2008 Schedule and Program Announced

2008 PROGRAM
Minneapolis Underground Film Festival
MCAD 2501 Stevens Avenue South, Minneapolis, Mn, 55404
August 29th-31st 2008

Friday 29th August 2008

Opening night film World Premier from Germany
7:30 PM
Saila
94mins


Filmmaker in attendance available for Q&A after screening

A marooned area turns into a parallel universe filled with obsession,violence, and anarchy. This is where Saila lives in an abandoned high-rise block to receive her visitors. Time and space become blurred while voices over the radio report on disasters and catastrophes.A surreal underground epos with a haunting soundtrack and one of film history’s bloodiest love scenes. Julia Ostertag’s full-length feature film debut was shot guerilla-style in East Berlin’s industrial wasteland.

Website : www.saila-film.de
www.julia-ostertag.de
www.myspace.com/wasteland_film

Trailer: http://www.saila-film.de/trailer.htm



9:30 PM
UNSPEAKABLE: THE LIFE AND ART OF REVEREND STEVEN JOHNSON LEBYA
82mins


Filmmaker in attendance screening followed by Q&A
Possibly objectionable content that may offend some viewers.


Reverend Steven Johnson Leyba is the kind of man who will paint over the American flag then remind you that "flag etiquette" has been royally pissed on by most major designers without anyone raising an eyebrow. He is a legally ordained Priest in the Church of Satan. He is known in the underground art world as the "Father of Sexpressionism". The man views every kind of bodily excretion as a viable medium with which to paint. He is deeply in touch with his Native American ancestry.

And his performances, well, they're not even legal in some places...

These juxtapositions may seem like a lot to ponder, but they represent just a scratch on the surface. For nearly two years, Reverend Leyba permitted the filmmaker's cameras to observe his life, his art, and his infamous personal rituals. Some of this extraordinarily unique footage charts a terrain of human behavior that has rarely, if ever, been explored within the documentary form.

The Reverend's prolific and varied artistic output reflects his unyielding political and religious opinions. UNSPEAKABLE captures the unusual behavior of this Satanic Priest and takes a firsthand look at the issues that propel his work. The film hops from one inimitable character to the next as they grapple with topics ranging from the denial of the "American Holocaust" to the discovery of new ways to make an explosively sexual/political statement with a whiskey bottle.

The resulting portrait is of an artist with a perversely brilliant vision. He is both humor and fury. He is grotesque, yet possesses the UNSPEAKABLE beauty of a man free enough to confront and embrace his own humanity.

Website: http://www.unspeakablemovie.com
Trailer: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-6928536836448877005&hl=en



Saturday 30th August 2008

10:00AM Auditorium A

Bonjour Je M’appelle Maxime Renard
82mins

Trailer: http://www.ecufilmfestival.com/interactive/index.php?2008/02/20/154-bonjour-je-m-appelle-maxime-renard-hello-my-name-is-maxime-renard-ecu-2008-european-dramatic-feature-category



10:00AM Aditorium B

DOWNTIME
74mins



DOWNTIME 74mins

DOWNTIME explores a day in the life of a group of people who have all wandered off their desired path. First time director, Rob Tiffin, hated working at Olde Atlanta Golf Club, so he decided to secretly make a movie about it. He worked during the day and then stayed to shoot at night after the boss went home.

Website: myspace.com/rttiffin
Trailer: http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=7704118

11:30AM Auditorium B

WESTSIDER
20mins




Cheerfully subversive, “Westsider” takes the viewer along the route of an unashamedly self-centered graduate of an L.A. architecture school who uses and abuses everyone in his path in order to attain his goal of becoming the next Frank Gehry-type superstar architect. A subtle and sarcastic portrayal of Los Angeles excess, naked ambition and misguided idealism, “Westsider” is perhaps the first film in history to leave you with a feel-good suicide finale.

“Westsider” was shot guerrilla-style without permits on a microbudget in neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles county over a period of eight days. Nine different film stocks were used to emphasize the different locales.

Website: www.westsiderfilm.com
Trailer link: http://www.westsiderfilm.com/westsider_trailer.php

12:00PM
ALTAMONT NOW
80mins


There are two truly great things about this extremely fun film. The first is that von Brown found an actual missile silo in which to shoot. In no-budget underground films, one is used to seeing ordinary locations having some cheap decorations strewn about to sub for unfilmable places, e.g. Mike Kuchar thowing up a couple of tawdry curtains in his Brooklyn bedroom to become a futuristic palace in Sins of the Fleshapoids. But being able to film in a real abandoned military installation gives a nice air of gravitas to Altamont Now. Based on the location alone, the film demands the audience to take everything seriously despite it being an outrageous comedy.

