2008 Mendocino Film Festival Program Book

3

Take

May 29–June 1, 2008 www.MendocinoFilmFestival.org

Contents 4

9

Sponsors

Special Guests

31

Feature Programs

48

Index of Films & Tickets

Board of Directors Keith Brandman President Ann Walker Executive Director Betsy Ford Vice President, Programming Bob Woelfel Vice President, Marketing Paul Kemp Treasurer Mary Anne Petrillo Secretary Mel McKinney Board Member Arlene Moorehead Board Member Ward Ryan Board Member Andrew Todhunter Board Member Programming George Russell Program Director Pat Ferrero Program Advisor Diana Fuller Advisor Films on the Arts Richard Heinberg Advisor Films for Our Future

Advisory Board Sydney Pollack Albert Maysles Zoë Elton Will Geiger Carl Lumbly Jim McCullough Mike Schuh Gail Silva

Contact Us Mendocino Film Festival P.O. Box 1843 45000 Main St., 2nd Floor Mendocino, CA 95460 707-937-0171 www.MendocinoFilmFestival.org

Design by Rachel Cost & Co.

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19

Special Programs

Shorts Programs

49

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Map of Venues

Film Schedule

Letter from the President Dear Friends, The town of Mendocino is usually referred to as “the Village.” What it really is, however, is an incredible community of people who work together to help one another in so many ways large and small. Our community includes folks from Gualala to Westport, and especially the businesses and residents of Fort Bragg and Mendocino who so generously support this event each year.

When my wife Judith and I set out to found the Mendocino Film Festival, we had no idea how much help we would need. Help came slowly at first and then gained speed as we neared the first festival in 2006. Tens of thousands of hours are now donated each year by dedicated volunteers. Not all volunteers are local—when I have a technical question I can always rely on my close friend Rick McGee to offer sound advice and hours of research time.

Of our many volunteers, none deserve more gratitude and acknowledgement than Board Members Ann Walker, Betsy Ford and Paul Kemp. Without their full-time passion and commitment this festival would simply not occur. Thank you Betsy, Ann and Paul, for everything you do!

A special thanks this year also goes to our Program Director, George Russell. George dedicated countless hours screening and then assembling this year’s stellar selection. We are very proud of the 2008 program. Thank you George!

This year, we would like to welcome Spiritual Cinema Circle and Earth Cinema Circle—two worldclass DVD membership clubs—as our Presenting Sponsors. Many thanks to both organizations for their tremendous help and commitment to fine filmmaking.

We would also like to express our profound gratitude to the Community Foundation of Mendocino County, whose support has helped us upgrade in the area of improved programming of this year’s festival.

Many celebrities have honored us by attending in 2006 and 2007: Sydney Pollack, Carl Lumbly, Laszlo Kovacs, Albert Maysles, Sharon Lawrence and Marty Katz. They all came with one thought, one motive: to help our young but rapidly growing festival.

Sadly, world-class cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs, who joined us as a special guest in 2006, passed away last summer. We all feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to share some time with him and we dedicate the 2008 Mendocino Film Festival to Laszlo’s memory.

And now, Take 3! Welcome to our beautiful coast, to our warm community, and to the 3rd Annual Mendocino Film Festival!

With best wishes, Keith Brandman President and Founder of the Mendocino Film Festival

In Memory of Laszlo Kovacs 1933–2007

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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Kathleen Kohn Fetzer Family Foundation

Mike and Mary Schuh

Maurice Kanbar

supporting sponsors

major festival sponsors

premier festval sponsors

foundations & grants

presenting Sponsors

sponsors

Savings Bank

of Mendocino County

Coast Hardware

in-kind sponsors

Friends of the festival

Agate Cove Inn Alegria Inn Albion River Inn Amici Cellars Beach House Inn Beachcomber Motel Bettilou’s Inn Blair House Inn The Blue Heron Inn Brewery Gulch Inn Café Beaujolais Ceago Corners of the Mouth Country Inn Dennen’s Victorian Farmhouse Emerald dolphin Inn Glass Beach Inn Glassfire Glendeven Inn Goldeneye Winery Grey Whale Inn Harbor House Inn Harbor Lite Lodge Heritage House The Hill House Jericho John Dougherty House Joshua Grindle Inn The Ledford House

We are so grateful to our new Friends for their support in bringing the highest quality independent films and special events to the Mendocino Coast.

Little River Inn The Lodge at Noyo River The MacCallum House Mendo Bistro Mendo Cafe Mendocino Farmhouse The Mendocino Hotel Mendocino Village Inn Mendocino Wine Co. Moose Café Oster OuiCook OuiOrganize Pacific Mist Bungalows Parducci Patianna Pine Beach Inn Ravens Robert Stewart / ArtSeed Safeway Sea Rock Inn Seafoam Lodge Stanford Inn By the Sea Thanksgiving Coffee Tradewinds Quality Inns & Suites Village Florist Weller House Inn Whitegate Inn

Director

Chuck Greenberg & Claire Ellis Ken and Sandra Kearney Mike Leventhal & Ricia Araiza Susan & Mel McKinney Arlene & Jim Moorehead Geraldine Pember Sylvia Walker Co-Producer

Bay View Café Jade Pier

Cinematographer Megan & Jorge Allende Alene & William DiDio Kathryn and Steve Fields Nancy Harper John & Kathryn Hughes Mark Lipman & Helen Cohen Leslie McCall Rick McCall Sallie McConnell Robert Rodriguez

Lisa Orselli Paul & Joan Selchau Lynne Zickerman Daniel Olson Friend Luna Armstrong Meg Courtney Yvonne DeWitt Margaret Fox Bill & Sue Gibson Jim & Diane Larson Jef and Deb Loeb Mark Molina Susanne and Richard Norgard Ira and Edie Plotinsky Ron Rosequist Susan Seymour Sabine & James Swallow John T. Wallace MD

Karen Lebacqz Kate Lee Dee & Rich Lemos William & Karen Lewis Larain Matheson Dave Mathews Hanneli Reeves Margaret Scully Hal Stone Sidra Stone Leona Walden Norma L. Watkins Art & Jeza Morley

Film Fans

Albert Anderson Sue & Bruce Arnold Les Cizek Fensalden Inn Joan & Rusty Gates Marilyn Hagar Cathryn Heart Tom & Toni Illick

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Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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Notes from the Program Director

opening party & sneak peeks!

Thursday May 29, 5pm, Hill House, $15 We’ll kick off the Mendocino Film Festival at our Opening Party on Thursday, May 29, at the Hill House Inn, from 5-7 p.m. Enjoy Fetzer Family wines and hors d’oeuvres, meet the filmmakers, and sneak a peek at festival film clips.

party sponsors

“G

etting known,” observes a Samuel Beckett character about himself in a play which concerns his last tape. In its own way, the Mendocino Film Festival is also getting known. For our third year the level of films submitted to us was markedly higher than before. This happy circumstance made some of my programming choices easy and others difficult. In addition, we are screening a number of wonderful films which have been solicited not only by myself, but also by Betsy Ford, VP of Programming, and Pat Ferrero, our esteemed program director for last year.

From its inception, the Mendocino Film Festival has become known for its special category, Films on the Arts, co-curated this year by Pat Ferrero. In addition to soliciting a number of films for this year’s festival, she facilitated special projects that will bring Shadow Master Larry Reed, civil liberties lawyer Terry Diggs and editor Walter Murch’s long time associate, Pat Jackson, to the Festival. In our third year, we are presenting a staggering spectrum of offerings in this category. New for this year is another special category, Films For Our Future, created and curated by Betsy Ford, featuring works which consider environmental, social and spiritual themes. Central to this special category, we offer three programs with three very special people: Richard Heinberg, author of Peak Everything, the aforementioned Terry Diggs from the Hastings School of Law, and Stephen Simon, founder of Spiritual Cinema Circle.

But this is not all. We have other one-of-a-kind and one-time-only offerings this year: Gerry Fialka, “the Johnny Appleseed of PXL films” with his latest version of The Best of PXL This as well as his interactive workshop “Pixelvision: Electronic Folk Art;” Two Artists From Exotic Mendolandia with films featuring rugmaker Vicki Fraser and poet ruth weiss, who will also be reading with musicians following the screening of her film; and Friday Night Silents—silent films from 90 and even 100 years ago, featuring live musical accompaniment from Eggplant Casino, with original music composed especially for this program.

And even this is not all. In the tradition of our second year, we present a Children’s Program as well as “Coffee With” a noted Hollywood producer. This year, we are pleased to host Michael Taylor, who will also screen his Phenomenon. Albert Maysles, our beloved special guest of honor from last year, returns to honor a director of his choice who works in an area of documentary filmmaking which he and his brother David pioneered. And it is we who are honored to screen, at last, in his own hometown, Elvis and Anabelle by Mendocino filmmaker Will Geiger.

As ever, as always, thank you’s are in order. I wish to thank Betsy Ford for her tireless efforts on so many levels and Pat Ferrero for her good counsel. I wish to thank Ann Walker, our Executive Director, who, like Betsy, is an extraordinary, accomplished woman – intelligent, resourceful, and unstinting in all her efforts. Brona Lessen should also be commended for her many hours in assisting me in communicating with the filmmakers. I wish to acknowledge the pre-screening efforts of our president, Keith Brandman, Alex and Shelley Fields, Gordon Keller, Meredith Smith and especially Dan Bergeson, who also assisted me in writing synopses for this program. Last, and by no means least, for they are the cine qua non of all our efforts, are the people of this unique community who have volunteered their time, their intelligence, their resourcefulness and their good spirits in making the Mendocino Film Festival a special event in a very special place.

One other thank you is in order and its placement is first and foremost. I wish to thank you, our festivalgoers, for your interest in this formidable program. Filmmakers are coming from as far away as old Albion and as near as new Albion to screen their work, entertain your questions and your insights and enjoy the third annual Mendocino Film Festival in your good company.

George Russell, Program Director

audience choice award Carl Lumbly, an Advisor and special friend to the Festival, will assist in hosting our Third Annual event. Attendees are familiar with Lumbly through his work on the hit television series Alias and his performances in feature films including To Sleep with Anger , Men of Honor, Pacific Heights , and The Bedroom Window.

Make Your Opinion Count!

The Mendocino Film Festival invites its valued film-goers to participate in determining the 2008 Audience Choice Award recipient. This award will be given to the highest rated feature length documentary or narrative film (55 minutes or longer). Be sure to fill out the special ballots given out at screenings. With our low-tech approach, there will be no possibility for electronic hacking, so this is an election you can trust. All balloting is organized and tallied by our own meticulous Price Waterhouse equivalent, “Honest Bob” Bushansky. The winner will be announced Sunday evening, June 1, online.

