Way I Left It, Time 2 Split, and We Could Be Your Parents.

1982
A blocked novelist reflects on a pivotal year in his life, when, as a precocious six-year-old, he struggled for the attention of his bickering parents.

"I wanted to explore that transitional period in childhood when we begin to realize that our world is a lot less secure than we thought it was," says 1982 writer and director Jeremy Breslau, who is currently developing two feature films utilizing the talents of the 1982 team.

BONESHAKER
An African family, lost in America, travels to a Pentecostal Louisiana church to find a cure for its problem child, played by Quvenzhanè Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild). As the family journeys to a tent revival at the ends of the levee-less Louisiana delta, they discover the complications of trying to perform a traditional ritual away from home.

Written and directed by Frances Bodomo, Boneshaker focuses on the feeling of displacement and tells a story inspired by generations of children who grew up with no place to call home. Bodomo says, "It's about the crazy person you become when you're a mix of clashing cultures, and it's about the difficulty of performing a ritual when you're thousands of miles from home....I've always wanted to make a film about how lost a person can feel without a sense of home, and how constant migration really tests the glue that holds a family together."

THE EARLY BIRDS
A day without parents? It is 5:50 a.m. and a baby is crying, but it is his siblings who get him out of the crib in an ultimate adventure of playing house. Seen through the eyes of a young child, The Early Birds takes audiences on a magical journey through a normal day turned upside down by the absence of adults.

Director Lena Beug launched her career as a commercial director following the success of her award winning MTV Campaigns. Signed to Moxie Pictures in the U.S. and U.K., and RedRage Films in Ireland for commercial representation, The Early Birds is Beug's second narrative short.

RELICS
This dry comedy has a dark twist when a salesman must promote his miraculous cleaning machine to a sick woman and her skeptical daughter.. Writer and director Jennie Allen says, "Life is absurd, funny, and often terribly painful – sometimes all at once. I hope that Relics captures some measure of these extremes."

Jennie Allen is a Hudson Valley native and filmed Relics locally. Tes film won the Adrienne Shelly Foundation's Best Female Director Award at CUFF and took second-place for Best Student Short Under 15 Minutes at Palm Springs International ShortFest. The film was executive produced by Greg Meola of Company 1 Productions..

THE EARTH, THE WAY I LEFT IT
One small step to forget. One giant leap to let go. A child coping with death in the family is visited by a stranger from the stars. In this tale of childhood loss, The Earth, The Way I Left It examines the role that imagination plays in preserving the innocence of youth.

Jeff Pinilla is a 24 year-old Emmy award-winning writer, producer, director and editor. Since graduating from Full Sail University in 2009, Pinilla has produced the short film Numbers on a Napkin as well as the feature documentary, The First 36 Hours: An Inside Look at Hurricane Sandy.

TIME 2 SPLIT
A couple and their young child realize that sometimes in life we must go our separate ways. Through an innovative split-screen narrative technique, Time 2 Split depicts parallel lives that cannot seem to diverge from one another.

French filmmaker Fabrice Bracq has directed and produced numerous shorts and documentaries, with his self-produced feature film Un Clown Passe. Time 2 Split is Bracq's first short film to screen at the Woodstock Film Festival.

WE COULD BE YOUR PARENTS
Sue wants to have a baby, but first she needs her husband to quit smoking. Bob has been trying and failing for months, so Sue gives him some added incentive - no sex until he successfully quits.

We Could be Your Parents is the third short film directed by Charlie Anderson, a graduate of Boston University's MFA program in Film Production. Anderson also has various credits as an actor, photographer, makeup effects artist and sound mixer.

WFF’s NARRATIVE SHORTS programming has featured an amazing array of emerging filmmakers who have gone on to make feature films. Some of the many filmmakers who have gone on to make inroads in the industry include Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre, Jane Eyre), Jonas Carpignano, Andrew Okpeaha Maclean (On the Ice), Rob Meyer (A Birders Guide to Everything), and Luke Matheny (Lovesick).

Many of these same filmmakers have also received honors at the Woodstock Film Festival (Zeitlin, Fukunaga, Maclean, Meyer, Matheny) with several going on to get Academy Award nods. Luke Matheny won best student film at the 2010 WFF for God of Love prior to winning the 2011 Oscar. Andrew Bowler’s Time Freak was an award finalist at the 2011 WFF prior to receiving a nomination at the 2012 Oscars. Shawn Christensen won best short film at WFF for Curfew prior to winning the 2013 Oscar. Christensen recently wrapped the feature version of the short.

Danielle Krudy (JULIA) and Brian Lanin (A WINTER SLOW) at
2012 Woodstock Film Festival. Photo credit: David Rosenburg

The 2013 selections will also include SHORT DOCS and an ANIMATION PROGRAM curated by Bill Plympton and Signe Baumane, and sponsored by Blue Sky Studios. Stay tuned for more information about the 2013 Woodstock Film Festival shorts program. We already have our favorites for Oscar, let's see if you agree!

About the Woodstock Film Festival:
Hailed by Indiewire as "A true American Maverick Among Fests" and praised by actor Ethan Hawke as "among the finest of a dying breed: a festival that isn't trying to sell you anything, but simply and beautifully celebrating the art & craft of filmmaking", the Woodstock Film Festival premiers exceptional films, hosts the most talented emerging and established professionals in the movie industry; presents A-list concerts, panels and parties, and creates stimulating, innovative programming year-round.

The Woodstock Film Festival is a non-profit, 501c3 with a mission to present an annual program and year-round schedule of film, music and art-related activities that promote artists, culture, inspired learning and diversity.

The Woodstock Film Festival celebrates 14th year, October 2-6, 2013, with an extraordinary line-up of fiercely independent films, panels, concerts and special events in Woodstock, Rhinebeck, Kingston, Rosendale and Saugerties.