The other great thing about this film is the star-making lead performance by Daniel Louis Rivas as Richard Havoc. Again, the film is a comedy, but von Brown has his actors playing the entire thing straight and Havoc is a completely unsympathetic, ego-bloated lunatic. Rivas has a difficult line to walk. His character is supposed to be over-the-top ridiculous, but Rivas holds enough of himself back so that he’s not buffoonish. Much of the humor of the film comes from Rivas’ straight-laced, deadpan delivery. All the other actors — including Frankie Shaw, Teddy Eck, Matthew Humphreys and Raphael Nash Thompson — all put in superb performances, too, but Rivas has a real forceful charisma that makes him thoroughly compelling to watch.

Official Website: www.altamontnow.com
Movie Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqJiLNWohH0
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/altamontnow
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Altamont-Now/9680348762

1:30PM
LOVE: A documentary
83mins



In the fall of 2006, videographer Ethan Burroughs was working on location at Cratech Industries producing a promotional film about the local company.

While taping interviews of employees , Burroughs befriended John Stevens, a shy, middle-level financial analyst that was unresponsive to direct questions about the company.

Instead, Stevens spoke earnestly and passionately about how he believed that God had recently chosen him to spread love and happiness throughout an uncaring world.

Over the course of three months, Burroughs taped hours of interviews with Stevens as he described how he was reaching out to others and teaching them to live a more spiritual, rewarding, nurturing life—a life of generosity, forgiveness, and compassion.

This film is a chronicle of John’s journey as he fights against-all-odds to find a shadow of love in an often dark and indifferent modern world ...

Website:http://www.loveadocumentary.com/
Trailer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=VUIuZwQHiPU


3:00PM

BOX ELDER
99mins


Box elder bugs are loud, scary looking, and dependent on group swarming. Yet, they're also completely harmless and extremely passive aggressive. Using this metaphor to address a generation that thinks big, talks fast, and threatens to change the world, Box Elder is an unapologetic portrait of a youth movement at odds with its own ambivalence, exposing a generation defined by privilege, potential, and self-induced paralysis.

At once painfully hilarious and delicately poignant, the film follows four best friends through their last years of college. Dependant on their parents financially, and on each other emotionally, they spend their time sleeping in, hanging out, and eating lots of sandwiches. Using break-ups and re-occurring scholastic failures to impose a quarter-life crisis, they take turns postponing responsibility, avoiding accountability, and looking for someone or something to substantiate their lives, all the while hedging their bets and mastering the art of treading water and getting away with it.

Shot locally in Columbia, MO on a shoe-string budget, Sklar's debut feature is a collegiate love letter that not only paints an honest portrait of it's subject matter, but also evokes the nostalgic yearning the film's character's revel in.

Website - www.boxeldermovie.com

Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nQtLUo0OkU


5:00PM

LONGGONE
101min




David Eberhardt and Jack Cahill spent seven years riding the rails, asking for spare change and swapping stories around campfires with train hoppers. Their labors are repaid with a mesmerizing documentary full of touching characters and beautiful landscapes.

Dog Man Tony is known for his unwavering honesty and fierce temper. New York Slim speaks in great parables. Joshua Long Gone and Horizontal John are a gray-bearded Huck and Tom. As these real-life characters and many others make their way to nowhere in particular, breathtaking cinematography (which earned top honors at the 2003 Slamdance Film Festival) captures a perspective of the United States -- spectacular sunsets over rocky peaks, vibrant green plains, desolate cityscapes -- that could only be seen from a rail car and sets it to haunting original songs by Tom Waits.

The promise of freedom is as romantic as a Beat Generation travelogue, but real life for the train hoppers is far from ideal. They have run-ins with family members and police; they pick food from trash cans; and way too may are alcoholics and addicts. Yet they know they've been discarded by mainstream society, which makes their bond to one another that much stronger. Many are also former military men, and that experience is born out in the stories, rituals, and honor among them as their paths cross beside the tracks.

Long Gone poignantly captures a marginalized homeless group for which misconceptions have far too often prevailed and shows that the yearning for community doesn't change much from person to person, even if the definition of community does.

-Sean Fowler for the Tribeca Film Festival


WEBSITE: http://longgonefilm.com/
TRAILER : http://longgonefilm.com/longgoneclip.html

7:30PM

CREEP
11:00


Originally produced for Bobbi Miller's "Intoxicating" cabaret series for Minneapolis's Bryant Lake Bowl Theater, "creep." is an experimental film combining stock footage and testimonial storytelling. Creep. is a specific brutally honest story told by Paul von Stoetzel about alcoholism and abuse intertwined with various footage from different time periods which pertain to the subject of drinking and its effects. Creep. is in keeping with Killing Joke Film's intention to work with ugly and difficult subject matter that borders on social commentary and potential exploitation leaving the audience to decide.