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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Special guest: Stephen Simon

presents

Light in the Darkness: Uplifting Films in a Violent Film World Saturday May 31th, 12:30 PM, St. Anthony’s, $10

The Mendocino Film Festival is proud to welcome award-winning producer/director Stephen Simon, whose credits include Somewhere in Time (1980), Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), the Academy Award-winning What Dreams May Come (1998), Indigo (2003), and Conversations with God (2006). As co-founder of Spiritual Cinema Circle, Simon is dedicated to the promotion of entertaining films that bring a sense of hope to the screen. Spiritual Cinema Circle encourages filmmakers who make movies that matter, and distributes these films to wider audiences.This promises to be a very lively conversation that will illuminate the film industry’s past, present, and future. The first 100 attendees will receive a Spiritual Cinema Circle DVD of 4 films.

Stephen Simon’s pick:  After

life Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda

After Life (1999) is a “slyly humorous, utterly original and generous-hearted” film about a group of souls receiving counseling in a metaphysical waystation determining which life memory to take into their own, unique versions of ‘heaven.’ (In Japanese with English subtitles.)

special

Saturday May 31th, 3:00 PM, Matheson

Albert Maysles Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking Saturday, May 31, 3 PM Crown Hall, $10 special

Widely revered as the “Dean of Documentary Filmmaking,” Albert Maysles joined us as our special guest in 2007 and as an Advisor to our Board shortly thereafter. This year he selected Jasmine Dellal to be the first recipient of the Albert Maysles Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking. This year he will honor director Jasmine Dellal with the first annual Albert Maysles Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking. Please join us for this special event and screening hosted by Maysles’ good friend, Jim McCullough.

award-winner: filmmaker jasmine dellal Raised in England and India, filmmaker Jasmine Dellal received her Bachelors degree in Modern Languages from Oxford University and a Master’s degree in Journalism from the University of California at Berkeley. While at Berkeley, Dellal produced, directed and edited In His Own Image a profile of a homeless photographer, for which she won a student Emmy Award. She later co-produced/ directed She Says, a half-hour documentary about American women disassociating themselves from feminism in the 1990s. Now based in New York and San Francisco, Dellal also works as a freelance journalist, AVID editor, producer and advisor to independent documentaries. The multi-award winning AMERICAN GYPSY: A Stranger In Everybody ’s Land was her first documentary feature.

We are pleased to present the exceptional work of Ms. Dallal in her most recent documentary, Gypsy Caravan .

 Gypsy Caravan Directed by Jasmine Dellal (Filmmaker in person) Shot by legendary cinematographer Albert Maysles, this dynamic musical documentary follows five Gypsy bands from four countries who unite for the Gypsy Caravan as they take their show around North America for a six-week tour, astounding every audience they meet. Their musical styles range from flamenco to brass band, Romanian violin to Indian folk. And with humor and soul in their voices, they celebrate the best in Gypsy culture and the diversity of the Romani people in an explosion of song and dance. (2007, 110 min.)

This Program made possible by the generous support of Maurice Kanbar.

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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Environmental Author

Richard Heinberg

Thursday, May 29, 8 PM, Matheson, $10

special

Richard Heinberg is the bestselling author of eight books, including Peak Everything (New Society, 2007), The Party ’s Over and Peak Oil . A Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute and a leader in the worldwide Relocalization Network, Heinberg will speak on ways to build a sustainable future in the midst of ecological crisis. As part of this Films for Our Future event, Heinberg will screen the short documentary  Suzuki Speaks featuring Canadian geneticist David Suzuki. In this awardwinning film, director Tony Papa creates an astonishing tapestry of live action and digital imagery, a deeply moving film that explores the interconnectedness of all beings.

Book signing to follow Heinberg’s talk. Copies of Peak Everything will be available for purchase.

Local Writer-Director Will Geiger with a special screening of Elvis and Anabelle Thursday, May 29, 8 PM, Crown Hall, $10

Coffee and Conversation with Producer

special

Join award-winning writer-director Will Geiger for a special screening and discussion of his wonderful film  Elvis and Anabelle Starring Blake Lively, Max Minghella, Joe Mantegna, Mary Steenburgen, and Keith Carradine, Elvis and Anabelle charts an unexpected love story between a young mortician and a Texan beauty queen. Poised to win the Miss Texas Rose beauty pageant, Anabelle collapses on the runway and ends up on Elvis’ embalming table. With stunning cinematography and an original soundtrack, Elvis and Anabelle is a magical film. The screening includes Geiger’s seven-minute short narrative Red Man (2001). Geiger was born in New York and grew up in various locations as the son of an F.B.I. agent. A local resident and member of the Mendocino Film Festival Advisory Board, Geiger lives in a water tower in Mendocino Village with his wife, Antonia, and their two young children. One or more members of the cast of Elvis and Anabelle may join the discussion. Check the Festival website for updated information about possible actor appearances. Reception following with wine provided by Goldeneye Winery.

Michael Taylor

Saturday, May 31, 10 AM, Little River Inn - Abalone Room, $10

Terry Diggs

special

Veteran film producer Michael Taylor works within the studio system as well as in the independent film community. His credits include Phenomenon (1996), Princess of Thieves (2001), and Copying Beethoven (2006). Taylor also serves as Professor and Chair of Film and Television Production at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he was faculty mentor to Mendocino native and USC Film graduate Shyam Balsé. Balsé’s thesis film Monsoon (2006) screened at thirty-five film festivals and won thirteen awards, including Best Short Narrative Film at the 2007 Mendocino Film Festival. We invite you to join Michael Taylor for coffee and insightful conversation together with a screening of his celebrated film  Phenomenon starring John Travolta and Robert Duvall.

Why Pop Films Just Might Save the Constitution

Saturday, May 31, 5:30 PM, Mendocino Theater Company, FREE

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

special

Two thousand years after he formulated it, Juvenal’s test of republican government – “who guards the guards?” – has buckled under the War on Terror. Who’s checking the excesses of the Patriot Act: datacollection from anyone using a phone line; imprisonment on the basis of belief; a Chief Executive who maintains he is not bound by courts or Congress? The answer is no one – or no one imagined by the Founding Fathers. But if Jefferson didn’t envision Saw or Bourne, Minority Report or 21 Days Later, Disturbia or Turista as doing the Constitution’s work, he should have. And you should, too! Join Terry Diggs (U.C. Hastings College of Law) for a lively discussion of how a few feature films aim to bludgeon us back to the Bill of Rights.

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An Invention Without A Future

The Best of PXL This

Friday, May 30, 10AM, MTC, $10

The irresistible irony of the PXL is the camera’s ease of use and affordability which entirely democratizes moviemaking, inspiring the creation of some of the most luminous films of our time.

Orson Welles said that a movie studio is “the biggest electric train set a kid ever had.” On the other end of the spectrum, the PXL-2000, which records sound and image directly onto audio cassette, continues to empower no-budget auteurs world wide.

special

Join Gerry Fialka—film curator, writer, lecturer, paramedia ecologist and Director of the PXL This Festival—for a special screening of Best of PXL This, 13-16 , a showcase of films from around the world made with the Fisher-Price toy video camera. Fialka will offer an interactive workshop “Pixelvision: Electronic Folk Art” following the screening.

“I have participated in Gerry Fialka’s interactive workshops at the Ann Arbor Film Festivals in 2006 and 2007. He is willing to enter into new discussions even if they go against his current views. Fialka’s multilayered delivery of ideas encourages the search for new questions and new paradigms that extend beyond. He is well-informed, offbeat and articulate – one of the most fascinating people I’ve met at AAFF.”

– Keith Jeffries, Ascalon Films

Shadow puppet Theater

For all ages

Saturday, May 31, 12:30 PM, Matheson, $10

special

The Mendocino Film Festival invites you to a multi-disciplinary live performance of wayang, or traditional Indonesian shadow puppet theater. Puppets come alive as shadows, in a combination of paper, wood, voice, musical instruments, and storytelling. Puppet master Larry Reed, who has studied the wayang art for thirty years, was originally drawn to shadow theater as a creative precursor to filmmaking. Reed is committed to building world community through cross-cultural storytelling and shadow theater.

In conjunction with this program will be a Special Exhibit at the Mendocino Art Center featuring actual Balinese puppets and Reed’s documentary Mayadanawa , which brings the viewer behind the scenes of puppet theater.

“Shadow entertainments have no direct technical connection with the cinema, but the affinity is obvious. In their consistent use of the animated two-dimensional image flung upon a screen and their wide range of subject matter, they are more akin to the motion picture than any of its cultural forerunners.”

- C.W. Ceram, Archeology of the Cinema

Sponsored by the Community Foundation of Mendocino County, Arts for Our Future Grant.

Children’s Program Sunday, June 1, 2 PM, Matheson, $5 Special thanks for curation assistance to the Los Angeles International Children’s Film Festival and Spiritual Cinema Circle.

.  Boy

This program made possible by the generous support of Lisa Harvey, OD, Pediatric Optometrist & Vision Therapist.

and the Dragon Kite  Bubble  Car Blocks  Do Other Things  The Fan & The Flower  Kaya  Moongirl Mendocino Film Festival 2008

special

The Mendocino Film Festival is delighted to offer our youngest film-goers the special treat of their very own program of animated and live action shorts. Come find out about the superstitious soccer player, what smart dogs do when we’re not at home, how kids work together to save the moonlight, and more.

Suitable for ages 5 to 105.  My

Greatest Day Ever  Paws  Second Banana  Swinging  Upside Downed  Wound ‘Em Up

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Friday night Silents Friday, May 30, 8 PM, Crown Hall, $10

Silent Movies with Live Music special

The Program Director of this year’s Festival has long fulminated: “If it’s the last thing I do in Mendocino, I’m going to show silent films, on film, with live musical accompaniment in Mendocino.”

On the latter count, if not also the former, I have finally succeeded.

Although we are also screening M, a contemporary film which was conceived without a soundtrack and, therefore, in its way, a silent film (even though it is quintessentially musical in its silence), the silent films produced in the first three and a half decades of cinema were rarely silent. From the neighborhood nickelodeons with their pianists (and, sometimes, violinists) to the picture palaces with their Wurlitzer organs and even thirty-piece pit orchestras, silent films were meant to be accompanied by music. Silent films with live music were a cinematic Esperanto, a true universal language, lost with the coming of sound-on-film and dialogue.

live music!

Our program of Friday Night Silents is in the skilled hands of a wonderful ensemble, Eggplant Casino , from San Francisco.

