Wed, 18 November 2009 
Brett Harvey is President and founder of BKS Crew Productions,
a Vancouver based multimedia production company. Brett has worked as a director of photography on a number of film and television projects including two recent projects for the Canadian national television network CBC – Secrets and Lottery On Ice. He has made the move from DP to director with his new film The Union: The Business Behind Getting High, a documentary film which explores the seven-billion-dollar per year business of marijuana in British Columbia, as well as the general history and current impact of cannabis prohibition. The Union is available on DVD via Amazon.Comments[0] |
Wed, 11 November 2009  Emile Bokaer comes from a family of conscious and creative people in Ithaca, NY. As a child, he worked at his parents’ art house movie theater Fall Creek Pictures. While studying Math and English at Oberlin College, he fell in love with documentary filmmaking. He is pursuing an MFA in Documentary Film at Stanford University. Emile has made a wide range of documentary films locally and internationally. These include: a film about a small town skateboard park, the relationships between various institutional lifestyles, collectives of Guatemalan women who work to preserve native species of corn, and a technical theater program at a girl’s school in Cleveland. His recent documentary film short Looking Back is about Albert Lewis who struggles with drug addiction and with memories of war, using photography to help him survive in a supportive community of homeless veterans. Emile has also collaborated with Geoff Pingree on the forthcoming documentary feature, The Return of Elder Pingree and has worked on worked on the Student Academy Award finalist film, In Circles. Comments[0] |
Wed, 4 November 2009  Nicolas Entel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and lives in Brooklyn, NY. His latest project is the documentary Sins of My Father, which tells the story of Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar through the eyes of his only son, as well as the sons of his most prominent victims. Previously, Nicolas directed the multiple-award winning documentary film Orquesta Tipica filmed in Argentina and other locations around the world. He is also a founding partner in Red Creek Productions, one of the largest Latino owned production companies in the US. Red Creek has offices in New York, Buenos Aires and San Jose de Costa Rica. Red Creek has provided production services for the likes of Discovery Channel, BBC, and Turner Networks, produced hundreds of spots for major clients, as well as music videos for such artists as KT Tunstall and Wyclef Jean. Comments[0] |
Wed, 28 October 2009  Jonathan Parker and Catherine Di Napoli wrote and produced Bartleby, The Californians, and (Untitled). Bartleby is a quirky twist on a classic story by Herman Melville starring Crispin Glover. The Californians is a modern adaptation loosely based on The Bostonians by Henry James and stars Illeana Douglas. (Untitled) is about a fashionable contemporary art gallerist in NYC, a brooding music composer, and the state of the contemporary art world. In (Untitled), Adam Goldberg plays the composer, whose work calls for paper crumpling, glass breaking and bucket kicking and Marley Shelton plays the chic Chelsea gallerist, whose latest show features an artist who employs taxidermy and household objects. The composer's brother, played by Eion Bailey, successfully sells his art to corporate clients and wants to be taken more seriously by his peers. Comments[0] |
Wed, 14 October 2009  Daniel Wirtberg was born in Karlstad, Sweden. He started filmmaking at the age of 12. At 18, he was accepted to the Czech Film Academy. Daniel has freelanced as a writer, director and producer and is a filmmaking teacher. He has created a variety of projects from music videos, promos, and slide shows to short films of different genres including: Julia, Apple, and The Intruder. Daniel’s film Love Child was featured in a number of prestigious including one of the 10 selected shorts in the worldwide traveling Manhattan Short Film Festival along with over 50 other festivals around the world. It is about a young girl who enjoys the perfect life of being the only child, when one day a new family member arrives. Comments[0] |
Wed, 7 October 2009  Julius Onah has worked for filmmakers Marc Levin, Spike Lee, and with acclaimed playwright Robert Alexander on the hip-hop play A Preface to the Alien Garden. He has also worked on as an NBC Page and was an editor on the documentary feature Lockdown, USA. His other award winning short films include: She Waits In The Restless Horizon, Linus, and the German documentary short, Szmolinsky. Comments[0] |