SNUFF: A documentary about killing on camera.
76mins


SNUFF: a documentary about killing on camera is a documentary examining the existence of films where people are murdered on camera and the culture that surrounds said films. Through interviews with former FBI Profilers, Cultural Academics, and Film Historians the film delves into the subject by attempting to define what a Snuff Film is. Snuff Films are, by legal definition, made with the intention of distribution to a relatively mass market. However, the FBI claims there is no evidence to prove the existence of Snuff, and, therefore, Snuff is a myth. Many others have found Snuff Films to be at the most a perpetuation of American violent culture. This ideology is usually tied in with extreme horror or cult films that have been investigated as suspected Snuff, all of which have been found “innocent” of actually capturing a murder on film.

The history of Snuff begins in the late 1960’s, a time in which Snuff was primarily a tool for those who opposed Pornography. Different political groups attacked the Pornography Industry by claiming Snuff Films, the most abhorrent concept in film, was linked with Pornography. Soon after, rumors began circulating that serial killers such as Charles Manson made Snuff Films that have circulated among various cult members. Specifically the documentary deeply examines the infamous serial killer case of Leonard Lake and Charles Ng who brutally tortured, sexually abused and murdered their victims on camera.

SNUFF also analyzes the relationship between war and this “myth” that has seemingly been debunked time and time again, yet continues to thrive. The Snuff Film was born during the time of the Vietnam War, and it is clear that Snuff and war remain intrinsically linked. This is shown through an examination of the current Iraq War. Specifically, the documentary exposes the videos of beheaded Americans as the newest manifestation of Snuff Films, and that these images are only at the surface of this genesis.

SNUFF: a documentary about killing on camera discusses the ways in which the existence or non-existence of these films bring together such unlikely bedfellows as Pornography, news media, war, horror films, and serial killers, molding them into a truly monstrous whole. It depicts a dark reality that has been largely ignored by the media, and yet is one of the most disturbing concepts of the last century and needs to either be proven or laid to rest.


Website: www.killingjokefilms.com
Trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNAXosdhS-E

9:30PM
Marta’s Sex Tape
46min




Filmmaker in attendance available for Q&A after screening

All artists eventually have to expose themselves. Art is about not being afraid of letting the world see you as you are. Otherwise – what is it that you're doing in this very short life? So when you do finally stand there, naked in front of everyone, well… you better love yourself or at least feel very comfortable with what you are saying. It's that security that allows artists not to worry what others might think, because in the end artists are the ones that create, reflect, express and make people wonder in amazement.

Website: http://www.martasextape.com/

trailer: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7548794309420324060&q=marta%27s+sex+tape&ei=pLhrSPzuK4aUrgOOwJmuDw

11:00 PM
Hook-nose
48min



Possibly objectionable content that may offend some viewers.
Filmmaker in attendance available for Q&A after screening

Middle child syndrome is even harder when your older sister is a work at home porn-star and your younger sister is pregnant and determined to have the illegitimate child of an Orthodox Jewish man.
But at the same time you can kind of see where they are both coming from…I'm wouldn’t mind breaking into the adult business, you’d get to have sex a lot. She could help, but I guess I’m just stalled and scared to see my own flesh and blood naked…or to even acknowledge that that's what she does for a living.
And the younger sister? Well, we have been mistaken for being Jewish our whole life. Must be the last name. So maybe she is onto something? What do our parents think?…It's surprising what you can keep a secret from your parents once you're all grown-up.

Website: http://www.15yearsinproduction.com/project.php?page=405
Trailer:


SUNDAY 31st August 2008

10:00AM

Rosebery 7470
92mins

ROSEBERY 7470 will plunge you into the disturbing depths of a remote Australian mining town, where one girl's nightmares, fantasies and realities collide. Abandoned by her family and suffering at the hands of her mother and her twisted views, the girl fantasizes about zombies, commits matricide and engages in an unwitting love triangle with her estranged sister as she slowly loses grip on reality. An ambitious debut feature from experimental filmmaker Stefan Popescu: be prepared for an injection of insanity and tragedy straight to the eyeball. ROSEBERY 7470 is disturbing.

website: http://www.sydneyundergroundfilms.com/rosebery.html

10:00 AM Auditorium B

Trickery Mimicry
80mins



Filmmaker in attendance available for Q&A after screening

It begins with the arrival of two travelers to an isolated farm inhabited by a single man. One of the travelers explains car trouble and asks to use a phone. While the man is nervous at their arrival he is also sympathetic to the situation offering his phone and a place to stay when help cannot come immediately. Time passes and the travelers do not leave setting in motion events of increasing peculiarity. One of them begins appreciating the environment gaining access to the daily routine while the other stays isolated and distant. The farmer offers insight and knowledge to the curious traveler furthering an awareness of the future they all must choose. But it is a future of overlap, timelines, and scraps feeding on the spaces of cinematic inevitability.