Eggplant Casino has chosen this program and has set it to music especially prepared for this evening. In this day, as in their day, these films with live musical accompaniment are intended for audiences of all ages.

We invite all of you to join us at Friday Night Silents.

Eggplant Casino Sigrid Hafstrom—vocals, viola Mike Smith—guitar Jonathan Kepke—keyboards Olive Mitra—vocals, bass Sanjay Pardanani—cajon and various percussion Todd Grady—vocals, trumpet Lena Dubois—vocals

Speaking of loss, more than eighty percent of the films made before 1930 are considered lost. Tonight’s program features a variety of short comedy, dramatic and animated films which have survived:

 A Melange of French “fantanimation” shorts (1900-1905)  The Land Beyond the Sunset (director unknown, Edison, 1904)  A Trip to The Moon (Georges Melies, 1902)  Barney Oldfield’s Race for A Life (Mack Sennett, 1913)

Intermission  One Week (Buster Keaton, Metro, 1920)  The Automatic Moving Company (1912)  Teddy at the Throttle (Clarence Badger, Triangle-Keystone, 1917) In their day, these films would have been included in programs with “actualities” and, after 1912, newsreels and features. Their music would have come from lead sheets with titles like “Misterioso” and “Agitato” or from popular or “classical” melodies chosen by their accompanists, whose skill at “playing the picture” determined the success of its musical enhancement. Music composed for short films was rare; only selected films of feature length were accorded a musical score composed especially.

In the last thirty years, contemporary composers and musicians, both solo and in ensembles, have discovered the deathless visual language of silent cinema and have given it a new musical voice.

This voice has an astonishing range. All manner of instrumentation as well as compositional and improvisational styles, from the traditional to the decidedly un-, have “set” silent films which are eighty, ninety and more than a hundred years old. In skilled hands, these new settings are both complementary and exciting.

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Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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Two Artists From Exotic Mendolandia Friday, May 30, 3 PM, Matheson, $10 It has been said that Mendocino County has more artists per capita than any other county in the United States. This afternoon, we give you two films featuring two very individual local artists.

Directed by Carmen Goodyear and Laurie York (2006, 24 min.) Vicki Fraser in person with the California Rug.

special

 A Rug For California

Vicki Fraser, Rugmaker from Mendocino Artist’s Statement:

Fiber has been my medium for 38 years and will always inspire and challenge me. Its tactile and supple qualities connect me to the earth and give me peace, thrills and most of all, bliss.

Born in the Central Valley, California, Vicki has moved around the world all her life. Her art education began in Houston, Texas, and intensified in Florence, Italy at the Academy of Fine Arts. That seat of the Renaissance gave her the love of conservation following the great flood in 1966. She studied embroidery techniques, lace making, and learned the skills of rug restoration while living in London. She came to the Mendocino Art Center in 1991 to make her first earth rug and found an incredible community of fiber artists whose knowledge and generosity have broadened her skills of spinning and natural dyeing and sustained her through her efforts to bring the California Rug to its completion.

 ruth weiss Meets Her Prometheus

Directed by Frederick Baker (Austria, 2007, 18 min.)

Following the film, ruth will be performing with musicians Doug O’Connor on acoustic bass, Harrison Goldberg on sax and Rodney Phifer on percussion.

ruth weiss, poet from Albion Artist’s Statement:

life is a moving picture. dates are a scramble. 1950 new orleans wore green hair after viewing the antiwar film THE BOY HAIR WITH GREEN HAIR. 1928 born in berlin. 1933 vienna. 1939 new york. i’ve been on the run. i’ve been through flood. i’ve been through fire. i love movies, have made them. been in them – sometimes fiction, sometimes fact. return to vienna in 1998. return to that fire-thief prometheus. mid-fifties san francisco. put poetry with jazz on the stage. then come the plays. three of them performed in vienna in 2006. oh 2006. the mayor hands me a bronze honor medal. i wonder if he ever read my books. oh the books. fourteen so far. no big publisher but beautiful. some in the fort bragg library. since 1965 every so often show my water-color-haiku. show & tell. tell you a secret. i’ve barely begun. the movie goes on. since 1982 from albion.

Gear up!

Special Categories

Hemp Hats Only at the Mendocino Film Festival!

Films for Our Future

Films on the Arts

Changing the world one film at a time and focusing on environmental, social justice, and spiritually-themed films.

Sponsored by Harvest Market and Real Goods.

Celebrating the lives and work of artists of all kinds.

Sponsored by Wells Fargo Bank.

Visit the Mendocino Film Festival store in Oddfellows Hall, at Kasten and Ukiah Streets, for Festival merchandise including t-shirts, baseball caps, and more.

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SHortS Programs Doc Shorts Program 1: “Where There’s Woman”  Buried Stories Directed by Julie Kirkenslager and Emily Wick (Filmmaker in person) Ella Rodriguez is a healing woman in two ways. She is a healer as she attends to the recuperation of an injured hummingbird and superintends the respectful treatment of ancestral sites in the path of development. Many decades after she was taken from her family and placed in an Indian boarding school, Ella also claims her power to heal herself from treatment which was anything but respectful.

Her strength of being, both in her tenderness and her resilient toughness, is a marvel to witness. (2008, 34 min.) – G.R.

documentary

Showing: May 31, 3pm, Abalone Room

 Bachelorette, 34 Directed by Kara Herold (Filmmaker in person) The director’s very personal essay on the privileges and pressures (especially from her mother) of “still” being single is illustrated in a lighthearted but nonetheless telling way through her very clever manipulation of animation, archival footage and sound. This is the intentionally funny instructional film we have been waiting for all these years, the antidote to those dreary and unintentionally funny filmic forays into matters personal which we were subjected to in some long ago “Health” class. (2008, 30 min.) – G.R.

 The Legend of Rosalie Directed by Nicholas Berger (Filmmaker in person) Nicholas Berger (The Man With The Electric Boots, MFF 2007) returns to the Festival with another unusual short documentary. This one concerns a small trailer park community in the Mojave desert and the ebullient stranger who comes from the city to live among them for a time and build the Lizard Tree Library. Rosalie is as much about the Where as about the Woman. As the director notes: “The film is ostensibly about Rosalie and how the residents of Slab City remember her, but the real focus ends up being on the community itself … an environment characterized by austere natural beauty, decay and a sense of weathered wildness.” (2007, 10 min.) – G.R.

Doc Shorts Program 2: “Sun Zoom Spark” Showing: May 30, 5pm, Abalone Room

The troubled young marriage of the filmmaker’s parents as revealed in retrospect through home movies is projected upon the backdrop of the troubled 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich. (2007, 12 min.)

documentary

 My Olympic Summer Directed by Daniel Robin (Filmmaker in person)

 Armed for the Challenge Directed by Patricia Thio (Filmmaker in person) Meet One-Arm Willie Stewart who, despite having lost a limb in an industrial accident, competes in and wins “iron man” competitions for the physically challenged. This inspiring and uplifting short film also depicts his determination to help others who have become disabled lift themselves to a higher level.

Kickin’ soundtrack, including music by the Foo Fighters! (2007, 20 min.) – D.B.

 Sliding Liberia Directed by Britton Caillouette (Filmmaker in person) Who says the Peace Corps can’t be wet ’n’ wild? A young American man discovers rippin’ tubes while in service in Liberia as well as developing long-term friendships with the people he helps. He returns again and again, bringing surfing friends and making more Liberian friends along the way, bridging a gap between cultures. Add to the film’s spectacular surfing footage the moving testimony of those who have suffered over a decade without running water or electricity in the wake of a savage civil war, and you have a motivating, inspirational film. (2007, 48 min.) -- D.B.

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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Showing: May 30, 8pm, Abalone Room

 Roosevelt Directed by Ron Stanford (Filmmaker in person) Roosevelt Bassett finds his materials in the demolition sites along the sidewalks of Philadelphia. But the roots of his art stretch far from the city to his childhood in rural South Carolina and the one-room schoolhouse where, among many other things, he learned how to hammer, saw – and sew. The filmcraft and character of Roosevelt is well suited to the artcraft and character of its subject – direct, unaffected, genuine. (2007, 11 min.) – G.R.

documentary

Doc Shorts Program 3: Philadelphia In Mendotown

 At The Wall Directed by Warren Bass Enter the Soul Circle – where veterans of the Civil Rights movement describe their difficulties in obtaining education for African Americans at Girard College in Philadelphia and their courageous confrontation with the Klan. (2007, 33 min.) – D.B. The sheer wall of discrimination is climbed by an unforgettable group who tell us all just how they “got over.” – G.R.

 This Is My Cheesesteak Directed by Benjamin Daniels (Filmmaker in person) See – the real deal, the Philly cheesesteak sandwich, straight from South Street! Hear – the testimonies of the owners of Pat’s, Gino’s, Jim’s, Steve’s, John’s, Tony Luke’s, asphalt-roots mavericks of American enterprise, backed by a rockin’ soundtrack! Taste – the Phull Philly Phlava! Let freedom ring – Liberty Bell City sets you free from that strict diet! (2007, 40 min.) – D.B.

Doc Shorts Program 4: “The Past Sure is Tense”  On the Assassination of the President Directed by Adam Keker (Filmmaker in person) How closely is Big Brother watching? And what exactly are we seeing? This educationally paranoid experimental short assumes the worst about subliminal media manipulation and inside-the-machinery conspiracy corruption. (2007, 6 min.) – D.B.

documentary

Showing: May 31, 12:30pm, Crown Hall

 Help is Coming Directed by Ben Mor (Filmmaker in person) Three figures move through the blasted landscape of the Lower Ninth Ward in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. One of them drags a tattered bag behind him. Who is this trio? And what is in that bag? There is no other film like Help Is Coming. And, if that’s not enough, it has Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings on it soundtrack. (2006, 8 min.) – G.R.

 American Outrage Directed by George & Beth Gage Not so long ago (a mere 150 years or so), the United States government agreed to recognize and respect Shoshone territory in exchange for certain development rights such as the building of railroads and installation of telegraph lines. This is the story of Carrie and Mary Dann, Western Shoshone sisters whose fight to eke out an existence from the land through husbandry has been increasingly disturbed and destroyed by the Bureau of Land Management – the very agency officially designated to protect Shoshone rights. The conflict of interest? Massive-scale industrial strip mining for gold with cyanide that destroys and poisons Mother Earth. Narrated by Mary Steenburgen. (2007, 56 min.) – D.B.

