Big MiniDV Festival | Long Island University Brooklyn | Media Arts Department

2011 Big MiniDV Festival Program

Friday, November 11, 2011

6:00 p.m.
ON GAZA’S MIND
(2011 Big MiniDV Festival Best Feature Documentary)
Dir. Carles de la Encarnacion (Spain/Israel)
51 min.

Adham Tobail is a social worker who works in the only mental health institution existent in Gaza. His daily work leads to five individuals and their families affected by conflict in the Middle East. Kids, fathers, the elderly. None are spared from trauma of the attacks.

6:55 p.m.
ATROZ [“AWFUL”]
(2011 Big MiniDV Festival Best Short Narrative)
Dir. Francisco Alvarez Perez (Spain)
10 min.

Atroz (“Awful”) is a singular teddy bear, worn and curmudgeonly, whose owner is Luna, a little girl who has taken him as her best friend. He will tell us all the misfortunes including that he will have to flee from – Luna’s ceaseless petting, endearments and games – in a live-action and animated mix about classic issues present in children's tales.

7:05 p.m.
GENTLE MEN
(Short Documentary)
Dir. Jesse Gibbons (Cuba/Canada)
8 min.

A raw look into a microcosm of Cuban reality. Senior citizens Jesus Alvarez and Hector Sanchez share a glimpse of their everyday struggle to survive in Havana while maintaining their dignity, providing a basic service to others. True. Gentle. Men.

7:15 p.m.
MY APOLOGIES
(2011 Big MiniDV Festival Best Super Short)
Dir. Andreas Goldfuss (Canada)
1 min.

A filmmaker apologizes for his film.

7:18 p.m.
SECOND GLANCE
(Short Narrative)
Dir. Laura Williams (USA)
6 min.

On an afternoon in Central Park, two strangers sit across from each other, reading silently. Each begin to note in their thoughts uncanny resemblances between the person sitting opposite and a lost loved one. As the moment begins to pass, they struggle between their desire to greet their loved one’s apparent double, and their conditioned instinct to maintain a safe distance.

7:25 p.m.
Award Ceremony

7:45 p.m.
Panel Discussion: "Technology and Its Emerging Future"

Panelists:
Daniel Durning
Daniel is a New York-based artist and designer with a diverse range of professional experiences in the field of new media design and digital media production. He has many years of experience developing projects for animation, film, broadcast, print, interactive media and the web for established industry firms and clients such as Disney, Sci-Fi Channel, Cineplex Odeon, American Heritage, IBM, and Chase Manhattan. His most recent projects include the development of his own radio show Art and Technology, Discussions with Visual and Sound Artists in conjunction with MoMA's ground breaking internet radio station WPS1, www.artonair.org. Additionally he is the organizer of the RedHook International Film & Video festival and MetroCAF for NYC ACM SIGGRAPH.

J. Adam Noah, PhD
Adam earned his PhD at Marshall University’s School of Medicine, his research on understanding the contribution of load detecting sense organs in the generation of locomotory motor patterns in cockroaches. While in Canada for his postdoctoral fellowship, Adam investigated entrainment of rhythmic pattern generation between respiration and stepping in infants. Each of these research projects utilized a heavy component of 3D analysis of motion. Adam is pursuing his interests in the field of motor control as the Engineer and Technical Director of the ADAM Center and motion capture laboratory at LIU’s Brooklyn Campus and through his participation in the Neuroimaging and Decision Sciences program at Columbia University Medical Center. He is also interested in using other aspects of the ADAM Center motion capture laboratory as a teaching tool for students in Biomechanics and 3D animation.

Stan Warnow
Stan received his BA from the University of Rochester his MFA from the NYU School of the Arts cinema program. He has worked as a cinematographer and editor on documentaries and dramatic films for his whole career. His first feature editing credit was on The Honeymoon Killers, a low budget film noir that went on to be named to the New York Times 10 best list of 1969, as well as becoming a huge European hit – Francois Truffaut at one point referred to it as "his favorite American film." His other projects include the 1970 Academy Award-winning and editing-nominated feature documentary Woodstock, Hair, Ragtime. In 1982 he co-directed, co-produced, and supervised the editing of the award winning documentary feature In Our Hands, the film chronicle of the massive June 12, 1982 New York rally against nuclear weapons and energy. His most recent project was award-winning personal documentary Deconstructing Dad, about his father – musician, composer and inventor Raymond Scott.

8:45 p.m.
YELLOW WHIRL #2
(Animation)
Dir. Marjan Moghaddam (USA)
4 min.

A visual music piece designed as an animated abstract painting triggered by music, this cinematic short takes the viewer through a delightful and exhilarating journey of stunning visuals exploring yellow and its complimentary colors. Using 3D and 2D computer graphics, each pictorial space employs its own unique cinematography and is set to a melodic, ambient electronic music composition that references analog and LoFi synthesizers.