Wed, 23 September 2009  Gregg Helvey received his M.F.A in film production from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, and his B.A.s in English and French from the University of Virginia. Gregg has traveled the world to film in countries such as El Salvador, China, Kenya and England on projects ranging from independent fictional films to National Geographic and BBC1 documentaries. His award-winning work includes the documentary, Overexposed, which examines how pornography affects men. Gregg wrote, directed and produced Kavi, the winning film of the 2009 Student Academy Award® gold medal in the narrative category. Kavi was filmed entirely on location in India and tells the story of a young boy who wants to play cricket and go to school, but instead he is forced to work in a brick kiln as a modern-day slave. Comments[0] |
Wed, 16 September 2009  Michael Ferreira, a native New Yorker of Portuguese immigrant decent, has performed in various theatrical mediums including: theater, television, film, and live cabaret performance, and also as his celebrated alter ego, Carmella Cann. Comments[0] |
Wed, 9 September 2009  Sean Baker is best known for co-creating the cult television show Greg the Bunny. Darren Dean wrote, directed and produced the award winning short film Sleep Over for under $250. Born and raised in Northern New Jersey, Darren is a published author, editor and journalist. He was also the front-man for the popular NYC band, SHOT, which contributed music to the behind the scenes featurette for the Sundance award-winning film Acts of Worship. Comments[0] |
Wed, 2 September 2009  Filmmaker and commercial editor Daniel Mitchell is originally from London and has been working in Melbourne and Sydney since 2001, editing high end television commercials. Several years after film school, Daniel has focused his writing and directing work on children's films including Triple Concerto in D Minor. In the short film Triple Concerto in D Minor, Rebecca, an ambitious young girl, had always wanted to play the triangle with an orchestra. When the National Youth Orchestra are in town, Rebecca has the chance to make her dream come true. Comments[0] |
Wed, 26 August 2009  Scott Wurth is based in Killara, Australia and has used his background in both advertising and photography to focus on documentary storytelling. Tira Bikal is about the Matias Santos family in the Philippines whose members became sick and began dying. Matias pledged to God Comments[0] |
Wed, 19 August 2009  Sue Gilbert has made two documentary features on old money wealth, values, past and future generations, Greenaway (in 1982) and Beyond Greenaway: The Legacy (twenty seven years later). Beyond Greenaway: The Legacy, Sue Gilbert’s second feature, was created after devoting many years to family life. Beyond Greenaway explores explores a range of diverse topics such as marriage and divorce, belief in God, drug therapy, and politics, seeing those with affluence as ordinary people sharing their struggles, regardless of their advantages. In addition to touring a variety of film festivals, Sue conducts workshops based on issues addressed in Beyond Greenaway for businesses, schools and focus groups to help people examine their attitudes about both affluence and the role of their own backgrounds in shaping their values. Comments[0] |
Wed, 12 August 2009  Victor Barcena won the first prize as a director at the Complutense University of Madrid with the play Woyzeck, from Georg Büchner. Comments[0] |
Wed, 5 August 2009  Bobby Ciraldo is the co-owner of Special Entertainment is an Mary L. Nohl Fellowship Award winning production partnership between him and Andrew Swant whose mission is to blend art, entertainment, and humor. Their projects include: Hamlet A.D.D, Frankie Latina’s Modus Operandi, a number of creative music videos like the famous What What In The Butt by Samwell, and the documentary William Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet (based on the story of the ballet Common People by Margo Sappington created to paint a picture of music and the spirit of William Shatner's album, Has Been) which has played film festivals worldwide. Comments[0] |
Wed, 29 July 2009  Barbara Muschietti is a an Argentinean executive producer of the Cannes Golden Lion Award Winning production Toma 78 in Barcelona, Spain. Toma 78 provides General Production, casting, location scouting, styling, hair and make up, set design and prop rental, accommodation and logistics in a variety of creative advertising spots and film. Comments[0] |