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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Shorts Program 1: “Circumstances” Showing: May 29, 8pm, MTC and May 31, 10am, MTC

In this moving and beautifully realized short film, Corporal Robert Riley is a Tommy sniper in the trenches of France during “The War to End All Wars.” For every German soldier he kills, he ventures into No Man’s Land to collect a wildflower as a memorial to an enemy he never knew. As a nighttime firefight advances, he ventures out one more time to undertake his ritual harvest. (U.K., 2007, 17 min.)

narrative

 The Collector Directed by Lorne Guy

 Losing Her Directed by James Killough (Filmmaker in person) Losing Her is an exquisite meditation on the memory of loss and the comfort, albeit fleeting, of chance encounters. As Helen desperately searches for her lost grandmother through the labyrinthine galleries of the Tate Britain Museum, a stalking security guard is never far behind. She finds momentary refuge in the company of Jenny, a precocious little girl, and Carson, her artist father. At every level – narratively, cinematically, emotionally – Losing Her is impossible to forget. (U.K., 2007, 30 min.) – G.R.

 Tres Directed by Robert Weiermair, Anna Christopher, and Paula Christensen Tres gives us three high-quality artistic renderings of the poetry of Argentinian filmmaker Carlos Hugo Christensen. In the first, A Casa, a boy lives with his separated parents’ emotional tug-of-war. Can he really understand? In the second, Tuesday in Copacabana, a pretty seaside-going young lady beholds a flirtatious hunk encountering a rather strange pitfall. In Voyage, the third and most beautiful, a young man’s father ushers him into the garden of manhood by introducing him to the paradise of passion to be found in the arms of a gorgeous young courtesan. (2007, 26 min., in Portuguese with English subtitles) – D.B.

 Aftermath on Meadowlark Lane Directed by David & Nathan Zellner On their way to a mariachi recital, a mother and her two sons are forced to confront the truth of the one road taken and the other road not taken in the aftermath of a devastating car crash. Based on a true story. (2007, 10 min.) - G.R.

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Shorts Program 2: “Upon the My Oh My” Showing: May 30, 2pm, MTC and May 31, 12:30pm, MTC

Twelve animators from around the world provide a variety of visual styles to complement the director’s interviews with children and elders regarding the title subject. When I Grow Up is both entertaining and telling as it limns the certainty of youthful expectation and the surprise of an older actuality. (2007, 7 min.) – G.R.

narrative

 When I Grow Up Directed by Michelle Meeker (Filmmaker in person)

 Shadow Ball Directed by Ruben Grijalva (Filmmaker in person) In his attempt to put some distance between himself and his brutish father, Patrick stumbles upon a marvelous game of exhibition baseball where everything is real except the ball. Shadow Ball feels real as it evokes a time when little boys could hardly wait until they were allowed to wear their first pair of long pants and African American players were forced to wait until they were allowed to play on integrated teams. (2007, 12 min.) – G.R.

 Droomtijd (Dreamtime) Directed by Tom Van Avermaet In this compelling exercise in expressionism, a mysterious sandman casts the stuff of dreamtime into the gears of a young man’s workworld dronetime. Will Alex Deprins still have time, in time, to switch gears, awaken and serve himself in a world where he exists to be time’s servant? (Belgium, 2006, 20 min., in Dutch with English subtitles.) – G.R.

 Phantom Canyon Directed by Stacey Steers Phantom Canyon is a Goreyesque, Surreallish trip through one woman’s ontogenese amoureaux.

Collaged and animated from the motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge (the man largely credited with crossing the bridge from sequential photography to cinema – to win a bet, no less), this haunting piece of art flutters the imagination’s shutters. (2006, 10 min.) -- D.B. Stacey Steers’ superb collage animation ranks with the best of Larry Jordan’s work. – G.R.

 Rabia Directed by Muhammad Ali Hasan (Filmmaker in person) Rabia is based in part upon the life and death of Wafa Idris, Palestine’s first female suicide bomber. In the words of its director, the title character is “a woman who must blow herself up in order to exist.”

This provocative statement is given flesh through flashbacks of life events which bring this young woman to choose death. Her body strapped with explosives, Rabia is confronted with her choice on a popular Israeli beach. (2008, 24 min.) – G.R.

 I Met the Walrus Directed by Josh Raskin Insightful and incredibly clever animation illustrates an impromptu interview by a Canadian teen with musician and peace activist John Lennon. Fourteen-year-old Jerry Levitan managed to sneak into the hotel room where John and Yoko were having one of their notorious “bed-ins” for peace and recorded a piece of history. (Canada, 2007, 7 min.) – D.B. In 2007, the Festival presented Albert and David Maysles’ What’s Happening?: The Beatles in The USA (1964). In 2008, we present what was happening for one (soon-to-be-ex-) Beatle in Toronto, Canada in 1969. I Met The Walrus was nominated for a 2007 Oscar for Best Animated Short. – G.R.

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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Showing: May 31, 3pm, MTC

 Cantata in C Major Directed by Ronnie Cramer Form, function and free improvisation ménage-a-trois in this work of structural film art. This orchestration of hundreds of classic Hollywood film clips in musical form and notation, digitally soundprocessed to enhanced effect, fascinates and rivets! (2007, 11 min) – D.B.

films on the arts

Shorts Program 3: “Best Batch Yet” (Experimental & Animation )

 M Directed by Tiffany Doesken-Polos (Filmmaker in person) A pulsating, coruscating, semi-abstract exploration of the grace and beauty of the human form. Light, motion, color, texture … Eros. (Silent, 2006, 4 min.) – D.B. M is the Annabelle Butterfly Dance (1895) of the 21st century. – G.R.

 Phantom Canyon Directed by Stacey Steers Phantom Canyon is a Goreyesque, Surreallish trip through one woman’s ontogenese amoureaux.

Collaged and animated from the motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge (the man largely credited with crossing the bridge from sequential photography to cinema – to win a bet, no less), this haunting piece of art flutters the imagination’s shutters. (2006, 10 min.) – D.B.

 My Olympic Summer Directed by Daniel Robin (Filmmaker in person) The troubled young marriage of the filmmaker’s parents as revealed in retrospect through home movies is projected upon the backdrop of the troubled 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich. (2007, 12 min.)

 Anthem Directed by Alex Potts (Filmmaker in person) The director’s succinct description of his work cannot be improved upon: “This electro-symphonic light painting honors those spirits who cross the luminous void.” (2007, 10 min.)

 On the Assassination of the President Directed by Adam Keker (Filmmaker in person) How closely is Big Brother watching? And what exactly are we seeing? This educationally paranoid experimental short assumes the worst about subliminal media manipulation and inside-the-machinery conspiracy corruption. (2007, 6 min.) – D.B.

 Help is Coming Directed by Ben Mor (Filmmaker in person) Three figures move through the blasted landscape of the Lower Ninth Ward in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. One of them drags a tattered bag behind him. Who is this trio? And what is in that bag? (2006, 8 min.) – G.R.

 Hammond’s Arcana or the Paradise of Birds Directed by Struan Ashby and Roy Parkhust A highlight of Gerry Fialka’s not-to-be-missed An Invention Without A Future: The Best of PXL This, Hammond’s Aracana provides a glimpse into the strange world of The Book of Hammond, W.D. Hammond’s heretical but visionary prophecy dictated to him by the great Huia birdspirit ariki which came to him in a vision c. 1847 on the shores and forests of the Auckland Islands. (New Zealand, 2007, 10 min.)

 I Met the Walrus Directed by Josh Raskin Insightful and incredibly clever animation illustrates an impromptu interview by a Canadian teen with musician and peace activist John Lennon. Fourteen-year-old Jerry Levitan managed to sneak into the hotel room where John and Yoko were having one of their notorious “bed-ins” for peace and recorded a piece of history. (Canada, 2007, 7 min) – D.B.

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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FEature Programs The Big Question

Directed by Vince DiPersio (Filmmaker in person)

What does it really mean to forgive? What are the social, moral, psychological and even physiological benefits of letting go of anger and letting in forgiveness? The Big Question addresses these questions with its thesis that forgiveness “is the one element that transcends the cultural divide and unifies humanity.” Gathering the thoughts of the celebrated such as Deepak Chopra, Thich Nhat Hanh, Desmond Tutu and SR Helen Prejean as well as the experiences of everyday people who have faced and overcome the kind of outrage, devastation and loss which is anything but everyday, Question offers us the answer that we all have the capacity to forgive.

Yet in this area of our lives, as in so many others, we can only, really, learn by doing. (2007, 63 min.) – G.R.

films for our future

Showing: May 30, 2pm, Abalone Room

Brush With Life The Art Of Being Edward Biberman Showing: May 29, 8pm, Saint Anthony’s and June 1, 11am, Abalone Room

Who knew? Talk about an unsung artist! Decades before the advent of Ed Ruscha and David Hockney, Edward Biberman was the first and foremost delineator of Southern California’s urban landscape in the medium of painting. Brother of writer-producer Herbert, great heart and one of the Hollywood Ten, Edward’s talent led him on an artistic odyssey from Paris and Berlin in the 20s, to New York, New Mexico, and then to the “cultural wasteland” of 1930s Los Angeles. Portrait painter to the stars (Joan Crawford and Lena Horne among them), muralist in the time of Rivera, friend or acquaintance of Paul Robeson, Frida Kahlo, Isamu Noguchi, Alexander Calder, Georgia O’Keefe, Martha Graham and Dashiell Hammett, Biberman was also a social activist in concert with the love of his life, Sonia DahlBiberman, who, along with her husband’s paintings, invests this wonderful film with its vibrant spirit.

(2007, 83 min.) – G.R.

Caramel (Sukkar banat)

films on the arts

Directed by Jeff Kaufman (Filmmaker in person)

Directed by Nadine Labaki

Showing: May 31, 8pm, Crown Hall narrative

With Caramel, you can almost feel the heat. But it’s not just the atmospheric emanations of a Lebanese summer. In a delicious debut feature which was the sleeper hit last year at Cannes, a beauty salon is the heart and soul community center for five women of contemporary Beirut. The lives and loves, the ages and stages, of Layale, Nisrine, Rima, Rose and Jamale, as well as their cosmetological challenges and triumphs, are rendered sweetly, as a narrative confection, and peeled away with a rip of recognition, like sugar waxing with caramel. With Nadine Labaki, Yasmine al Masri, Joanna Moukauzel, Siham Haddad and Gisele Aouad, (Lebanon/France, 2007. 95 min., in Arabic with English subtitles.) – G.R. This screening made possible by the generous support of Sally Stewart of Southern Exposure Salon & Day Spa.