8:50 p.m.
WISHFUL THINKING
(2011 Big MiniDV Festival Best Animated Film)
Dir. Jane Sablow (USA)
5 min.

An imaginative three year old changes the theme of her birthday party when she makes a wish and blows out the candles on her cake, much to the delight of her seven tiny guests. With nutrition as the theme, the piece presents healthy food choices to children ages 3-8, and their families, through visual storytelling and gentle humor.

9:00 p.m.
THE INTERNET GUIDE TO BLOGS
(Short Narrative)
Dir. Andy Yeomans (USA)
7 min.

James, a recent prestigious journalism school grad, has just handed in his first article at an up-and-coming news blogging website but his boss, Leonard, has a couple of pointers for him. This short satirizes the modern news and entertainment blogging industry.

9:10 p.m.
WE ARE ALL CYLONS
(Feature Documentary)
Dir. Ilana Rein (USA)
45 min.

We Are All Cylons investigates our very human enthusiasm for technology and myth by examining the metaphysical resonances of the television series Battlestar Galactica. The film explores the possibility of technological and biological immanence – transcendence manifest in the material world – and its circulation outward from its apparent science-fiction apparatus.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

12:00 a.m.
THE KROLEVSKY CASE
(Experimental)
Dir. Alessio Gambaro and Christian Zecca (Italy)
92 min.

Inspired by the drama 'Biography' by M. Frisch: Mr. Kurmann is a university teacher in the middle of a conjugal crisis. He suddenly has the exceptional possibility of modifying the course of his life by revisiting his past through theatrical rehearsals. As the scenes develop, chess-pieces compose and decompose the game-like course of his life.

1:35 p.m.
ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER LIFE
(Short Narrative)
Dir. Rohit Gupta (USA)
5 min.

For a young man, his job, his investments, his dwelling and most importantly his love is what keeps him going until the day he loses all of them. His rage and his yearning to salvage his love are so conflicted that he reacts in the most conventional fashion. But, what if that conflict itself rescues him from the brink of disaster?

1:45 p.m.
MURDER DANCE
(Experimental)
Dir. Amber Dawn (USA)
62 min.

One hot summer, a wave of violence does little to impact the insular world of artists and personalities in a Brooklyn neighborhood. The constant desire for sex, materialism and technological distractions dulls the senses of a community, leaving them vulnerable to a murderer.

2:50 p.m.
TAILOR-MADE
(Short Narrative)
Dir. Lana Yang (USA)
7 min.

Alphonse, a kind-hearted tailor, is inspired by the holiday season to craft a bespoke romance between two of his favorite customers, a widowed art therapist whose skills with the opposite sex are rusty, and a generous and feisty window-dresser.

3:00 p.m.
Industry Workshop Tools for Producing in the Digital Age
Presented in association with Movie Magic Scheduling
Stephen Booth
Starting out more than 20 years ago as a set dresser, Stephen Booth has worked on projects such as A Bronx Tale and Money Train. He became a member of the DGA in 1996 and in the early 2000s, he branched off to do projects closer to his heart. One of those projects was 25 Strong, a documentary film about the Kevin Bushell's Pre-Teen Basketball Tournament, a well-known tournament which produces many future NBA stars. He has also produced, shot and edited projects for the NAACP, The Links, Chase Bank, and Heart and Soul magazine as well as recent projects like Psychic Investigators, Fat Joe and Trey Songz' video "Ain’t About the Money," last year's Big MiniDV Festival Featured Documentary Bang the Party. He also just finished editing a documentary called Waltz for a Small World, a film about guitarist-singer Tomas Doncker.

4:10 p.m.
DR. MANGO’S EXPERIENCE
(Short Narrative)
Dir. Ryan Dilts (USA)
17 min.

"Dr. Mango's Experience" is a short film about a conflict between a grocery store owner and an amateur punk rock band that rents a loft beneath the grocery store. However, a natural disaster force both sides to put their differences aside to unite for a greater cause.

4:30 p.m.
BURMA: AN INDICTMENT
(2011 Big MiniDV Festival Best Short Documentary)
Dir. Jeremy Taylor (USA/Myanmar)
20 min.

Burma: An Indictment exposes a wealthy country whose people are starving in the streets, helpless at the hands of a brutal military dictatorship. Watch families snake their way across the Thai border to receive the most basic health care. Experience the hell of a man kept in solitary confinement for fifteen years. Listen to the monks - now living in exile - who started the “Saffron Revolution.”

4:55 p.m.
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO VIVIENNE
(Feature Documentary)
Dir. Bruno Pucella and Jean-André Fourestié (Canada)
51 min.

For more than 15 years Vivienne Deane was at the top of Montreal’s jazz scene. But well into her career, Vivienne’s real path grew clear – one lit by spirituality and conviction, but also one with a steeper road to success: gospel music. When arts councils tell her it’s not in their mandate to fund religious music, her quest seems just about impossible.

