Contemplating the City (Contemplando La Ciudad)
Angela Reginato
2005 3:30 min B/W US/MX
World Premiere, Filmmarker in Person
Perfectly without affect, a girl sings along with a pop tune, transporting herself through space and time to Mexico City circa 1978.

Orange, Red, Erupts
Theofano Pitsillidou
2004 5 min Color US
World Premiere
A hand-painted film composed of colors and sounds records how the sky reacts to the rising and setting of the sunÑtranscending the depiction of a natural phenomenon to evoke emotional states that rise and set, erupt and extinguish.

Aspect
Emily Robinson
2004 9 min Color UK
Filmed in a forest over one year, the wonder of light and color throughout the seasons becomes the main protagonist. Shadows float across the frame and viewers begin to see more than just trees and natureÑthey see a dance of light and shadow that abstract the real environment.

The Influence of Ocular Light Perception on Metabolism
Stella Friedrichs & Thomas Draschan
2005 5 min Color Austria/Germany
World Premiere
A rhythmically edited found-footage celebration of nature. Set to a driving beat with snippets of found sound, this is nature like you have never seen itÉ. Come and take a colorful, sexual five-minute ride.

The Adventure Parade
Kerry Laitala
2000 5 min Color US
Filmmaker in Person
Tigers prowl across the screen and couples embrace in horror, or is it love? Laitala expertly manipulates found footage as if she is working with old home movies. The inherent violence, only hinted at, lies beyond the threshold of understanding. We are offered only clues.

Moon Streams
Mary Beth Reed
2001 6 min Color US
Moon Streams builds up a surface tension that seems quite rocky and solid. This surface gradually begins to crumble, and a bubbling of dusty gold begins, like a geyser, to break up this tension. The surface of paints and rhythms begin to flow with the water and everything inside the body of work begins spilling out until electrical creative charges accompany the liquid gold and rock. Suddenly, out of this storm comes a red and yellow explosion of warmth and creativity. (C. Hoskins)

Redshift
Emily Robinson
2001 4 min Color UK
In astronomical terminology ÒredshiftÓ is used to calculate the distance of stars from the earth, hence determining their age. Using long exposures, fixed camera positions and time-lapse animation techniques, Redshift attempts to show the enormous geometry of the night sky and give an alternative perspective on the nightscape usually invisible to the naked eye.

Bouquets 1-10
Rose Lowder
1994-95 11 min Color France
A symphony of color and movement, Lowder uses frame-by-frame photography taken with a hand-held camera to witness vibrant flowers and seaside pastimes.

Quick's Thicket
Diane Kitchen
2004 6:50 min Color US
Forces of wind and light provoke nature's occurrences.

Picture Again
Linda Christanell
2003 9 min Color Austria
Filmmaker in Person
Barbara Stanwick and Fred MacMurray star in this sultry reframing of Double Indemnity. Freed from the confines of the Billy Wilder's narrative, the film links this classic Hollywood film noir to her own stunning footage taken in the streets of Berlin and Madrid.

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Who is Gunnar?
Tilda Lovell
2004 5:40 min Color mini-DV Sweden
World Premiere, Filmmarker in Person Observe Gunnar, a sad grasshopper who is maimed by an unwanted surgery. Follow him as he looks for his stolen body part and finds new friends.

Sindrome de Linea Blanca
Lourdes Villagomez
2005 7 min Color Beta SP Mexico
CA Premiere A young girl is killed by a car. Villagomez uses stop-motion animation, cutouts of people within life size sets and live-action footage to tell the story of a life that never was.

Silig (Undertow)
Vivian Limpin
1996 7:26 min Color 16mm Philippines
Using white ink on black paper, Limpin ruminates about all the ways one can end it all.

Give AIDS the Freeze
Cathy Joritz
1996 2 min B/W 16mm Germany
Hand-drawn animation over a 1950s educational film is used to create this raucous promotional piece.

Small & Deep, Love Stories
Hsin-Ping Pan
2005 6:40 min Color Beta SP US
Northern CA Premiere A visual poem of love and passion.

Emblem
Cecilia Lundqvist
2001 2:27 min Color mini-DV Sweden
US Premiere Women in bathing suites and socks doing gymnastics. What are the posh British men so sorry about? Look closely.

The Guilt Trip, or The Vatican Takes a Holiday
Lisa Barcy
2004 14 min Color mini-DV US
CA Premiere In a dilapidated church, icons of Catholicism run amok, Jesus and Mary Magdalene steal away for an adventurous road trip, and the Pope tends his restless herd with an iron fist. Told with stop-motion animated puppets and mixed media, The Guilt Trip examines the notion that you can always leave, but you can never really escape.