The Cats of Mirikitani

Directed by Linda Hattendorf

Tsutomu Mirikitani was born in Sacramento and raised in Hiroshima. He returned to the United States on the eve of World War II, only to lose much of his family in the bombing of his childhood city and his freedom in his native state. In Cats, we meet “Jimmy” at 80 years old, a self-described “Grand Master Artist” living on the streets of Soho in New York City. Already befriended by the filmmaker months before September 11, she takes him in following that day’s toxic events. Cats is a film which succeeds brilliantly on a number of levels, not the least of which is the everpresence of hope, as revealed in Mirikitani’s capacity, even at a very late hour in his life, to clear the pain of his past. (2006, 74 min. in

films on the arts

Showing: June 1, 11am, Crown Hall

English and Japanese with English subtitles) – G.R.

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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Compound Eye

Directed by yahn soon (Filmmaker in person)

Showing: May 31, 5:30pm, Saint Anthony’s

Daughters of Wisdom

narrative

Dream cartoonist Jesse Reklaw (the syndicated Slow Wave) finds himself within the eye of a tempest when his latest comic depicts the World Trade Center rebuilt as an IHOP staffed by Afghan refugees.

Downstairs, his roommate Fausto keeps to himself by creating lush soundscapes for his weekly pirate radio show and immersing himself in a secondhand photo album containing the lost letters of a schizophrenic. But Fausto’s quiet days are numbered as attention surrounding the cartoon threatens to bring his underground operation into the limelight. With Fausto Caceres, Jesse Reklaw, Atosa Babaoff, Josh Millican, Jill Pixley, Jonathan Kaplan. (2006, 75 min.)

Directed by Bari Pearlman

Showing: May 31, 10am, Crown Hall documentary

Siberian Dream, which is also screening at the festival, features an unusual woman, from an unusual place, living an unusual life. In Daughters of Wisdom, we have 300. They are the nuns of Kala Rongo, a Buddhist monastery exclusively for women in remote and spectacularly beautiful Nanchen Province, northeastern Tibet. Lama Norla Rinpoche founded Kala Rongo to redress the neglect and downright discrimination encountered by Tibetan women who seek a life of spiritual practice by affording them the education and training which was previously denied. We are privileged to observe these daughters of Tibet as they come to and share their wisdom, blazing new trails beyond the timeworn and rutted paths which tradition intended for them. (2007, 68 min., in English and Tibetan with English subtitles.) – GR

 Preceded by In the Footsteps of Blazing Splendor

Directed by Marcia Schmidt (Filmmaker in person) Footsteps documents a humanitarian medical relief program and information gathering expedition in Nanchen Province. In the course of a 5,000-kilometer trek, volunteers from the Chokling Tesar Foundation treated over 500 lay and monastic patients and trained local medical workers.

(2007, 17 min.)

Don’t Know, We’ll See The Work of Karen Karnes Showing: May 31, 3pm, Saint Anthony’s

The film explores the poetry, rhythm and mystery of the creative process, reflecting the life of a master clay artist who worked with an unbroken focus for over 60 years until fire destroyed her home and studio. The film captures the creative process of regeneration and covers her extraordinary history as an artist at Black Mountain College as well as her many friendships with the artists of her era including Isamu Noguchi. Music of contemporaries John Cage and Lou Harrison is featured. (2007, 60 min.)

films on the arts

Directed by Lucy Massie Phenix (Filmmaker in person)

 Preceded by Daphne, or The Forbidden Touch Directed by Claudia Léger The film is a poetic narrative that revisits the Greek myth of Daphne to tell the story of a women’s recovery from a psychotic episode. (2007, 10 min.)  Preceded by Bounce Directed by Marina Shoupe (Filmmaker in person) A poetic meditation on youth, aging and memory. (2007, 6 min.)

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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Elvis and Anabelle

Directed by Will Geiger (Filmmaker in person)

Showing: May 29, 8pm, Crown Hall and June 1, 2pm, Saint Anthony’s narrative

With lush cinematography and a haunting soundtrack, ELVIS AND ANABELLE is a unique and timeless love story. Elvis is an unlicensed mortician in his family’s funeral home, a once-splendid American gothic in rural Texas. His sense of family obligation and love for his eccentric, ailing father keep him from following his dreams. Anabelle is a beauty queen being groomed for the big time by her pushy, show-biz mother. All her decisions are made for her – she’s just not sure she fits the part. Their lives are worlds apart, but they collide when Anabelle, in a moment of triumph, collapses and dies on a beauty pageant catwalkand ends up on Elvis’s embalming table. What happens next is as magical as it is unexpected...(With Max Minghella, Blake Lively, Joe Mantegna, Mary Steenburgen, Keith Carradine, 2007, 105 min.)

 Preceded by Red Man Directed by Will Geiger

Red Man tells us the story of a Native American man in a grass skirt who’s waiting to be spirited away from urban Seattle. (7 min.)

Escape from Luanda

Directed by Phil Grabsky

Showing: June 1, 11am, MTC documentary

At the only music school in Angola, in Luanda, the nation’s capitol, students pursue music in the face of all obstacles as a means of escape from poverty and corruption. Female students like Joana, age 23, who aspires to be Angola’s first female rock drummer, face chauvinistic cultural oppression so fierce that their lives are endangered. Pianist Alfredo, age 21, who is the bright hope of the school, faces opposition from his family because music is just not considered to be a practical option. Quite aware of the discrepancy between Angola’s extensive oil and diamond resources and their own stark poverty, the students dream of expressing their cultural and national identity on the world’s stages. (U.K. 2007, 72 min., in Portuguese with English subtitles.) – D.B.

Global Focus IV The New Environmentalists Showing: May 30, 11am, Abalone Room

Will Parinello returns to the Festival with the latest edition in this series, featuring six passionate and dedicated activists in Ireland, Peru, Mongolia, Iceland, Zambia, and Manitoba, Canada who seek to safeguard the Earth’s natural resources from short-sighted exploitation and unbridled pollution. Robert Redford narrates. (2007, 30 min.)

 Followed by Texas Gold Directed by Carolyn Scott (Filmmaker in person)

films for our future

Directed by Will Parrinello (Filmmaker in person)

Local Mendocino writer, activist and artist Thais Mazur has called the subject of this film a “warrior mother.” Mother of five, fourth generation fisherwoman, environmental activist, co-founder of Code Pink and author of “An Unreasonable Woman,” Diane Wilson fought the petrochemical companies which made her small Texas county the most toxic place in America with intelligence, humor, civil disobedience and hunger strikes. Texas Gold is a testament to what a warrior mother can do. Narrated by Peter Coyote. (2007, 24 min.) – G.R.

How to Cook Your Life

Directed by Dorris Dorrie

With humor, concern and compassion, Zen priest, author of the Tassajara Bread Book and a tenzo (chief cook) at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, Edward Espe Brown teaches us to treat food “as if it was your eyesight.” Brown’s approach to cooking reminds us of our moment by moment interconnectedness with all that is present around us. Archival manifestations of Suzuki Roshi, Brown’s teacher, also remind us of our connectedness with the abiding wisdom of our past. As for our future, How To Cook Your Life is a cautionary teaching against the destructive, unthinking production and consumption of our food.

(Germany, 2007, 100 min., in English and German with English subtitles.) – G.R.

films for our future

Showing: May 31, 5:30pm, Crown Hall

Note: This screening made possible by the generous support of Jade Pier.

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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Kenny

Directed by Clayton Jacobsen

Showing: May 30, 5pm, MTC and June 1, 2pm, Crown Hall

Khadak

narrative

If he were not prevented from doing so by virtue of his Australian birth, we wish that Kenny Smyth could run for American president in this election year. His honesty, his generosity of spirit, his boundless kindness, his wisdom, his earnest efforts at diplomacy, his willingness and ability to deal with even the most daunting challenges and, especially, his guileless and winsome humor make him the ideal candidate. That Kenny empties port-a-potties for a living should in no way disqualify him; in fact, it qualifies him all the more. Since we can’t have Kenny for president, we can still enjoy him in this endearing, brilliant and hugely entertaining mockumentary. (With Shane Jacobson as Kenny, Australia, 2007, 99 min. in English with English subtitles.) – G.R.

Directed by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth

Showing: June 1, 2pm, MTC

Killer Whale and Crocodile

narrative

This symphonically-paced motion poem masterpiece is hewn from the legacies Tarkovsky, Kurosawa and Kieslowski (and, for good measure, a dollop of Herzog and a dash of the Kaurismaki brothers.) – G.R. Mongolian herder families struggle to maintain their health and spirits in the face of forced relocation to mining compounds under the premise of a phony governmental “animal plague.” Meanwhile a young man, Bagi (Batzul Khayankhyarvaa) develops spiritual relationships with young Zolzaya (Tsetsegee Byamba) and an elder shamaness (Tserendarizav Dashnyam). The film’s climax is feverish in its rage against injustice and oppression. Startlingly similar in situation to the documentary American Outrage, which is also being screened at this year’s Festival. (Belgium, 2006, 101 min., in Mongolian with English subtitles.) – D.B.

Directed by Peter Campbell

Here is a fascinating exchange between two master carvers from indigenous cultures in very different parts of this world. In the company of Elaine Monds, whose Victoria, British Columbia gallery promotes a most enlightened policy towards the cultivation of its artists, John Marsten, a Coast Salish carver travels to Papua New Guinea to learn about another of the world’s great carving traditions from Iatmul carver Teddy Balangu. In turn, Teddy journeys to Canada as artist-in-residence at the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology. Visually stunning and thematically rich, Killer Whale and Crocodile captures the lives of two artists creating at a very high level, both in their work and in their growing friendship. (Canada, 2007, 48 min., in English and Iatmul with English subtitles.) – G.R.

films on the arts

Showing: May 30, 5pm, Matheson

 Preceded by Teachings of the Tree People

Directed by Katie Jennings (Filmmaker in person) “We don’t teach all of our children the same thing. If you teach them all the same, they won’t need one another and the world will split apart.” The teaching spirit of Twana elder Gerald Bruce (subiyay) Miller lives after him in the lives of everyone he touched with his knowledge of traditional culture, spirituality and art. It is also revealed, and available, to anyone who views this fine short film. (2005, 20 min.) – G.R.

Mojave Phone Booth

Directed by John Putch (Filmmaker in person)

Showing: May 30, 8pm, Matheson

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

narrative

Interwoven drama spins a web that patterns the lives and relationships of four working-class people in Las Vegas. Seemingly random objects connect themes such as the strands of magnetic tape upon which we record sound and pictures and the abandoned phone booth with its anonymous conversationalist, based on an actual Internet-driven phone booth connection in the desert. (With Annabeth Gish, Steve Guttenberg, David DeLuise, 2006, 88 min.) – D.B.

