Three CalArtian films have been accepted into the 41st International Film Festival Rotterdam (Jan. 25-Feb. 5), known for showcasing independent, innovative and experimental cinema, video and media art from around the world.
Making its European debut at Rotterdam is Maurice (2011, 18 mins) by Donat Patrick Kack-Brice (Film/Video BFA 11), a documentary portrait of Maurice Laroche, owner of the last porn theater in Paris that still plays 35 mm film.
Kack-Brice spent his last semester at CalArts studying in Paris, participating in a new exchange program between CalArts and La Fémis, the renowned French national film school. In Paris, he made a short film about Laroche, which evolved into Maurice.
The film had its premiere in August at the Nevada City Film Festival, where it won the “Best Documentary” and “Best of the Fest” awards. Maurice was also screened at the San Francisco Doc Fest and the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival last year.
Filmmaker and longtime CalArts faculty member James Benning also presents his latest feature, Small Roads (2011, 102 mins), at the festival. The film, which took two years to complete, captures some of the remote hinterlands of the United States and the back roads only sporadically visited by vehicles or animals. Benning posts a list of the 47 different roads—from Arkansas to California—shot in the film on his Facebook page.
Benning also wrote the third CalArtian film screening at Rotterdam. All That She Surveys (2011, 15 mins.) is directed and produced by Gary Mairs, who currently serves as the co-director of the Film Directing Program and Associate Dean of the School of Film/Video at CalArts.
The film, which was shown in CalArts’ Bijou Theater last May, is the third in Mairs’ series that began with Say It (2007) and later The Hemingway Night (2009).
For ticket information, visit the International Film Festival Rotterdam site.