Wed, 22 July 2009  Patrick Smith has written, produced, animated, and directed a variety of award winning animated films. He also directed the Emmy nominated MTV series Downtown and continued on to direct the popular animated series Daria. Patrick has created many creative commercial spots providing his signature style like Zoloft to the Morgan Spurlock’s 30 Days series. Patrick's bizarre, morphing style tells symbolic stories of identity and emotion, and has extended beyond film. His unique paintings and public art installations have earned him accolades outside the world of animation; his fine art has been represented internationally by CVZ Contemporary Gallery in New York. Patrick is a Senior Thesis advisor at the Pratt Institute in New York, a fellow with the New York Foundation of the Arts, and a curator for multiple international film and animation festivals. Comments[0] |
Wed, 15 July 2009  Liliana Greenfield-Sanders is a New York City director of a number of award winning short films including Ghosts of Grey Gardens, Miriam, Anna, Samantha, and Adelaide. She has worked for Anthology Film Archives, Fine Line Features, and Maysles Films. She graduated with honors from the Art-Semiotics department at Brown University. Before attending NYU Graduate film school, her first film Ghosts of Grey Gardens premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, screened at the Museum of Modern Art, and made its television debut on PBS. Anna won first prize in the LMN TV Student Filmmaker Contest and made its television debut on Lifetime Television. Samantha won Best Director, Best Graduate Film, and Best Film at the Fusion Film Festival. As a short film, Adelaide has won a National Board of Review Award, a SAG/Indie Audience Award at DGA Los Angeles and both the Audience Award and Best Short at the Gen Art Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Wed, 8 July 2009  Tze (pronounced "Z") Chun is a filmmaker working out of NYC and LA. He was born in Chicago and raised outside of Boston, and received his bachelor's degree in film studies at Columbia University. As a painter and visual artist, Tze has been represented at CVZ Contemporary gallery in Soho, and has commissioned portraits in private residences in New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, and New Orleans. Tze also painted the original artwork for the Academy-Award nominated Half Nelson as well as the children's book drawings used in the film. Tze's short film Windowbreaker, made for $600, was selected to play at mant high-profile film festivals including Sundance. A feature length version of the film Children of Invention has also screened at Sundance and has won awards at film festivals worldwide. It is about two young children living outside Boston that are left to fend for themselves when their mother gets embroiled in a pyramid scheme and disappears. Tze has been named one of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film." He is working on a number of projects including, You're A Big Girl Now, a film about his mother's childhood growing up in a Singaporean brothel, based on two years of research and interviews. Comments[0] |
Wed, 1 July 2009  Christopher Bowen is a composer based in New York City and has written music for theatre and film. His projects include: the Annie nominated feature film $9.99 and the Israel-France co-produced live action feature Jellyfish (the winner of the Cannes Film Festival Camera D’Or). Both films feature the writing of Etgar Keret and a collaboration with writer Shira Geffen on Jellyfish and animator Tatia Rosenthal on $9.99. Additionally, Christopher is the Senior Performing Director of the award-winning theatrical group, The Blue Man Group, known for its three mysterious blue bald characters who take the audience through a multi-sensory experience. Other scoring projects have included: The Pinocchio Experiment, a one-man show written and performed by Randall Jaynes and the short film The Green Hour by Nicole Kassell. Comments[0] |
Wed, 24 June 2009  Lynne Sachs is a teacher and experimental documentary filmmaker originally from Memphis, TN and now lives in Brooklyn, NY that teaches experimental film and video at NYU. Lynne’s films explore the relationship between personal memories and broader, historical experiences. As an experimental filmmaker, she tries to make images that lead to new ways of thinking about the language of film. Some of her films include: Following the Object to Its Logical Beginning, Sermons and Sacred Pictures, States of Unbelonging, Which Way Is East, and Wind in Our Hair. The Last Happy Day is an experimental documentary portrait Lynne created of Sandor Lenard, a distant cousin and a Hungarian medical doctor. Lenard was a writer with a Jewish background who fled the Nazis. Eventually Sandor found himself in remotest Brazil where he embarked on the translation of Winnie the Pooh into Latin, an eccentric task which catapulted him to brief world wide fame. Comments[0] |