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Mr. Dial Has Something to Say Showing: May 31, 8pm, Abalone Room

Like Roosevelt Bassett, Thornton Dial is a “self-taught” artist. But the recognition of his extraordinary and prolific output in the medium of assemblage has been very different. Is he one of America’s greatest folk artists or simply one of its greatest artists? Bill Arnett, a white Southerner with an obsession for discovering and promoting African-American artists from the rural South, is of the latter persuasion as he befriends and champions Dial in a rollercoaster ride through the theme park of the New York art world. Mr. Dial is a fitting companion to a film from last year’s Festival, Who The #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?, in what it has to say about that world and its sometimes transitory allegiance to the ones who make the art. (2007, 56 min.) – G.R.

films on the arts

Directed by Celia Carey (Filmmaker in person)

 Preceded by Roosevelt Directed by Ron Stanford (Filmmaker in person)

Roosevelt Bassett finds his materials in the demolition sites along the sidewalks of Philadelphia. But the roots of his art stretch far from the city to his childhood in rural South Carolina and the one-room schoolhouse where, among many other things, he learned how to hammer, saw – and sew. The filmcraft and character of Roosevelt is well suited to the artcraft and character of its subject – direct, unaffected, genuine. (2007, 11 min.) – G.R.

Murch

Directed by Edie and David Ichioka (Filmmaker in person)

Murch is a master class in the cinematic arts of sound design and editing, taught by one of the foremost practitioners in the business. This class is required. Walter Murch is just as brilliant in speaking about his work as he is in the making of it. A generous trove of illustrative film clips from his career is interpolated with his teachings, as he recalls his beginnings, his longtime collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola, his restoration of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, and so much more. And, oh, the stories. As extra credit, there will be more stories. We are thrilled to have Pat Jackson, Murch’s longtime associate, editor and sound supervisor present with us at this screening. (2006, 75 min.) – G.R.

films on the arts

Showing: May 30, 2pm, Crown Hall

Passion and Power The Technology of Orgasm Showing: May 30, 5pm, Crown Hall

Wendy Slick and Emiko Omori (Ripe For Change, MFF 2007) return to the Festival with a spirited and revelatory film which generates a decided vibe. Based on the book The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” The Vibrator and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction by Rachel P. Maines, Passion and Power is the astonishing and hidden history of the electric vibrator. A consumer item from the late Victorian era, it was “there,” so to speak, at the very time when the political, civil, and sexual emancipation of women could still be discounted but no longer denied. Passion also brings us up to speed, as it were, on the manners and moralities attending the cultural evolution of this little device as they resonate in our vastly more enlightened times. (with Rachel P. Maines, Betty Dodson, Dell Williams, Joanne Webb and Reno, 2007, 74 minutes.) – G.R.

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

films on the arts

Directed by Emiko Omori and Wendy Slick (Filmmaker in person)

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Polis Is This Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place

Directed by Henry Ferrini

Charles Olson was a colossus of American letters. Polis Is This surpasses the challenge of containing this giant and his ideas in cinematic form while simultaneously expanding our awareness of how much the universal is contained in the local. For Olson, the local was Gloucester, Massachusetts, the polis (a body of citizens in a particular place) which shaped his life and poetry. Beyond a generous amount of Olson footage, striding his 6’8” corpus about his polis or engaging in the teacher’s art, we also meet the polis of this film: the artists – Amiri Baraka, Robert Creeley, Dianne DaPrima, Pete Seeger, Ed Sanders, John Sinclair, Anne Waldman – and the locals who knew him. Hosted, after an Olsonesque fashion, by John Malkovich. (2007, 57 min.) – G.R.

films on the arts

Showing: May 30, 5pm, Saint Anthony’s

 Preceded by John O’Keefe’s Adaptation of Walt Whitman’s Song Of Myself Directed by William Farley (Filmmaker in person) All too often, filmed theatrical performances are as flat as the screens upon which they are projected. Not so with John O’Keefe’s phenomenal adaptation of Walt Whitman’s lovingly radical and radically loving poem from 1855. A quintet of camera operators (including the director, William Farley, who returns to the festival after last year’s Darryl Henriques Is In Show Business), don’t merely film one of the most gifted solo performers in the world, they accompany O’Keefe as he celebrates every moment and beat of the poem just as Whitman celebrated every moment and beat of his life. John O’Keefe goes beyond a recitation or interpretation of the poem; he inhabits it. (2007, 49 min.) – G.R.

Questions for Mr. Reynolds Showing: May 30, 11am, Saint Anthony’s and May 31, 2pm, Abalone Room

The program director of this festival once knew someone who called himself “a filmmaker without a camera.” Translation: he was a dabbler in found footage. The director of Mr. Reynolds describes its subject, who is anything but a dabbler, as “a painter without a paintbrush.” Translation: “he works with a range of unlikely materials from dictionaries to spray guns to native trees.” This fun and freewheeling documentary tracks a year in the life of a leading contemporary New Zealand artist as he turns his mind and hands to painting, photography, architecture, tattooing, apparel design, performance, and the very landscape of his country. If there are any answers forthcoming from Mr. Reynolds by the end of Questions, they are to be found in his art. (New Zealand, 2007, 65 min.) – G.R.

films on the arts

Directed by Shirley Horrocks (Filmmaker in person)

 Preceded by Anthem Directed by Alex Potts (Filmmaker in person)

The director’s succinct description of his work cannot be improved upon: “This electro-symphonic light painting honors those spirits who cross the luminous void.” (2007, 10 min.)

REBORN New Orleans Schools

Directed by Drea Cooper (Filmmaker in person)

Showing: May 31, 10am, Saint Anthony’s documentary

How can the devastation of Hurricane Katrina have done any possible good for anything or anyone in New Orleans? Reborn is a surprising proof that, for at least one anything and a whole lot of anyones, it did. After the hurricane, a school system which by all accounts was an irremediable failure became a tabula rasa. To say that this beautifully photographed documentary is inspiring doesn’t do it justice.

Reborn is a transcendent film, as we witness what inspired administrators, teachers and parents are doing to provide a clean slate for a fortunate number of students, inspiring them to write their successful futures upon it. (2007, 85 min.) – G.R.

 Preceded by Help is Coming Directed by Ben Mor (Filmmaker in person) Three figures move through the blasted landscape of the Lower Ninth Ward in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. One of them drags a tattered bag behind him. Who is this trio? And what is in that bag? There is no other film like Help Is Coming. And, if that’s not enough, it has Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings on it soundtrack. (2006, 8 min.) – G.R.

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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Row Hard No Excuses

Directed by Luke Wolbach (Filmmaker in person)

Showing: May 29, 8pm, Abalone Room and June 1, 11am, Saint Anthony’s

The Sensation of Sight

documentary

What manner of mind, after paying $19,000 with another like mind to enter the Atlantic Rowing Challenge, would then subject its body to row 3,000 miles from the Canary Islands to Barbados in a hand-built boat containing provisions for any eventuality? Row Hard No Excuses is nothing short of enthralling as it documents eventualities both expected and unexpected for the two-person crews, particularly Jack and Tom, a middle-aged American duo, competing in the Challenge. No mere sportsadventure film, Row Hard is a dramatic illustration of the ambitions of the mind and the limitations of the body as they race towards the promise of one sort of finish line and away from another, inevitable kind. (2007, 88 min.) – G.R.

Directed by Aaron J. Wiederspahn

Showing: June 1, 11am, Matheson Narrative

David Strathairn delivers a quietly powerful performance supported by a magnificent ensemble cast in an impressive feature debut which its writer-director calls “a human tapestry.” Unable to continue in his career and his marriage following a tragedy for which he holds himself responsible., Finn, a middle-aged English teacher, searches for meaning through a purposeful walkabout in his small New Hampshire town, selling encyclopedias piled into a little red wagon which he pulls behind him. Finn’s unusual approach to walking meditation intertwines the threads of other searching lives into his own as he is forced, at last, to confront the absent thread of this tapestry, the ghost which has set him on his journey.

(With Ian Somerhalder, Daniel Gillies, Jane Adams, Ann Cusack, Elizabeth Waterson, Scott Wilson, 2006, 134 min.) – G.R.

Serpent And The Sun Tales Of An Aztec Apprentice Directed by Shaahin Cheyene (Filmmaker in person) Meet young Tachi – a sorcerer’s apprentice. No, really! From resentment and crippling poverty he is led to become an Aztec shaman under the tutelage of Ehe, a 52nd-generation master of those arts. In the course of his apprenticeship, Tachi’s developing intuition leads him to the home of the famed velada spiritualist Maria Sabina. This beguiling hybrid documentary intersperses dramatic recreations of Tachi’s spiritual experiences with informative commentary by academic, cultural and anthropological experts. Serpent also explores the intricacies of the ways in which ancient Aztec tradition has assimilated and continues to influence post-Colombian culture. (2008, 92 min. in English and Spanish with English subtitles) – D.B.

Siberian Dream

documentary

Showing: May 31, 8pm, Saint Anthony’s

Directed by Janet Gardner with Irina Pantaeva (Irina Pantaeva in person)

Showing: May 30, 8pm, MTC

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

documentary

Granted, there’s more than one in the world – an unusual woman who comes from an unusual place who is living an unusual life. Even so, we nominate Irina Pantaeva from Buryat Mongolia, Northern Siberia, supermodel, actress, and activist on behalf of her people. The trajectory of her life from the shores of Lake Baikal to the island of Manhattan, and so many other places in between, is a testament to “following your bliss.” Siberian Dream is the tale of a culture in transition as reflected in the life of a woman in transition. But no matter where her journey leads her, Irina is never far from her roots. We are pleased to have Irina Pantaeva present with us at this screening. In addition, a six-minute excerpt from Julien Bryan’s Peoples of the Soviet Union (1952 edition), which shows Buryat Mongolia in the 1930s, will also be screened. (2006, 56 min., in English and Buryat with English subtitles.) – G.R.

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Soldiers of Conscience

Directed by Gary Weimberg and Catherine Ryan

(Filmmaker in person) A hard look at the morality involved in human warfare and the challenges faced by those who choose to conscientiously object to killing. Soldiers of Conscience not only provides in-depth (and often shocking) interviews with noted conscientious objectors such as Camilo Mejia, but also with military personnel who argue for wartime killing’s justification. It also outlines the significant differences in training methods, the so-called “reflexivity training” incorporated after World War II, and its apparent effects. Containing stark and horrifying wartime footage from Iraq, this film reminds us that despite its outcome, war has multiple losers. (2007, 86 min.) – D.B.