Gum and Tea
Samuael Topiary and E.E. Miller
2005 4:50 min Color mini-DV US
West Coast Premiere A meditation on oral fixation and the presidency, this short features an unnamed local artist as she talks about her fanciful project for the president of the US.

Echoes of Bats and Men
Jo Dery
2005 7 min Color 16mm US
West Coast Premiere The night shift begins with a musical history lesson sung by a chubby skunk. Learn about Rhode Island's industrial evolution through the midnight flight of a little bat and her many friends.

Ero Sawhang Blues
Kay Lee
2004 4:25 min Color mini-DV South Korea
World Premiere Premiere A gun, a little girl, a man and a masturbating older womanÉsomething is bound to happen.

Cosmetic Emergency
Martha Colburn
2005 9 min Color mini-DV The Netherlands
This music-driven film takes viewers on a humorous and politicized hip hop tour of the cosmetic surgery obsession. Sequences are created with paint-on-glass animation, found footage and documentary techniques. Dutch Ambassador of Cosmetic Surgery Marijke Helwegen makes a rare cameo. Original music by New Zealand's, Coco Solid and Half Japanese founder Jad Fair, British radio artist Mick Hobbs, and trombonist Hilary Jeffery.

Jack and Jill
Andrea Shear
2004 1:26 min Color Beta SP US
Filmmaker in Person A fresh look at this classic nursery rhyme.

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Woman Without a Past
Lisa Barcy
2004 5 min Color mini-DV US
Bay Area Premiere
Using stop-motion animation, the filmmaker deconstructs the romance novelÑliterally. Text comes alive to create an enigmatic portrait of a mysterious woman, exposing everything, yet revealing nothing.

Ice/Sea
Vivian Ostrovsky
2004 32 min Color 16mm France
West Coast Premiere
Ostrovsky's latest tour-de-force combines her signature style of montage cinema-mixing found footage with her own shot footage. Ice/Sea offers a hyperactive and hilarious seaside romp from Patagonia to Odessa, Rio to Viet Nam, and elsewhere. The rollicking at a channel-surfing pace proves experimental cinema can have a joyous edge and a sense of humor. The soundtrack has an ingenious tidal flow of found and created sound that propels this rambling document of sheer, sandy fun. Ostrovsky, who grew up in Rio de Janeiro, has captured the essence of how life is a beachÑthe commingling of families, couples and playmates, the languorous sun-worshiping repose, the irresistible compulsion for leering, the cavalcade of characters, and the surprises beyond the inevitable sand-in-your-suit. The celebrated avant-gardist has wryly advised, ÒWear your flip flops.Ó Watch for a cameo appearance by fellow filmmaker Ulriche Ottinger.

Birdlings Two
Davina Pardo
2004 6 min Color Beta SP US
SF Premiere
This personal essay explores the legacy of Birdlings, a film made by Pardo's father decades ago. Using his film along with archival footage and photographs, Birdlings Two is a meditation on the relationships between art and invention, hopes and disappointment, fathers and daughters.

Periodical
Sarah Christman
2004 3:55 min Color mini-DV US
It's June 2004 and the cicadas are ascending after their 17-year hibernation. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan dies, Smarty Jones loses his big race, and the war plods on. Using various animation techniques, this is one woman's frame-by-frame account of a very hot week.

In Whose Name?
Nandini Sikand
2004 10:50 min Color mini-DV US
West Coast Premiere
This filmic essay, which follows the co-opting of icons by political agendas and parties, is told through personal narrative, Super-8mm movies, Bollywood films and comic book art.

boop-oop-a-doop
Sachiko Hayashi
2004 5 min Color mini-DV US/Sweden
West Coast Premiere
In her observation of daily life, Hayashi plays with three elements: the creation of identity, media culture, and our own desire to be somebody else. By focusing on two prominent figures in mass media culture, Marilyn Monroe and Betty Boop, the video demonstrates how these three elements intermingle.

Perhaps the Singer Is Dead
Mary Billyou
2004 5 min Color mini-DV US/Sweden
2004 6:30 min Color mini-DV US
Waves of television roll-bars lull the viewer into a false demi-sleep while subtitled text accuses the audience: "You'd make a terrible witness."

Big Shtick
Courtney Egan
2003 3 min Color mini-DV US
2004 6:30 min Color mini-DV US
How did that fluke of evolution, the opposable thumb, influence entertainment? This video makes the case that "the shtick is the stick."

Pounds Per Square Inch
Heather Posner
2004 5:50 min Color 16mm US
World Premiere
A young woman recalls a dream involving a make-out session in a bathroom. She attempts to solve the riddle of heterosexual feminist fantasy.