5:55 p.m.
THE SILENT KILLING
(Short Narrative)
Dir. Steven Song (USA)
5 min.

Without mercy, the killer executes his contract for that backpack on the ground. The cocaine in the backpack is enough to stone a rhino, and killing one guy isn't a heavy price to pay. An average guy would leave with the coke but he's cocky and he knows nobody is coming. Even as he thinks he’s in control of the situation, the killer finds events beyond him.

6:00 p.m.
LIVING SHADOWS
(Short Narrative)
Dir. Christer Backstrom (USA/Sweden)
6 min.

A man is oblivious to the existence of a homeless man until he gets mugged and the homeless man helps him.

6:10 p.m.
MIDDLE SCHOOL
(Feature Documentary)
Dir. Stephen Wilson (USA)
60 min.

Middle School explores the role of arts in education at a middle school in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Overcome with violence, drug addiction and low graduation rates, it is a place that reminds us of the complex task of teaching and learning in such an environment. Without the unique group of teachers that help the students connect the arts to their history, the children would be lost.

7:25 p.m.
LAST TANGO AT OPEN HOUSE
(Short Narrative)
Dir. David Simonetti (USA)
14 min.

A young woman happens upon an Open House while looking for a home. There, she is manipulated and charmed by the owner, a middle-aged man who has more than house selling on his mind. After glasses of wine, the woman makes a choice to be a little crazy as she and the owner engage in a brief encounter, one that will change the course of both their futures.

7:40 p.m.
SNAPPED
(Short Narrative)
Dir. Ronissha Marksman (USA)
10 min.

After blowing up at her boss, Brooklyn Manner is sent to see a psychologist, Dr. Bauls. During their session, Dr. Bauls examines the issues with her job, with love and with people in general. Can Dr. Bauls help her release her anger or does he become her next victim?

7:55 p.m.
DARKEST NIGHT & DEEPEST SLEEP
(Short Documentary)
Dir. Sarah Palm (USA)
14 min.

This documentary explores what that experience is like for those who suffer from Pavor nocturnus, or night terrors, through interviews and artistic interpretations of the night terrors themselves. The film also investigates treatment possibilities for the disorder through interviews with the staff at the North Dakota Center for Sleep and demonstrations of possible treatments.

8:15 p.m.
THE HIDDEN PERSUADERS
(2011 Big MiniDV Festival Best Experimental)
Dir. Wayne Dudley (UK - Scotland)
113 min.

The singer of Processed Minds has been found dead. Written off as a drug-fuelled accident, the Police are looking at an open and shut case. However, a reporter's instincts are proven right when a conversation reveals more questions than answers. He must use his experience as he delves into a world of corruption, murder, Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll.

Screenplays

WRIGLEY & KING
(2011 Big MiniDV Festival Best Short Screenplay)
Written by Cornelius Murphy

A man attends his brother's funeral and reflects on his childhood memory of the time when his brother took revenge against a neighbor for killing the family dog.

DIRTY BUSINESS
(2011 Big MiniDV Festival Best Feature Screenplay)
Written by Haik Hakobian

Harvard business graduate Julia Madison hopes to be the next CEO of her family's multimillion dollar corporation, but she inherits a dilapidated auto repair shop instead. To prove herself, she takes on the task of rebuilding the rundown shop. After months of struggle, the task is more daunting than Julia could have imagined.

The Festival

The BIG MINIDV FESTIVAL is a two-day event hosted by the Media Arts Department of Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus. The festival recognizes the best long and short form documentary, experimental, short form narrative and Super Short video productions created with the MiniDV and digital formats. Short- and feature-length screenplays are also in competition and rewarded - though not read nor performed during the festival itself.

With our tenth festival, we celebrate a decade of the Big MiniDV Festival and as always, continue to encourage filmmakers of all genres and technical levels to submit their videos, and again demonstrate this year's festival as an exciting array of independent video.

“Technology and Its Emerging Future” – Festival Theme

What is the future of media and where is our relationship with it going? “Technology and Its Emerging Future,” as it relates to media arts, cannot answer that question completely but it can expand our understanding beyond easy answers. The energy of the massively interactive web and its cultural extensions integrate to shrink physical global boundaries while expanding the global consciousness. What will “cyberspace” be in ten years? Are we looking at Neuromancer in our lifetimes, where we can “jack in” or is are we looking at a different human/machine interface? How do all these elements relate to the production of media objects and the developments in media arts?

Technology in the 21^st Century continues to integrate at the core of creativity.

When & Where:

The BIG MINIDV FESTIVAL will take place on Friday, November 11 and Saturday, November 12, 2011 at Long Island University's Downtown Brooklyn Campus (ten minutes from Wall Street and SoHo). All festival screenings will be held in the LIU-Brooklyn Media Arts Department’s Spike Lee Video/Film Screening Room (see map).

The festival is free and open to the public. Please enter through the Paramount Theater entrance of LIU at the corner of DeKalb and Flatbush Avenue Extension.