Strong Love

documentary

Showing: May 31, 5:30pm, Abalone Room

Directed by Bonnie Burt (Filmmaker in person)

Showing: May 31, 5:30pm, Matheson

 Preceded by Body & Soul: Diana & Kathy Directed by Alice Elliott

documentary

Passion and love transcend all barriers. Witness the beauty of Holly and Jon, a couple with Down Syndrome, as they share vows of everlasting fidelity. Also rejoice in Jon’s competition-bodybuilder strength – further evidence that we all have gifts to develop and share. (2007, 56 min. in English with English subtitles.) – D.B. Diana Braun has Down Syndrome. Kathy Connor has cerebral palsy. They met in a group home and moved in together; Diana has been taking care of Kathy for nearly 40 years. During that time, they have been tireless activists fighting for the rights of the disabled. Join them in their daily struggles with financial challenges, the inhuman restrictions of the Medicare system, their health and relationship complications – and the rewards of their efforts. (2007, 40 min., in English with English subtitles) – D.B.

Sustainable Table

Directed by Mischa Hedges (Filmmaker in person)

A stark warning about the non-sustainable practices of industrial agriculture and its enormous ecological costs. This intense and in-depth documentary addresses both crop farming and husbandry, as well as offering the beginnings of a solution in its look at organic farmers and local organic farmers’ markets. Sustainable Table provides a positive message of health and global consciousness from medical professionals and eco-experts. It also includes both the testimony of factory-farming veteran Howard Lyman, who knows firsthand about the non-sustainability of industrial methods, and the hard evidence of the blessings of a plant-based diet in champion vegan bodybuilder Kenneth Williams. (2007, 51 min) – D.B

films for our future

Showing: May 30, 2pm, Saint Anthony’s

 Preceded by Coffee to Go Directed by Anne Macksoud and John Ankele Why are 25 million coffee farmers impoverished while we spend more for our coffee? What is the difference between free trade and fair trade? Learn how our lives and the lives of coffee farmers are inextricably linked in ways that we need to understand. (2006, 24 min.)

 Preceded by Greening the Desert Directed by Frank Gapinski. In a visit to the Jordanian desert we see Geoff Lawton and his permaculture experiment brought to fruition. This short inspirational film is a delectable hors d’oeuvre of hope. (Australia, 2007, 5 min.) – B.F.

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

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Trying To Get Good The Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon Showing: May 31, 8pm, MTC

Jack Sheldon is a great trumpet player who takes his art and calling so seriously while simultaneously taking himself not so very seriously that after 50 years in jazz he still is “trying to get good.” Sheldon is a jazz survivor, “the last cat standing” from the bebop generation, in the words of Billy Crystal.

Besides Crystal, other friends and admirers “sit in” to give Jack his props, including Merv Griffin, Clint Eastwood, Chris Botti, Dave Frischberg, Tierney Sutton, Terry Gibbs and Johnny Mandel. But the best of Trying to Get Good is all Jack, all the way: playing, singing, interacting with his public and relating some tasty and serious tales. (2008, 89 min.) – G.R.

Underbelly

film on the arts

Directed by Penny Peyser and Doug McIntyre (Filmmaker in person)

Directed by Steve Balderson (Filmmaker in person)

Showing: May 31, 8pm, Matheson

Water Flowing Together

documentary

Pleasant Gehman transited from the heady times of the L.A. punk scene and its un-traditions to take up the ur-traditions of bellydancing and become Princess Farhana. Supreme adept in the performance of Oriental Dance, always an enthusiastic and encouraging teacher, this adventurous woman is now putting moves on terpsichorean territory where no other bellydancer has gone before and, in a manner of speaking, pulls it off. We are ecstatic to have two local bellydancing troupes, Trillium Tribe and Rock Rose, present with us at this screening. We are casting runes in the hope that Princess Farhana will also be able to join us. (2007, 90 min.) – G.R.

Directed by Gwendolen Cates

“Dance: An art which takes the longest to perfect and is the shortest in lifespan.” Water Flowing Together is the story of Jock Soto, half Navajo Indian, half Puerto Rican, transplanted through his love of dance from a reservation in the Southwest to Manhattan, where he rose to stardom as the Golden Boy of the New York City Ballet. In a sensitive depiction of the way our lives inevitably change, the film relates Jock’s transition to a new phase of his life after a career of constant physical discipline and achievement. Incredibly gorgeous dance photography – not to be missed by anyone with a love of the arts and human grace. (2007, 77 min.) – D.B.

films on the arts

Showing: May 30, 8pm, Saint Anthony’s

 Preceded by M Directed by Tiffany Doesken-Polos (Filmmaker in person)

A pulsating, coruscating, semi-abstract exploration of the grace and beauty of the human form. Light, motion, color, texture … Eros. (Silent, 2006, 4 min.) – D.B. M is the Annabelle Butterfly Dance (1895) of the 21st century. – G.R.

Welcome to Nollywood

Directed by Jamie Meltzer (Filmmaker in person)

This exciting and hope-filled documentary introduces us to Nigeria’s budding motion picture industry (now the world’s third largest with a production of 2400 films a year). Nollywood harkens back to the days of Hollywood’s silent picture boom. No need to learn the local language – these folks operate entirely in English (subtitles help with thick accents). Rejoice in how the movies can make the Third World a more prosperous one. (2007, 57 min.) – D.B.

 Preceded by Salim Baba Directed by Tim Sternberg

films on the arts

Showing: May 30, 11am, Crown Hall

Since the age of 10, Salim Muhammed has made a living by taking his hand-cranked cinema cart to the neighborhoods of North Kolkata, India and screening discarded scraps of film for the local children.

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Documentary, 2007. (2007, 15 min., in Bengali with English subtitles)

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

47

Film Index Greening of the Desert. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Gypsy Caravan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Hammond’s Arcana or the Paradise of Birds . . . 29 Help is Coming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21, 29, 41 How to Cook Your Life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 I Met the Walrus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25, 29 In the Footsteps of Blazing Splendor. . . . . . . 33 John O’Keefe’s Adaptation of Walt Whitman’s Song Of Myself . . . . . . 41 Kenny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Khadak. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Killer Whale and Crocodile. . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Legend of Rosalie, The . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Losing Her. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29, 47 Mojave Phone Booth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Mr. Dial Has Something to Say. . . . . . . . . . 39 Murch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 My Olympic Summer . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 29 On the Assassination of the President. . . . . 21, 29 Passion and Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Phantom Canyon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25, 29 Phenomenon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 PXL This. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Polis Is This . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Questions for Mr. Reynolds . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Rabia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Reborn: New Orleans Schools. . . . . . . . . . 41 Red Man. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Roosevelt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21, 39 Row Hard No Excuses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Rug For California. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 ruth weiss Meets her Prometheus. . . . . . . . . 17 Salim Baba. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Sensation of Sight, The . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Serpent And The Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Shadow Ball . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Shadow Puppet Theater. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Siberian Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Sliding Liberia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Soldiers of Conscience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Strong Love. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Sustainable Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Suzuki Speaks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Teachings of the Tree People. . . . . . . . . . . 37 Terry Diggs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Texas Gold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 This Is My Cheesesteak. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Tres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Trying To Get Good. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Underbelly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Water Flowing Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Welcome to Nollywood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 When I Grow Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

HOW TO PURCHASE ADVANCE TICKETS

HOW TO PURCHASE TICKETS ON DAY OF SHOW

Online: April 24-May 23 www.mendocinofilmfestival.org

At the door of each event during the festival (subject to availability; cash only at the door, discounts not available)

PROCESSING FEE (online orders only) Processing fee is $1.00 per ticket with a maximum of $5 per order. A Pass represents multiple tickets and will be charged $5 per order. The processing fee is non-refundable.

After Life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Aftermath on Meadowlark Lane . . . . . . . . . 23 American Outrage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Anthem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29, 41 Armed for the Challenge. . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 At The Wall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Bachelorette, 34 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Big Question, The . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Body & Soul. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Bounce. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Brush With Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Buried Stories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Cantata in C Major. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Caramel (Sukkar banat). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Cats of Mirikitani, The. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Children’s Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Coffee to Go. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Collector, The. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Compound Eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Daphne, or The Forbidden Touch . . . . . . . . 33 Daughters of Wisdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Don’t Know, We’ll See. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Droomtijd (Dreamtime). . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Elvis and Anabelle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 35 Escape from Luanda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Friday Night Silents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Global Focus IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Tickets

By Phone: April 24-May 23 707-937-2199 In Person: May 24-June 1, 2008 Festival Headquarters / Box Office 45080 Albion St, Mendocino Saturday, May 24 | Sunday, May 25, 1pm - 4pm Monday, May 26 | Wednesday, May 28, 3pm - 6pm Thursday, May 29 | Saturday, May 31, 10am - 6pm Sunday, June 1, 10am - 1pm Will Call: May 24-June 1, 2008 Festival Headquarters / Box Office, 45080 Albion St. Orders received 2 weeks or less prior to each screening will be placed at Will Call. If you have tickets being held at Will Call, please pick them up at the Festival Headquarters at 45080 Albion St, in Mendocino.

Only the person(s) listed on the ticket order will be allowed to pick up Will Call tickets (valid photo ID required). You may authorize another individual to pick up your Will Call tickets when you place your ticket order.

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TICKET PRICES

Regular Screenings…..$10 Special Programs…....$10 Children’s Program….$5 Opening Party...$15 Film Pass....$175 (Includes admission to all regular film screenings and Opening Reception. One pass per person.)

FREE EVENTS

(first come, first served) Terry Diggs Special Program SOLD OUT? Then RUSH it!

Even if advance tickets are no longer available, Rush Tickets will be offered at each venue as soon as the number of unoccupied seats has been determined, typically a few minutes before showtime. The Rush Line may start anywhere from 20 minutes until 1 hour prior to the screening.

PAYMENT OPTIONS

Visa, MasterCard, Personal checks and Money Orders are accepted. Cash only on “Day of Show” tickets during the festival. $25 fee for returned checks.

We provide services for the disabled. Please contact the Ticket Office for details. All venues are wheelchair accessible. (Festival Headquarters is not.)

Fine Print Ticket orders are accepted and processed on a first-come, first-served basis. All sales are final.

No refunds, exchanges or substitutions.

Tickets or Passes cannot be replaced if lost, stolen, forgotten, destroyed or mis-directed by the post office. If you have trouble with your mail delivery, please choose the will call option.

All persons, regardless of age, must have a ticket or pass.

