Sunday November 21, 2010, 7:30 pm

At the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, 6712 Hollywood Blvd.

Los Angeles Filmforum presents

The 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival Tour: The 16mm Program

Filmmakers Laida Lertxundi and Alexandra Cuesta in person!

Here’s your chance to see the latest and greatest in independent film work from around the world, as we present highlights from the 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival in 2010. Filmforum will host two of three touring program, this first night including works on 16mm film, including two by local filmmakers Alexandra Cuesta and Laida Lertxundi.  The next program will be December 12, 2010.

View a preview trailer here on Vimeo!

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is pleased to present a full touring program of 16mm films after a four-year hiatus. This program will present rare, contemporary short 16mm films across the U.S.  Featuring award-winning films from the 48th AAFF, this international program presents genre-defying short films from Japan, Canada, Australia, and the U.S. Included are new animated hand-drawn works from Naoyuki Tsuji and Jim Trainor, along with exquisite observational films by Laida Lertxundi and Alexandra Cuesta.

Beginning in July 2010 and continuing through February 2011, the Ann Arbor Film Festival 48th AAFF Tour will visit galleries, art house theaters, universities, media arts centers and cinematheques throughout the world. The tour offers several distinct programs of recent independent and experimental short films from the 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival across all genres: experimental, documentary, animation, narrative and hybrids. 

Touring program curated by AAFF Program Director, David Dinnell, and AAFF Executive Director, Donald Harrison

Role

Denise Oleksijczuk  |  Vancouver, Canada  |  9 min

U.S. premiere at 48th AAFF

Based on a reconsideration of Robert Bresson’s 1967 film Mouchette (after Georges Bernanos’ 1937 novella of the same name), this film presents a new end to the story. Casting herself as a grown-up Mouchette, the director reinterpret’s Bresson’s depiction of a child’s impoverished solitude, her Christ-like suffering, and the ultimate control she assumes in her own drowning.

TUSSLEMUSCLE

Steve Cossman  |  Brooklyn, NY  |  5 min

World premiere at 48th AAFF

“The work presented explores humanity’s ecological relationship and the ritual of restoration. The violent pulse speaks with a sense of urgency and chaotic struggle, while the hypnotic arrangement keeps us in blinding awe to its condition. This dynamically animated piece is composed of 7,000 single frames which were appropriated/‘recycled’ from view-master reel cells and hand-spliced to create a linear filmstrip. Original score by Jacob Long.” —S.C.

Piensa en Mi

Alexandra Cuesta  |  USA/Ecuador  |  15 min

Jury Award 48th AAFF

“Moving from east to west and back, the windows of a bus frame fleeting sections of urban landscape. Throughout the day, images of riders, textures of light and fragments of bodies in space come together to weave a portrait in motion; a contemplative meditation on public transport in the city of Los Angeles. Isolation, routine and everyday splendor, create the backdrop of this journey, while the intermittent sounds of cars construct the soundscape.” —A.C.

Zephyr

Naoyuki Tsuj  |  Yokohama, Japan  |  6 min

Continuing from where Tsuji’s charcoal animation The Place Where We Were leaves off, “Zephyr refers to the Greek god of the west wind. Zephyr in Tsuji’s work comes to a baby and takes the baby into the inside of the sun. What kind of experience is waiting for the baby?” —Tomio Koyama Gallery, Kyoto

Gesturings

Peter Herwitz  |  Ann Arbor, MI  |  7 min

World premiere at 48th AAFF

“This film represents the apotheosis of my handpainted film style and the belief that in the materiality of film everything is a kind of gesture: color, rhythm, texture, splice marks, funky tape splices, fingerprints, and dirt. I worked on and off on the film for seven years. Reprinting each frame twice, my hope was the slowing down would echo Baudelaire's 'Lux, Calme, et Volupte' (luxury, calm and pleasure). The film is dedicated to Bill Brand.” —P.H.

The Presentation Theme

Jim Trainor  |  Chicago, IL  |  14 min

The Stan Brakhage Film at Wit's End Award

“A Peruvian prisoner of war finds himself outmaneuvered by a hematophagous priestess. Based on a true story.” —J.T.

Collide-a-Scope

Gregory Godhard  |  Sydney, Australia  |  3 min

“On the 10th September 2008, in the city of Cern,Switzerland, physicists began experiments using the most powerful ‘atom-smasher’ ever built, the Large Hadron Collider. In these experiments, scientists hoped to find the theoretical Higgs-Boson Particle, the so called ‘God Particle’. This film contains secret footage of those results.” —G.G.

Golden Hour

Robert Todd  |  Boston, MA  |  17 min

No Violence Award 48th AAFF | World premiere at 48th AAFF

“What if the Looking Glass were, at the same time, a window and a mirror, if the window was the mirror, the mirror the window? And your projection through this transparent/reflective plane brings you to a world that is as externally rich as the self, with its internal churnings shifting through dark and light, directs it to be – the self and the world open to each other, if but for a moment? And that window offers itself to you as a space in your life, held shimmering in your being and your vision throughout that sustaining moment, that golden hour.” —R.T.

My Tears Are Dry

Laida Lertxundi  |  Spain/USA  |  4 min

Most Promising Filmmaker Award 48th AAFF

“A film in the three parts of a dialectic. Hoagy Land’s song is played and interrupted as guitar makes sound, two women, a bed, an armchair, and the beautiful outside. The lyrics of the song reference the eternal sunshine of California and its promises.” —L.L.

80 minutes total

Advance ticket purchase available through Brown Paper Tickets.  Click here to purchase!

This screening series is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles.

Additional support is generously provided by the American Cinematheque.