Wed, 17 June 2009  Writer/director Rob Connolly discovered a love for creating visual images through studying art and photography while growing up in rural Mount Airy, North Carolina. His passion for visual storytelling developed further while chronicling his travels around the world. His latest work and thesis, Our Neck of the Woods, is about the character Bob Underwood's mundane life manufacturing plastic lawn-ornament deer and his connection to an enchanting Georgian refugee that he attempts to rescue her—whether she needs it or not. It has screened in Sundance and a variety of other large and small film festivals. Comments[0] |
Wed, 10 June 2009  Madeleine Olnek is a filmmaker, director and playwright. Her first short comedy Hold Up, was an official selection of Sundance and the Los Angeles Film Festival. Her plays have been described by playwright Paula Vogel as "incredible contemporary masterpieces" in American Theater Magazine. Madeleine is also one of the authors of A Practical Handbook for the Actor with a foreword by David Mamet. Her latest short film, Countertransference, screened at Sundance as well and won the Adrienne Shelley Award for Best Female Director, the Grand Jury award for Outstanding Dramatic Short at Outfest, and was featured in the Live Action Shorts program in the Newport International Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Wed, 3 June 2009  Tom Hall has worked at the Hamptons International Film Festival and Nantucket Film Festival in Guest/Industry and Programming over the years along with work in New Media at Bravo/IFC. He has directed short films for Bob Mould’s Carnival of Light and Sound Tour and is a member of the indieWIRE blogging community with The Back Row Manifesto. Tom is also the Director of Programming at the Sarasota Film Festival and is currently the Artistic Director of the Newport International Film Festival which happens during the 1st week of June. Comments[0] |
Wed, 27 May 2009  Miriam Cutler has been writing, producing, and performing music for over 20 years and is based out of Los Angeles. She began her musical career as a singer/horn player in several bands, including the popular Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. She also led The New Miss Alice Stone Ladies Society Orchestra and the jazzy Swingstreet, writing most of their music and arrangements, producing several recordings, and touring with them. Her love of jazz also led to a stint co-producing albums for Polygram-Verve including Joe Williams, Nina Simone, Marlena Shaw, and Shirley Horn. Miriam's scores have been featured in a variety of projects including numerous narrative features and award-winning documentaries, as well as television, and even two circuses. She is known for being versatile, her integration of world music styles, and working collaboratively. She has served on documentary juries including the first-ever World Cinema Documentary competition at Sundance, The Independent Spirit Awards, International Documentary Association Awards, and American Film Institute's Film Festival Awards. Miriam also serves on the Board of The Society of Composers and Lyricists and has been an advisor for the Sundance Institute’s Composers Lab. Comments[0] |
Wed, 20 May 2009  John Bergin has worked on a variety of creative projects including album artwork for bands Gravity Kills, Pigface, Voodou, and the Rachel Getting Married soundtrack. He has also created music and music videos for bands including Lolo and Blackmouth (a side project that we he performs on with Jarboe of Swans), and the children’s albums Noah’s Ark and Kaleidosaurus. He has created and contributed to several graphic novels and comics including: Bone Saw, The Crow, Ashes, and Golgothika. He also created short films including: Cloud Warriors and Nesting Grounds. John's most recent project is an animated feature film based on one of his graphic novels, From Inside. It tells the story of Cee, a young pregnant woman who finds herself on a damaged train crossing a post apocalyptic landscape. Comments[0] |
Wed, 13 May 2009  Margaret Brown has worked on a variety of films including cinematography work on the film Ice Fishing, the narrative short 99 Threadwaxing, producing the narrative feature film, Mi Amigo, and producing the narrative short Six Miles of Eight Feet which won a Student Academy Award. She has also directed and produced music videos for Okkervil River and Cat Power. She has more recently focused on documentary work including the acclaimed documentary Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt, and The Order of Myths which won her awards including the Truer Than Fiction Award at the Independent Spirit Awards. The Order of Myths is about the world of secret societies and centuries-old traditions branching from the 1st Mardi Gras in America celebrated in Mobile, Alabama organized along enduring color lines. |