Ticket or Pass Holders must arrive 20 minutes prior to show time to be guaranteed a seat.

Sometimes, for reasons beyond our control, screenings must be changed or canceled. If a screening is canceled, tickets must be returned to the theater box office immediately if purchased on the day of the screening or to the Festival ticket outlet the same day to exchange for another screening or for a refund.

All events are subject to change.

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Map of Venues & Advertisers 6 11 25 41 45 46

North of Mendocino

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UKIAH

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36 28 19

PINE

SCHOOL

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10 24 18 32 ALBION

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LANSING

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EVERGREEN

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FORD

KASTEN

WILLIAM

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CARLSON

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29 LITTLE LAKE 8

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CALPELLA

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JACK

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South of Mendocino

Advertisers 1. Albion River Inn 2. Alegria Inn 3. Alene Didio 4. Ananse Village 5. Bayview Café 6. Blackberry Inn 7. Brewery Gulch Inn 8. Coast Getaways 9. Coast Real Estate 10. Corners of the Mouth 11. Dirt Cheap 12. Earth Cinema Circle 13. Fancy That 14. Fritz Brothers Guitars 15. Gallery Bookshop 16. Gallery of the Senses 17. Glendeven Inn 18. Great Put On 19. Headlands Inn 20. Highlight Gallery 21. Interiors 22. JD House B&B 23. Little River Inn 24. MacCallum House Inn & Restaurant 25. Maness Photography 26. Mendo Burgers 27. Mendo Realty 28. Mendocino Café 29. Mendocino Coast Reservations 30. Mendocino Travelers & Real Estate Guides 31. Mendocino Wine Co. 32. Old Gold 33. Packard House B&B 34. Pamela Hudson Real Estate 35. Panache Galleries 36. Sea Cottage - Art Love 37. Sea Rock Inn 38. Southern Exposure 39. Spiritual Cinema Circle 40. Stanford Inn 41. Ricochet Ridge Ranch 42. Thanksgiving Coffee Co. 43. The Lodge at the Woods 44. Third Court 45. Toto Zaida 46. V’Canto 47. Whitegate Inn

2 mi.

VENUES A. Festival Headquarters / Box Office

E. Matheson Performing Arts Center

Mendocino Hotel Conference Room 45080 Albion St. Located on Albion Street directly behind the Victorian hotel.

Mendocino High School Campus Envisioned as a classic “little theater,” the theater provides an intimate experience where actors and audience are not separated by stage and proscenium. The building design, materials and colors are a reference to the site’s former use - a board-and-batten barn built in the late 1800s which is said to have been used for the famous “Ice House” scene in East of Eden .

Venue sponsored by Rossi Building Materials.

B. Crown Hall 45285 Ukiah St Built in 1901 by Portuguese settlers, Crown Hall continues to serve as a community meeting hall. It can be seen in East of Eden starring James Dean.

Venue sponsored by The Coast KOZT FM.

C. Oddfellows Hall / MFF Merchandise 10480 Ukiah St (at the corner of Kasten and Ukiah) Historic Odd Fellows Hall was built in 1878 and is also known as the William Zimmer Gallery (1960s2000). It is now privately owned and loaned to community art groups for special shows and events.

F. St. Anthony ’s Parish Hall 10700 Lansing St. Established in the late 1850’s, St. Anthony’s is the oldest Catholic parish in Mendocino County. The original church burned to the ground and the one that stands today was constructed in the 1930s. This site served as a location in the film Cujo .

D. Mendocino Theater Company (MTC)

G. Hill House Inn

45200 Little Lake Street Offering local theatre productions since 1977, this small theater is located on the Mendocino Art Center campus, a major setting for the film East of Eden . The stone pillars along Little Lake Road are the only surviving elements from the mansion featured in the film.

Venue sponsored by Kemgas.

10701 Palette Dr. The Hill House Inn sign still reads “The Hill House of Cabot Cove,” a prop from the filming of the popular television series, Murder, She Wrote , in Mendocino. The village of Mendocino starred as the fictional town of Cabot Cover, Maine, in the series that ran from 1984-1996.

H. Abalone Room at Little River Inn 7751 N. Highway 1 Discovered by Hollywood in 1939, the Little River Inn has drawn casts and crews of many films, including Frenchman’s Creek , The Russians Are Coming , and Johnny Belinda .

Mendocino Film Festival 2008

49

Thu rs day May 29 F r i d ay May 30

3

4

5

6

9

Crown Hall

10

11 12

1

11:00 Welcome to Nollywood – Salim Baba

2

3

4

2:00 Murch

5

6

7

8

9

8:00 Row Hard No Excuses

8:00 Friday Night Silents

(74)

(100)

2:00 The Big Question

5:00 Doc Shorts 2

8:00 Doc Shorts 3

(63)

(74)

(84)

2:00 Shorts Program 2

5:00 Kenny

8:00 Siberian Dream

(70)

(72)

(88)

11:00 Global Focus – Texas Gold (54)

8:00 Shorts Program 1

10:00 PXL This (150)

(83)

(99)

(78)

8:00 Richard Heinberg – Suzuki Speaks

(63)

3:00 Two Artists from Exotic Mendolandia (90)

5:00 Killer Whale and Crocodile – Teachings of the Tree People

8:00 Mojave Phone Booth (88)

(68)

8:00 Brush with Life (83)

11:00 Questions for Mr. Reynolds – Anthem (75)

2:00 Sustainable Table – Coffee to Go – Greening of the Desert (79)

5:00 Opening Party & Sneak Peeks

10

5:00 Passion & Power

(112)

Little RIver Inn

Abalone Room

8

8:00 SPECIAL SCREENING Elvis & Anabelle – Red Man

mendocino theater co.

Hill House St. Anthony’s Matheson MTC

7

5:00 Polis is This – John O’Keefe’s Song of Myself (105)

8:00 Water Flowing Together – M (81)

S at u r day May 31

10 11

12

10:00 Daughters of Wisdom

1

2

12:30 Doc Shorts 4 (70)

(84)

10:00 Coffee with Michael Taylor – Phenomenon

3

4

5

6

7

3:00 Albert Maysles Award – Gypsy Caravan

5:30 How to Cook Your Life

3:00 Doc Shorts 1

5:30 Soldiers of Conscience

(74)

(87)

11 12

8:00 Caramel

11:00 Cats of Mirikitani

(95)

1

2

3

4

2:00 Kenny (99)

(74)

8:00 Mr. Dial Has Something to Say – Roosevelt

11:00 Brush with Life (83)

2:00 Questions for Mr. Reynolds – Anthem (75)

(66)

10:00 Shorts Program 1

12:30 Shorts Program 2

3:00 Shorts Program 3

(83)

78)

(77)

12:30 Shadow Puppet Theater

3:00 Stephen Simon’s Choice – After Life

5:30 Strong Love – Body and Soul

3:00 Don’t Know, We’ll See: The Work of Karen Karnes – Daphne – Bounce

(78)

9

(100)

(93)

10:00 Reborn – Help is Coming

8

S un d ay June 1

12:30 Conversation with Stephen Simon

5:30 Terry Diggs

8:00 Trying to Get Good

11:00 Escape from Luanda

(90)

(72)

8:00 Underbelly with Dancers

11:00 Sensation of Sight

(90)

(134)

5:30 Compound Eye

8:00 Serpent and the Sun

11:00 Row Hard No Excuses

(74)

(92)

(88)

(90)

FREE

2:00 Khadak (101)

2:00 Children’s Program

(96)

2:00 Elvis & Anabelle – Red Man (112)

(72)

Key:

Films For Our Future

( ) = Total Running Time

Films on the Arts

Narrative

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Documentary

Special Program

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Join us after the show…

TO N CA V’

…For our specialty Coastal Italian Dinners.

V’Canto features late night dining and desserts and V’ Canto a large selection of wines and specialty beers.

The entertainment continues on our 55 inch plasma screen and live accoustic music on Friday and Saturday nights.

Sun-Thurs 5-10pm Fri-Sat 5-11pm

Find us at 124 East Laurel Street in Fort Bragg

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707.964.6844

Credits: Special Thanks

Aggie Aguilar Carol Aguilar Megan Allende Shanti Balse Judith Brandman Gail Brodkey Ann Kyle Brown Jamie Buckner Madeline Burt Bob Bushansky Diane Buxton Cammie Conlon Rachel Cost Laviva Dakers Alene DiDio Jim Dimauro Buster Dyer Trish Dyer Cally Dym Maria Hansen Elac Claire Ellis Kathleen Fetzer Alex Fields Shelley Fields Arielle Ford

Angela Ford Diana Fuller Sherry Glaser Chuck Greenberg Steve Heckeroth Ejler Hjorth-Westh Tom Honer Margie Kamb Joan Katzeff Gordon Keller Nancy Kemp Ken Krauss Tom Kravis Brona Lessen Jef Loeb Eileen Lopate Dave Mathews Thais Mazur Tom McCoy Jim McCullough Toney Merritt Holly Newstead Susanne Norgard Dick O’Connor Willow O’Feral Toni Orans

Skye Patterson Geraldine Pember Lyles Pember Arlo Reeves Debra Scott Gail Silva Liberty Snyder Sally Stewart Kristin Suratt Jennifer Taylor Jessica Thompson Sally Welty Nicholas Wilson Bob Woelfel And all the additional volunteers! banner art

Janet Self Volunteer Coordination

Aimee Hansen Victoria Joy Eileen Lopate

Program Direction

George Russell, Program Director, Curator Betsy Ford, VP, Programming, Curator Pat Ferrero, Program Advisor, Curator Diana Fuller, Films on the Arts Advisor Richard Heinberg, Films for Our Future Advisor Pre-Screeners: Dan Bergeson Keith Brandman Shelley Fields Alex Fields Gordon Keller Meredith Smith Operations Staff

Andrew Todhunter, Manager Steve Greenwood

Willow O’Feral Brona Lessen Ward Ryan Hospitality Arlene Moorehead, Chair Sallie McConnell Blair Bowery Special Events: Parties

Deborah Kanani Sally Stewart Jennifer Taylor Videography and Technical Support

Mike Evans Alex Fields Gary Grahame Dennis Johnson Maynard Kaminsky Denell McFall Arlo Reeves

Photography

John Birchard Gisela Linder Robert Stewart Nicholas Wilson Publication Credits

Dan Bergeson, Synopses Chris Calder Rachel Cost, Designer Hugh Dignon Pat Ferrero Betsy Ford Karen Lewis Christie Newman Erina Reeves Arlo Reeves George Russell, Synopses Andrew Todhunter Ann Walker, Managing Editor