Trickery Mimicry Official Website http://www.myspace.com/trickerymimicry

Trickery Mimicry Official Teaser Trailer: http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=33731128



12:00PM

On the Road with Judas


Writer/director JJ Lask adapted his darkly comic satire On the Road With Judas from his best-selling 2002 novel of the same name. Set in the early 1990s, the story follows a seemingly conservative New York businessman (Napoleon Dynamite's Aaron Ruell) who moonlights as a cutthroat computer thief. Lask employs an eclectic combination of formal elements in his creation of the film, including fictional narrative, pseudo-documentary, and several additional storytelling modes. Leo Fitzpatrick, Kevin Corrigan and Eddie Kaye Thomas co-star. P.S. 260, the production shingle founded by Lask, oversaw production of the project. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Website: http://www.ontheroadwithjudas.com
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1zTUoSPPtg

12:00PM
Auditorium B
Automatic
30mins


Eric is writing a series of letters to a woman he does not know. In his letters, he purges his secret fantasies in a futile attempt to take control of his life. Seda, the object of his desire, is a chronic writer of complaint letters. Unwittingly, she begins to receive Eric's letters; as his communiqués intensify, so do her insecurities and fears, manifesting themselves in a frenetic dream sequences.
Automatic combines humor with unbalance; live-action + stop-motion to slip the viewer through reality and fantasy until the line is no longer discernable.
Automatic is based loosely on the Haruki Murakami story, the sculpture by Ed and Nancy Keinholz, and bridal magazines from the 70s found in a recessed ceiling in 1995.

Website: www.sharonmooney.com
Trailer: http://www.gosharongo.com/videos_art.html


1:00 PM
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Snare
8mins


An artist tries to disrupt the destruction of nature...


Midnight Motel
7min38

MOTEL. MIDNIGHT. MURDER.
It's a typical evening at the insipid Maple Plain Motel. That is until a famous veterinarian, a lonely librarian, and a high school double date check in. A pleasant summer twilight quickly spirals out of control once the dark night falls across the small Midwestern town. Shots are fired; blood is shed. Now it is up to a chic, seasoned,
personal investigator to stop the carnage before it's too late. Because darkness at the Maple Plain motel can only mean one thing…MURDER.
Midnight Motel is a critically acclaimed film from the creators of Death Favor (Winner Best Film, Minneapolis Film Race) and Kismet and Cigarettes. Midnight Motel was worthy of three awards at the 2007 Minneapolis 48 Hour Film Challenge due to the film's beautiful cinematography, impeccable editing and eerie special effects.

Website:www.myspace.com/halfeatenproductions

Trailer: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfmfuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=37584026



Disconnect
7:00

A short film about the final moments in the relationship of two heroin addicts.

Trailer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=6mhNHIzoaY0


Sunlit Blanket
3:48

The Sunlit Blanket is a film about how I sacrificed my body and myself to others, and the sunlight was the only thing left to clothe me. It is a journey through the college campus of University of Arizona at Tucson and my interaction with the Bourgeois Bohemian students who were also from Atlanta. It is also about how distracted I was after that experience, and how it prevented me from obtaining a conservative occupation like my fellow companions. I was naïve to other’s motives as we made our travels to the Grateful Dead shows, and how I began to see Jerry Garcia as a hero and also as an evasion from doing “natural” conservative activities.

Tenia
5min

A dark drama about the violence that goes unnoticed everyday, done in one single unbroken take, with a few other shots laid over it.

Gas Guzzler Blues
2:00

Gas Guzzler’s Blues is my humorous commentary on fuel consumption in the United States. It was produced in 2005, around the time George Bush and the Senate won the vote to begin exploratory oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I was so pissed off that I had to make this film.

Website: http://www.myspace.com/rgoodwyn

Trailer: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=37834489

Rebel
10:20

A developmentally disabled man has his first sexual encounter while out with his meth addicted brother in this exploration of a world estranged from everyday values and ideals.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/v/8myZS2gZyr0



Attackzoids
7:37

A mysterious woman spends her final hour on the run from massive killer robots in a world that is not what it appears to be. ATTACKAZOIDS' dark atmosphere of fascist alien domination creates a metaphorical nightmare satirizing propaganda and imperialism.

