Category: blog

  • ATA announces 5th Annual Film & Video Festival program

    SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The 5th Annual Artists’ Television Access Film & Video Festival celebrates original, independent and underground film & video with screenings, installations and workshops, October 19th – 23rd.

    Thursday, October 21, ATA will screen the first of two shorts programs. Titled “Human Nature,” the program explores the relationship between our natural environment and consciousness. The screening includes films and videos by Paul Clipson, Sam Barnett, Bill Brown, Patricia McInroy, Gina Carducci & Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Vera Brunner-Sung, Karl Lind, John Palmer, and Maite Abella. The shorts will be followed by the ceremonial smashing of a piñata.

    On Friday, October 22, the second festival shorts program,“Lo-Fi Future,” explores futuristic landscapes and lo-fi culture. This program includes films and videos by Kathleen Quillian, Whitney Horn & Lev Kalman, Sylvia Schedelbauer, Jeff Guay, Zachary Epcar, Bryan Boyce, Jesse McLean, and Kerry Laitala. Chromadepth 3D glasses and chromatic jello shots will be provided.

    Two hands-on workshops will be offered this year. Local filmmakers Kerry Laitala and Craig Baldwin will offer workshops on Tuesday, October 19 and Saturday the 23rd, respectively. Kerry’s workshop, Lightstruck, on hand processing 16mm film, will be held in SOMA, at the Rayko Photo Center, the festival’s Lab sponsor. The workshop will give participants the opportunity to create cinematic photograms by hand and see their creation as a festival trailer on screening nights.

    On Saturday, October 23, Craig Baldwin will share his expertise in the use of archival 16mm film material through his “Flix Remix” show-and-tell session. The workshop will include technical instruction and must-see exemplary material. To sign up for these workshops go to http://festival.atasite.org/2010.

    Local artists will be providing two installations, which will be presented in ATA’s gallery. Sam Manera will exhibit “THE BOX, aka, The Multiplicity of Perception”, an interactive multimedia installation. And Shalo P will present “Liquid Light,” a piece that surveys the digital apocalypse and embellishes it with rainbows.

    Also, during the month of October, the ATA Window will project a selection of experimental shorts, visually stunning pieces and innovative animations. These projections, visible from dusk until midnight on Valencia, near 21st Street, include work by Patrick Bergeron, Charles Fairbanks, Cecilie Bjørgås Jordheim, Zachary Iannazzi, Nightmare City, Ben Popp & Kenny Reed, Nancy Jean Tucker, and Maarit Suomi-Väänänen.

    ATA is located at 992 Valencia near 21st Street. Doors open at 7:30pm every night. Screenings start at 8:00pm. Tickets are $7-$10.

    For complete information and interviews with the filmmakers visit http://festival.atasite.org/2010

  • SELECTION festival: Call for entries is now open!

    “If your film has never been picked by any festival, it’s a perfect fit for SELECTION festival”.

    On September 13, @ 21:00, CINE FANTOM is starting a new stage of SELECTION festival. Now at VINZAVOD, every Monday!

    SELECTION festival is a unique experiment if the Russia-based CINE FANTOM club, which has no analogues in the world.

    The goal of the festival is to explore contemporary independent Russian and world cinema. Since 2006, the CINE FANTOM research group has been gathering and presenting contemporary independent films and other forms of audiovisual art (animation, video art, music videos etc). So far, SELECTION has been held every month, over a couple dozens of times, presenting over half a thousand works, totaling to around eight days of video created by several hundreds of authors.

    In 2010, at the 39th International Film Festival Rotterdam, SELECTION festival was announced international. Quoting Gleb Aleinikov, director of the club, film producer and director, this announcement got cheering ovations from the IFFR delegates.

    “All those people who are trying to make films, to participate in a festival, but get turned down, now finally have a chance: SELECTION accepts everyone. We’ve been in talks with our Italian partners recently. Probably, Italy will be first to provide us with such “turned down” films. And we will call it “spaghetti SELEZIONE”, as in “spaghetti western”. We here at CINE FANTOM will have a chance to see true authentic Italian works, while in Italy they won’t,” Gleb Aleinikov says.

    From September 13 2010 on, the rules of SELECTION will change.

    “The festival will be held on a weekly basis. We’ll be watching all submitted films. But we will be watching them the way we want. Every viewer from now on will have a right to comment works right during a screening. Upon an explained request we will be fast-forwarding films, skipping over to the next film or showing a film on encore. And of course, we will have real experts: selectors and representatives from the biggest festivals, film studios, TV channels, producers, film directors and critics. This was the idea we came to together with KinoClub at Vinzavod,” says Lenka Kabankova, curator of CINE FANTOM club.

    At the end of the year, CINE FANTOM will put together a “winners” program for its screenings at international festivals and different venues all over the world.

    “From the social point of view, it’s very important for an artist to have an opportunity to present his or her work to the public. At Kinoshok film festival I was approached by many students, thanking CINE FANTOM for its festival, SELECTION, which is a real opportunity for them to see something new and to show their own works outside the boundaries of their universities. SELECTION is an opportunity to compare different approaches and different schools. In my opinion, this festival is very important for directors, as it helps them develop,” says Andrey Silvestrov, programming director of CINE FANTOM.

    Call for entries for SELECTION festival is now open!

    For more information, including submission instructions, visit http://cinefantomclub.ru/?cat=17&dru=5