Where's My Boyfriend?
Gretchen Hogue
2005 2 min Color mini-DV US
California Premiere
A biological clock explosion of penises and fetuses. This one's for the ladies. Can you hear the ticking?

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A Second Final Rest: The History of San Francisco's Lost Cemeteries
Trina Lopez
2004 46:16 min Color 16mm
Filmmaker in Person Following the earthquake and fire of 1906, San Francisco rose from the ashes to become one of the liveliest cities in America. But it also managed to erase virtually all traces of its dead. Lopez exhumes this hidden historyÑhow did a modern metropolis manage to systematically relocate nearly all of its burial grounds to make room for the living? Through recollections of residents who remember these forgotten graveyards to reflections on present-day conflicts that pit the living against the dead, A Second Final Rest provides insight into the City by the Bay's relationship to death.

Open
Katherin McInnis
2005 4 min Color mini-DV
World Premiere, Filmmaker in Person An impressionistic slice of night, Open captures the mundane comings and goings at a strip club.

Living Poets
Erica Filanc
2005 9:19 min Color 16mm
World Premiere, Filmmaker in Person A group of San Francisco poets reclaim a heroine-trafficked street corner by staging weekly outdoor poetry jams. Against a harsh background, Living Poets documents these nightly renegade performances and questions their impact on the community.

Alloy
Phoebe Tooke
2005 2 min B/W mini-DV US
World Premiere, Filmmaker in Person Shot mostly in San Francisco, Alloy is an experimental video about the future of architecture.

Police Blotter
Kristen Nutile
2004 4 min Color mini-DV
Bay Area Premiere
The buzz and pop of a police blotter is the background for this profile of poor and middle-class neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area. Details of crimes and would-be crimes flash on the screenÑquick takes on the daily doings in these otherwise quiet communities.

Green Cross
Ashley Tindall
2004 3:16 min B/W mini-DV SF Premiere
Filmmaker in Person
A car-crash survivor suffering from chronic pain, Kevin Reed fought the Feds to open one of the city's first successful nonprofit medicinal marijuana dispensaries.

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Janie's Janie
Geri Ashur
1971 20 min B/W US
This beautifully shot black-and-white film incorporates cinema veritŽ footage and first-person accounts by Janie telling the story of her life. The raw interviews show this young, dynamic single mother of three on the goÑdressing her children for school and reprimanding them when they stray. Always with a cigarette in her mouth and her hair in an "up-do," Janie's blunt and inspiring tale reveals her strength as well as an unexpected alliance between her and other poor women.

Betty Tells Her Story
Liane Brandon
1972 20 min B/W US
This diptych features a direct address interview with Betty, a working class woman who tells a seemingly funny and straightforward story about buying a new dress. As Betty tells and re-tells her story, something more complex than vanity is revealed, raising questions of a woman's value, beauty and worth. "This classic study of the tyranny of the beauty ideal is perhaps more relevant today than ever before. Brandon's film tells a story that is funny, moving, and powerfully illuminating." Jean Kilbourne.

Girls at 12
Joyce Chopra
1974 30 min Color US
A chronicle of three girls growing up in an industrial suburb near Boston, this cinema veritŽ film traces their dreams and expectations of the future. Through sleepovers, dance parties, and interviews, Chopra gives insight into the socialization of boys and girls in America in the 1970s, and the gender confines they faced.

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Between Rooms
Caroline Sascha Cogez
2004 7 min Color Beta SP Denmark
US Premiere Stark images of empty rooms used by prostitutes in Denmark make up this moving portrait. Articulate and blunt, Helle speaks about her experiences in the sex industry. With grace and ease she is able to take control of her body, and her johns', during these daily business transactions.

A Covenant Adam
Ariana Hamidi
2005 15 min B/W 16mm
World Premiere An expression of memory and the loss of memory, this documentary subtly navigates a family history filled with violence and fear. Avoiding a heavy-handed and straightforward narrative of events, it instead embraces ambiguities and imprecision. Beautiful black-and-white home movies, interviews with children about god, trust and safety are combined with fragmented texts that float across the screen and manipulated Incredible Hulk comic strips.

don't leave without news
Christine Khalafian
2005 18 min Color 16mm
Northern CA Premiere Russian children do cartwheels, men play soccer, nomads wander the land, a tightrope walker impresses tourists, and villagers embark on a pilgrimage to a buried relic. Shot in modern-day Armenia, the traveling filmmaker captures chance encounters, conversations from field recordings, interviews, and narrative insights offered on the way. No famous landmarks or distinct ethnic symbols clue in the viewer, while the film eschews the obvious relationship between sound and image, creating an amalgam of the harshness of life in a struggling post-Soviet republic and a traveler's fantasy.

