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March 23, 2006 -- The
Black Maria Film and Video Festival returns to Charlottesville
for its 12th annual visit to the Virginia Film Society on Wednesday,
April 5 at 7 p.m. at Vinegar Hill Theatre with Festival director
John Columbus. Eleven films will be featured during the
festival, including three films from Virginia filmmakers. These
filmmakers, Phil Hastings from Charlottesville, currently teaching
in the U.Va. Art Department, Sonali Gulati from Richmond, and
Stephanie Juanita Via from Roanoke, have all been invited to
attend.
Columbus
has consulted with Virginia Film Festival director Richard Herskowitz
in choosing titles that will appeal to the adventurous Charlottesville
audience. The selections range from brilliant and biting social
and political satire to whimsical, creative documentaries and
experimental pieces.
"We
have some great experimental animation and collage films this year, but the documentaries
are particularly strong and varied. Among the subjects of these films are the
visions of an Iraq war veteran, the black man murdered at the Rolling Stones
concert at Altamont, the outsourcing of telemarketing jobs to India and the Jewish
origins of Barbie," said Herskowitz.
The Black
Maria Festival is an international juried competition and award
tour, with a mission to exhibit and reward cutting edge works
from independent film and videomakers. Following a rigorous jury
process, the festival winners go on the road with Columbus as
he exhibits the standout films at over 70 sites around the country.
Each individual program is custom tailored to the location of
its screening.
The festival
takes its name from the world’s first film studio, built by Thomas Edison
in West Orange, N.J. It is one of only a handful of festivals
that qualify short films (40 minutes and under) for Academy Award
nomination. Since 1981, the Festival has toured coast to coast
to fulfill its mission to advocate, exhibit and reward the poetic,
expressive, and insightful vision of independent film and video
makers.
All Virginia Film Society events are co-sponsored by the
Virginia Film Festival and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities,
with the support of the Omni Hotel Charlottesville. For
more information, visit www.vafilm.com.
For high-resolution photos, visit vafilm.com. Click "Press" and
scroll down to "Images."
25th Annual Black Maria Film & Video Festival
Charlottesville Program Descriptions
Cruel Frederick - 5
min. video by Helen Quinn, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Cruel Frederick is an offbeat, hilarious and dark
animated tale about an evil little boy named Fred. A deadpan,
falsetto singing voice with perfect dramatic delivery exposes
the wacky and bizarre story of the malevolent antagonist.
I Am (Not) van Gogh - 5
min. 35mm film or video by David Russo, Seattle, Wash.
A tour de force of cinematic acrobatics I Am (Not) van Gogh teases
and delights the eye. The filmmaker exercises his prowess with
the medium through stunning pixilated photography.
Lot 63, Grave C - 10 min. video by Sam
Green, San Francisco, Calif. - Flaherty Seminar Filmmaker
This haunting video deals with the tragic events found in the
classic 1970 film Gimme Shelter by the Maysles brothers.
Sam Green gradually reveals the story of a young black man who
was murdered by Hell’s Angels because he was with a white
girl at the infamous Rolling Stones Altamont concert.
Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night - 26 min. video
by Sonali Gulati, Richmond, Va.
This timely and telling documentary incorporates animation, live
action and archival footage as it looks at globalization, identity
and the outsourcing of American jobs to India. The filmmaker,
herself a native of India, visits call centers in her homeland,
where telemarketing companies train people to speak with American
accents so that they can pose as someone they are not.
Night Visions - 7 min. video by Kathy Huang,
Mount View, Calif.
Night Visions is a reflection on life and loss as
seen through the eyes of a young soldier returning from service
in Iraq. Through his intimate interviews and personal photos
of the battlefield, we come to realize that the greatest casualties
of military conflict are not always visible to the naked eye.
One Night Sit: Gay, Disabled and Looking for Love - 11
min. video by Carmelo Gonzalez and Diana Naftal, c/o Downtown
Community Video, New York, N.Y.
Four gay men who have physical disabilities unrelated to AIDS
discuss the difficulties facing them within the gay male community. In
this reflective and often optimistic documentary, these men without
self-pity discuss dating men with and without disabilities as
well as the impact the so-called “cult of the body” has
had on them.
Reveries from Cistae Memoria - 11
min. video Phil Hastings, Charlottesville, Va.
A mysterious multilayered work filled with re-photography, step
printing, complex sound montages and ephemeral imagery, Hastings
creates a world where we see the gears and pulleys of our childhood
memories.
T.S.H. - 6 min. 16mm film by Jesse Lerner,
Los Angeles, Calif. - Flaherty Seminar Filmmaker
T.S.H., a short experimental film using found footage
which includes shots of a boxing match, is based on the 1924
poem by Kyn Taniya (a.k.a. Louis Quintanilla) who was a member
of the vanguard group known as the “Estridentistia.” Lerner’s
seemingly anarchical tactics celebrates a poorly tuned radio
and the search for transcendence in the ether.
A Time to Die - 8 min. video by Joe Gibbons,
Malden, Mass.
Among first person video diarists, iconoclast Joe Gibbons has
no equal. In this new work, he examines the pecking order
within the natural world of flowers mapping on his own psychological
issues and fears.
Tribe - 18 min. video by Tiffany Shlain, San
Francisco, Calif.
The Tribe takes the audience on an electric ride through
the complex history of both the Barbie doll and the Jewish
woman who created the pre-teen icon of the ideal female (exaggerated)
body. Using archival footage, graphics, animation, Barbie
dioramas, and slam poetry, The Tribe sheds light on
what it means to be an American Jew in the 21st Century.
True Story - 3 min. video by Stephanie Juanita
Via, Roanoke, Va.
True Story is an offbeat picture of a woman who reminisces
about her distant past as she wanders through her now abandoned
homestead in the old South. As she contemplates the past
she tells the story of her Manx cats, one of who lacked the
short tail for which the breed is known. | 