Wed, 6 May 2009  Brendan Toller, graduate of Hampshire College, has created his 1st feature, the eclectic documentary I Need That Record! The Death (Or Possible Survival) Of The Independent Record Store, a documentary feature examining why over 3000 independent record stores have closed across the U.S. in the past decade. I Need That Record! features interviews with folks including: Ian Mackaye of Dischord Records, activist/author Noam Chomsky, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Mike Watt, guitar composer Glenn Branca, Pat Carney of The Black Keys, Mike Dreese of Newbury Comics, and independent record store owners across the US. Comments[0] |
Wed, 29 April 2009  Petr Cikhart, Director of Photography, was born and raised in Prague. As a 19-year-old Assistant Director, he covered the war in Chechnya for Czech TV, and was arrested and held hostage for two days by Russian soldiers during the assignment. It was his first field shoot, and he was hooked. He immigrated to the United States in 1995 after winning a journalism internship at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. After finishing his internship and working briefly as a lobsterman in Maine, he moved to New York City to resume his career behind the camera. He has lent his talents to several television programs, including CBS’s The Amazing Race, which won him a primetime Emmy, National Geographic’s Be the Creature, A&E’s Dog The Bounty Hunter, WGBH's Science Investigators, Throwdown with Bobby Flay on The Food Network, ABC and the Discovery Channel ’s reality series Detonators, and PBS’s Fiesta Mexicana. He has also traveled to more than 80 countries on all continents for a variety of projects, such as Farmingville, the LA-gang documentary Gangs: Escaping the Life for Showtime, and Blindsight, which was filmed in the Tibetan Himalayas. Petr has also recently worked on the fiction side of film as the DP on projects including the feature-length movie May the Best Man Win starring members of the Upright Citizens Brigade and the experimental feature film, Euphoria. Comments[0] |
Wed, 22 April 2009  Copywriter and filmmaker, David Rakowiecki started in advertising writing award winning TV spots for major brands including Heineken, Amstel Light, Sprite and Converse. He found advertising creatively unfulfilling and turned to writing screenplays. He has attended NY Film Academy, where he wrote and directed the shorts The Bottle and Five Cent Refund. After NYFA, he wrote and directed an Olympics-themed commercial for Heineken that was recognized in the New York Times and took lessons in guerilla improv technique at Upright Citizens' Brigade Theatre in New York. David created the film Spoiler Alert, which is a black comedy about Brad, the operator of a movie scoop website and Harrison, a down on his luck film director who has squandered his artistic abilities in pursuit of easy paydays. Comments[0] |
Wed, 15 April 2009  Simon-Olivier Fecteau is a writer, director, producer, comedian, and actor from Victoriaville, QC. Simon was part of the comic trio The Chick'n Swell during the three years that their weekly program was broadcast on television from Radio-Canada, between 2001 and 2003. In 2006, he made a difficult decision to leave the group to pursue his passion for film. Simon's first short The Remaining Days is about a very old widower, while cleaning out his closet, finds a list of things he wanted to do in his life and decides to carry them out. Simon's 1st feature film, Bluff, is a black comedy about a building inspector that finds a shocking discovery in the basement to a building that is about to be destroyed. He contacts the landlord and, as the pair wait for the police to show up, the story of this discovery comes uncovered. Both films have played the festival circuit and they each have been nominated for a Genie in Canada. Comments[0] |
Wed, 8 April 2009  Ira Sachs was born in Memphis, TN and moved to New York after graduating from Yale University with a BA in Literature and Film Theory. Ira was a recipient of a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1999, Sachs has been an Adjunct Professor in the MFA Program at the Columbia University School of Film, a creative advisor at the Sundance Director’s Lab, and a fellow at both the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. His films include the features Married Life, Forty Shades of Blue which won a Sundance Grand Jury Prize, and The Delta. They have been screened at the Berlin, Toronto, New York, Rotterdam, and London Film Festivals. Ira is presently working on a new feature, The Goodbye People, co-written with Oren Moverman, and adapted from the fiction of screenwriter and novelist Gavin Lambert. Comments[0] |