Altitude Zero
Lauren Cook
2004 5 min Color 16mm US
An optically printed ode to Amelia Earhart.

Moving Movie
Cade Bursell
2004 17 min Color 16mm
West Coast Premiere The filmmaker pays loving respects to S.F., saying goodbye to her beloved town for a new home in the South. Using sound recorded on her journey, she narrates while driving, chats with locals at rest stops and ruminates in the dark by the side of the road about her unknown new life. Bursell finishes her movie, and her goodbye, developing the film in old chemicals she brought from home. This rich and colorful experimental diary is a literal and metaphorical Moving Movie.

Threading the Needle
Andaleeb Firdosy
2005 16 min Color 16mm India
West Coast Premiere A collage of lively women's voices describes what happened one day in 1968 when a flood ripped through a small town in India. With surprising levity, the women map out their memories and argue over what really happened.

Let Me Count the WaysÐMinus 10, 9, 8, 7
Leslie Thornton
2004 20 min Color mini-DV US
West Coast Premiere Juxtaposing aerial military footage, scientific data on genetic mutation, audio testimony about the bombing of Hiroshima, and a home movie of her father, a World War II Air Force pilot dispatched to that city, Thornton creates a dense and compelling critique of violence.

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The Phantom of the Operator
Caroline Martel
2004 65 min Color/B/W Beta SP Canada
Filmmaker in Person, West Coast Premiere Phantom is Martel's hour-long documentary love affair with telephone operators. She uses archival footage produced in North America between 1903 and 1989 to trace the evolution of the telephone and the history of the beloved telephone operator. Inventive and witty, this labor history uncovers the century-long story of female workers rarely given credit for their essential role in the development of global communications. Martel's avant-garde found-footage opus pushes the genre with subtle and delightfully funny juxtapositions that shed new light on this little-known history.

“..An enormously imaginative documentaryÉan hour of nonstop visual and intellectual stimulation.”
–The Village Voice

“It's the kind of intelligent and dedicated work that will live on for much longer than the flavors of the moment.”
- SFWeekly

“To suggest this was an intensive labor of love is to underestimate the depth of Martel's decade-long obsession.”
The Gazette

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The Time We Killed
Jennifer Todd Reeves
2004 94 min B/W 16mm US
Northern CA Premiere ¥ Filmmaker and co-producer Randy Sterns in Person
In her debut narrative feature, Reeves explores the inner life of a writer unable to leave her New York apartment on the brink of the US invasion of Iraq. Robyn (Lisa Jarnot) tries to overcome her growing agoraphobia by reimagining her past and contemplating world events of the present. Weaving experimental and documentary elements, Reeves creates a riveting and heart-wrenching story. Fipresci calls it Òa beautiful, impressionistic and deeply personal cinematic poem.Ó

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Retrospectroscope
Kerry Laitala
1997 5 min B/W US
Filmmaker in Person
Laitala creates magic with women and roulette, enticing the audience to fill in the narrative gaps of her surreal film. The S.F. Bay Guardian described the film as, Òa spinning, flashing UFO/roulette wheel of Athenian proportions.Ó

Bubonic Prairie
Mary Beth Reed
2002 5 min Color US
World Premiere
An elegant hand-painted swath of color and texture.

Moose Mountain 2
Mary Beth Reed
2004 11:46min Color BetaSP US
The colors of Colorado's mountains, trees, wild flowers, and vibrant sky combine in a hand-painted kaleidoscope that slowly emerges from mountain imagery.

Sand Castle I
Mary Beth Reed
2001 4 min Color US
Visual memories of home set amid a sense of displacement. Visions of rooms and hallways flicker in flames, emerging only fleetingly from starry skies.

Behind This Soft Eclipse
Eve Heller
2004 10 min B/W US
SF Premiere
Ripples of optically printed water reoccur in this elegiac experimental film. Textured as if three-dimensional, Behind This Soft Eclipse beseeches you to enterÑbut it is ÒonlyÓ a movie.

Her Glacial Speed
Eve Heller
2001 4 min B/W US
Flowers open quickly then pulsate in slow motion, insistent on being studied. Heller holds dear every frame. We follow the story never sure exactly where we will end up but enjoying the mystery along the way.

Nuee Ardante
Joyce Oates
2002 3 min B/W US
Created entirely by photogrammingÑplacement of objects, such as feathers, on unexposed film Ñ Nuee Ardante was hand-developed in a canister, lending it a gritty, roughhewn quality.

