The 48th Ann Arbor (Mich.) Film Festival began on Tuesday and runs through this weekend (March 28), featuring works from CalArts filmmakers in several categories, including music video, animation, short and experimental films.
Fresh from a screening at the South by Southwest festival, the short film and music video Forest (2009) by LA-based artist Allison Schulnik (BFA Film/Video 00) for the band Grizzly Bear (posted above) screens tomorrow night with other top independent music videos, in a program curated by the festival and the Ghostly International record label.
Also on Friday, there’s a special presentation of The Ukrainian Time Machine with three films by Naomi Uman (MFA Film/Video 98). She makes the same journey, but in reverse, that her great-grandparents made when emigrating to America from the Ukraine. She now makes her home in the tiny rural village of Legedzine, Ukraine. The series of films in the program “depict the rhythms and textures of a way of life not so far-removed from what her ancestors had experienced in their time, yet are contemporary, too, richly expressed in the immediacy of her camera’s attentions and the inclusiveness of the inhabitants.”
On Saturday Danielle Ash’s (MFA Film/Video 08) Pickels for Nickels screens as part of The Kids are Alright block with other short, animated films for “youthful audiences.” Pickles for Nickels is her thesis film, that uses stop-motion animation, cardboard sets, puppets and computer animation.
Three films that 24700 covered in an earlier post about the 2009 New York Film Festival’s View from the Avant-Garde are also screening in Ann Arbor:
- Alexandra Cuesta’s (Film/Video MFA 08) Piensa En Mí, a contemplative journey of public transport in Los Angeles, focusing primarily on the Hispanic population. (Saturday)
- Laura Kraning’s Vineland (MFA candidate, Program in Film and Video), a short experimental documentary about the last drive-in movie theater in L.A., located in the City of Industry. (Saturday)
- And Laida Lertxundi’s (Film/Video MFA 07) My Tears Are Dry, is a short, experimental film that screened as part of the opening night program. She describes the work as “film in 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.”
For a complete schedule of screenings and related activities, please visit the Ann Arbor Film Festival online guide.