Wed, 25 March 2009  Bettina Devin is a talented actress, voice over artist, singer, and teacher. Bettina Devin was known worldwide for her role as “Maureen’s clueless Mom” in the film version of Rent. She can be seen in principal and lead film roles in the thriller, The Confessional, The Full Picture (Grand Prize Winner in the Rhode Island International Film Festival), and in 2 unique roles in The Village Barbershop. In Film Noir, an animated feature, she voiced 6 characters, including the leading female character, and it premiered at Cannes. Bettina is also an critically acclaimed singer and stage performer, who has been a Guest Artist with the San Francisco Symphony and David Mirisch Productions. She has been a Celebrity Guest Coach for GRAMMY Career Day, has taught voice and acting for over 30 years, and has worked with a wide variety of performers. Comments[0] |
Wed, 18 March 2009  Emily Hubley is a daughter of pioneer animators Faith and John Hubley and she worked on Faith Hubley's films at The Hubley Studio, Inc. from 1977 to 2001. Emily has also been making her own animated shorts for thirty years. Her hand-drawn films explore personal memory and the turbulence of emotional life. Among Hubley's shorts are: Pigeon Within, Delivery Man, The Tower, Her Grandmother's Gift, Set Set Spike, and Octave. She has created the animated sequences for John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch. She also provided inserts for documentaries Everything's Cool, Blue Vinyl, The Boy in the Bubble, and Original Child Bomb. With Emily’s 1st feature length film, The Toe Tactic, she layers human truths, working with live elements to depict a reality that is at once subjective, honest and bittersweet. The Toe Tactic uses live action and animation together to explore the interaction between the human and supernatural forces and the main character, Mona Peek, finds her way to reconnect with the world. The Toe Tactic features an eclectic score from her sister and collaborator Georgia Hubley's band, Yo La Tengo. Emily is touring and speaking about The Toe Tactic in various cinemas and venues nationwide. Comments[0] |
Wed, 11 March 2009  While hailing from Winnipeg, MB, Stacey Chomiak is currently living in Oakville, Ontario, Canada in her final year of the Bachelor of Animation degree at Sheridan College. Before Stacey moved from the corporate world to animation school, she worked as a graphic/web designer for several years. She has completed the The Celestial Ox, with the MoCap Penguins studio which has screened many films festivals and is currently finishing up her 2nd animated short, Tah-dah. Comments[0] |
Wed, 4 March 2009  Elizabeth Marre was born in Paris and completed law school while studying acting for several years. Elizabeth worked as 1st Assistant Director on feature films, where she traveled from Lebanon to Hong-Kong, working on films such as La Moustache and Caramel. Olivier Pont grew up in the French Riviera. He graduated from the Gobelins, the French National Animation School. He worked as an animator at the Steven Spielberg’s Amblimation Studio in London and then developed his own stories as a comic strip artist. Olivier edited eight cartoon books, including Où le Regard ne porte pas…. Elizabeth and Olivier have together written and directed two short films : That Little Spark (La Petite Flamme) and Manon on the Asphalt (Manon sur le Bitume). Both films have screened and been awarded in several festivals world wide and Manon on the Asphalt was nominated for the 2009 Academy Award for Live Action Short. Comments[0] |
Wed, 25 February 2009  Film publicist Nichola Ellis started out working for Columbia Pictures in London where she worked on her first feature Gandhi, Tootsie, and The Big Chill. She then went on to handle the UK campaigns for Highlander, Field of Dreams, and Dances With Wolves. In 1990, Nichola moved to Los Angeles and joined Dennis Davidson Associates. At DDA, she was responsible for such international campaigns as: Malcolm X, City Slickers, and The Usual Suspects. In 1995, she founded The Lighthouse Company, a Los Angeles based independent P.R. and marketing agency servicing the film industry, focusing on the complete journey of a film, both in the US and overseas markets, creating and implementing campaigns. One of The Lighthouse Company's most recent publicity campaigns was for Jochen Alexander Freydank's Spielzeugland (Toyland) which won the 2009 Academy Award for Live Action Short. Comments[0] |
Wed, 18 February 2009  Elliot Cowan is an illustrator, a writer, a storyboard artist from NYC by way of London and Australia. Elliot lived in Tasmania for nearly 10 years to write, direct and edit television commercials. He also lived in London where he mostly worked for Uli Meyer Animation, working as a story artist and gag man on the studio’s feature film Monstermania! and worked on several music videos with McKeown/ Devita Productions. Elliot has completed several of The Stressful Adventures of Boxhead and Roundhead short animated films. They have screened at a variety film festivals all over the world including Annecy and several have been distributed by Shorts International. Comments[0] |