Electra in Document
Joan Nidzyn
2005 15 min B/W US
West Coast Premiere
A purse is the starting point for this experimental journey into the life and loves of Electra, the filmmaker's elusive grandmother. Opened 27 years after her death, the purse provides glimpses of a life, only enhancing the mystery.

Noor
Deborah Phillips
2003 6 min Color Germany
US Premiere
An abstract composition of nature.

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Pacific Film Archive
October 6 at 7:30pm.

Drawn and Reported
Some things may be best illustrated with drawings, whether because no other images exist or to protect those revealing their stories. Tonight's eclectic program examines the history of witch-hunts, looks at early treatments for hysteria, illustrates interviews with battered women, and brings to life art by women with mental disabilities. A delight in portraiture is shared by an artist's description of why, at age sixty, she entered art school; an evocation of childhood based on early recordings of two preschoolers; and fleeting encounters in both virtual and public space. A life story told by a young woman and sexual reminiscences by retirees delightfully round out the evening. (K. Geritz)

Why?  Carol Halstead  1994 12 min Color Beta SP Canada;  The House  Vivienne Jones  2003 8:50 min Color Beta SP UK;  Cockaboody  Faith and John Hubley  1974 9 min Color 35mm US;  So Far So...  Ann Marie Fleming  1992 2 min Color 16mm Canada;  Hysteria  Alys Hawkins  2001 2 min Color Beta SP UK;  Witch Madness  Faith Hubley  1999 9 min Color 35mm US;  Survivors  Sheila Sofian  1997 16 min Color 16mm US;  What I'm Looking For  Shelly Silver  2004 25 min Color mini-DV US;  Bay Area Premiere
Backseat Bingo  Liz Blazer  2004 5:50 min Color 35mm US;  One Minute Interview  Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson  2004 1 min B/W mini-DV US West Coast Premiere

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Pacific Film Archive
October 13 at 7:30pm.

History, Redrawn
Using computer-generated imagery, subtle shading, or sculpted clay, animators can reshape history. A series of physical and mental expeditions, these works invite viewers to reinterpret personal and political histories. Experience a chalk animation exposŽ of corporate corruption; a story of prison through the eyes of a guard and inmate; a pencil-rendered, death-defying journey during World War II; a claymation peek at child migrant workers; and a charcoal-drawn saga of slavery and freedom, plus other stories. (A. Ben-Dov)

The Invisible Hand  Lori Hiris  2003 12 min Color/B/W 16mm US;  Pro and Con  Joan Gratz, Joanna Priestley  1992 9 min Color 35mm US;  The Day Stashi Ran Out of Honey  Sonia Bridge  2000 5 min B/W 16mm UK;  Our Story  Blanca Aguerre  2003 10 min Color 35mm Mexico;  Black Soul  Martine Chartrand  2001 10 min Color 35mm Canada;  How to Fix the World  Jacqueline Goss  2004 28 min Color Beta SP US;  Nobody's Nothing  Bridget Farr  4 min B/W 35mm Canada;  Some Space for Tomorrow  Raaya Karas  2003 4:50 min Color Beta SP Israel;  Pigeon Within  Emily Hubley  1999 4:50 min Color 35mm US; 

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Artists' Television Access
Ongoing in ATA's storefront window through September!

Installation constructed by Biagio Azzarelli and Rebecca McBride
This is a collection of moving images, which reinforce our undeniable biology.

Landslag  Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson  2004 4 min Color Iceland West Coast Premiere An exploration of nature.;  Kreisen  Claudia Rohrmoser and Kotoka Suzuki  2004 10 min Color Germany US Premiere A hidden world pieced together with sound and images.;  Victorian Organ  Christine Victoria Dunn  2005 5 min Color US World Premiere See the innards of a self-winding music box.;  Between Frames  Pamela Taylor  2005 3 min Color US West Coast Premiere A meticulous garden animation that was nine-months in the making.;  Total Mobilization  Yin-Ju Chen and James Hong  2005 9 min B/W Taiwan/US Bay Area Premiere An evocative, ironic and bombastic video that focuses on a group of struggling ants.;  Nuée  Myriam Bessette  2003 2 min Color Canada CA Premiere A watery choreography of animated sketches.;  PSA 4 and 5  Cynthia Madansky  2004-05 4:30 min Color US A startling visual reminder of the American war in Iraq. Stains and Sparkles Paula Cronan and Juliana Snapper 2004 5:17 min Color US Bay Area Premiere A lush combination of found TV footage, static patterns, and color fields.;  Web  Anabela Costa  2004 5:40 min Color Portugal US Premiere;  Breathing Chaos  Sachiko Kodama  2004 8 min Color Japan Bay Area Premiere; 

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