Website: http://robothandfilms.com

Trailer: http://robothandfilms.com/videos.html

Confetti Kite
3:30


Drain
10min

Two lifelong friends, Gene (Charlie Steak) and Lenny (Jason J Baker) spend their days drifting through alleyways, begging for change and surviving on the streets . When an opportunity arises that could change both of their lives, Gene begins to doubt Lenny's methods of survival. As their journey winds down to a close, Gene must make a decision that will drastically affect both his life and the life of his only friend.

website: http://www.synthetichuman.com/drain/

Trailer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=tg_rxlQ_BaA

Fingernails
12:30min

The 5 Steps to your personal golden gate
11:00min

As Paul begins to navigate married life with his new wife, Kristen, he turns to the financial tutelage of Dr. Ron Peters and his latest self help guide, The 5 Steps To Your Personal Golden Gate. Paul hangs on Dr. Ron's every word as he attempts to cross the bridge between rocky ground and financial freedom. Meanwhile, Kristen endures each misguided step with dwindling hope that they will ever reach their money wonderland.

Website: http://www.myspace.com/mplsfilms

Trailer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=CSvjiw_10fQ


Our Joey
10:00min


4:00PM
Seeking Wellness: Suffering Through Four Movements
91mins

'Seeking Wellness: Suffering Through Four Movements' is a
collection of four interconnected conceptual video vignettes; 'Cup of
Friendship, Shrine of Scars' tells the heroic story of a group of burn
survivors during their first painful steps towards recovery, 'Daddy's
Time' is the story of how a divorced father tries desperately to
develop an emotional connection with his children during the Christmas
holiday and fails, 'Malignant Love' is a documentary about Patient 12
and his quest to reunite with a woman who has broken his heart, 'Final
Project' is a precise and protracted classroom drama with a
spectacular conclusion.
Each of the vignettes explores ideas related to victimization, recovery and empathy, and each contains a calculated progression or regression of specific visual motifs.
'Seeking Wellness' features musical contributions from world famous painter and musician Chris Mars as well as legendary composer and noise artist : Marhaug. Additionally 'Seeking Wellness' contains a one-of-a-kind contribution from virtuoso makeup artist Crist Ballas.


WEBSITE: www.seeking-wellness.com

TRAILER(S)
http://www.seeking-wellness.com/SCARS4WEB.mov
http://www.seeking-wellness.com/DADDY4WEB.mov
http://www.seeking-wellness.com/MALIG4WEB.mov
http://www.seeking-wellness.com/FINAL4WEB.mov

6:00PM

Trailer Trash
53mins



Trailer Trash: a Film Journal is an intimate documentary that chronicles more than a four year period of intense turmoil in the filmmaker's family. The film documents the family struggling to come to terms with the death and dying process of the filmmaker's grandmother diagnosed with terminal cancer. The theme of death portrayed in scenes of the declining health of his grandmother is vividly contrasted with the theme of birth portrayed by the simultaneous and complicated birth of the filmmaker's first child. Following the death of the filmmaker's grandmother, the family experiences the brutal murder of the grandfather allegedly at the hands of the filmmaker's youngest sister and her boyfriend. The filmmaker has captured the raw emotions of his family in this disturbing and compelling true life tale. The documentary is narrated by the filmmaker, and home movie footage is woven together with candid digital interviews to create an extraordinary personal statement about poverty, prejudice and the harsh reality of drug addiction in rural America.

Website: www.trailertrashafilmjournal.com
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZfXSPbLhpA

7:00PM
Je ne sais quoi
93mins



This is a story of the mysterious force that fuels attraction and desire, success and vitality, that elusive 'je ne sais quoi'. Some have it, some don't, and Paul, an unpredictable loner, falls into the latter category. A frustrated creative living a dead end life, Paul is at odds with everything in his environment and with himself. When he reaches out to Anna, a seemingly kindred spirit who lives across the hall, could things be changing for him? With a distinctive sharp wit and visual expression, the film
explores the complexities of 21st century relationships and the fine line between acceptance of others and settling for less.

Homepage: http://www.jnsqfilm.com

Trailer: http://www.jnsqfilm.com/trailer2.mov

9:00PM

Group Home
93mins




Group Home is about two guys in prison that get out on a work release program. The catch is that they must work at a Group Home for developmentally disabled adults. They find conditions to be so bad that they butt heads with the non-inmate staff to turn the house around.

Website: www.myspace.com/longcoatfilms

Trailer: http://www.indieflix.com/TitleSearchResults.aspx?q=group+home