Wed, 11 February 2009  Kai-Duc Luong was born in Cambodia and grew up in France and later made a detour in Chicago, IL. He has made several award winning shorts and music videos for artists including Chat, The Frogs, and Marissa Nadler. Kai's recent film, Someplace Else, is a musical journey with bluesman Vance Kelly and his band from Chicago’s south side, mixed with the effect that the band’s music has on the Kai’s personal outlook in life. Someplace Else has screened at a number of films internationally including the Rhode Island International Film Festival, IFP Chicago, and the Hibernarock Festival in France. Comments[0] |
Wed, 4 February 2009  Nina Paley started out as a comic strip artist, including for Fluff and The Hots, as well as her own alternative weekly Nina's Adventures. In 1998, she began making independent animated festival films, including the controversial yet popular environmental short, The Stork. In 2002, Nina followed her then-husband to Trivandrum, India, where she read her first Ramayana. This inspired her first feature film, Sita Sings the Blues, which she animated and produced single-handedly over the course of 5 years on a home computer, featuring the lost music of jazz vocal legend Annette Hanshaw. Comments[0] |
Wed, 28 January 2009  John Jeffcoat is a writer, director, and editor based out of Seattle, WA. John's debut as a documentary director was the 1999's Bingo! The Documentary distributed by Seventh Art Releasing. His feature-length directorial debut, Outsourced, is a narrative about the outsourcing experience in India, he co-wrote with George Wing and stars Josh Hamilton and Ayesha Dharker. Outsourced is available on DVD. John is also working on a feature-length documentary on the world's largest film industry, in Bombay, India, Bollywood and Me. Comments[0] |
Wed, 21 January 2009  Michael Kang is a Korean American writer and director. His feature film directorial debut The Motel was produced by indie veteran director Miguel Arteta (known for Star Maps, Chuck & Buck, and The Good Girl) and premiered internationally at the Pusan Film Festival and was also awarded the Sundance/NHK International Filmmaker's Award. The Motel is currently available on DVD. Michael's latest film West 32nd, produced by Teddy Zee (known for producing Hitch and The Pursuit of Happyness) revolves around John Kim, an ambitious young lawyer in New York, who takes on a pro-bono case involving a fourteen-year-old Korean boy accused of murder. It debuted at Tribeca. Comments[0] |
Wed, 14 January 2009  Asaf Hanuka is an Israeli illustrator and comic book artist, notable for his collaborations with his identical twin brother Tomer and his work with Etgar Keret in both Hebrew and English. Asaf and Tomer co-created Bipolar, an experimental comic book series which gained them nominations for the Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz awards. Asaf and Tomer were artists on Ari Folman’s haunting animated documentary, Waltz with Bashir, about the connection with the current Israeli Army and the 1982 Lebanon War. Waltz with Bashir has toured film festivals worldwide; garnering many awards, and is in limited theatrical release. It has won 6 Israeli Academy Awards. It was also named Best Film of 2008 by the National Society of Film Critics in the United States and has won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. Comments[0] |
Wed, 7 January 2009  Karen Aqua has created animated films exploring the themes of ritual, journeys, transformation, and the human spirit since 1976 with her 1st animated short, Penetralia. Much of her work reflects an interest in symbols, mythology, and prehistoric and tribal cultures, and includes elements of rhythm, dance, and music. Her award-winning films have been screened nationally and internationally, at film festivals, museums, and universities. Aqua’s animation also appears regularly on Sesame Street. Karen's recent film Sensorium is a hand-drawn experimental animation exploring the relationship between music and image that is inspired by dance gestures and movements found in nature such as water and tide pools, the film is a study of sound/motion synthesis. Comments[0] |
Wed, 31 December 2008  Terrance Zdunich is a writer, illustrator, composer, and performer from Los Angeles, CA. He has worked on a diverse set of projects including: storyboard illustration on Sean Penn's film Into the Wild, stage acting, and the illustrated book God and The Box. Terrance's most recent project is the film Repo! The Genetic Opera, which he co-wrote and co-composed with Darren Smith, which Terrance also stars in as the Grave Robber, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman. Repo! The Genetic Opera is a futuristic sci-fi goth camp horror film about organ transplantation and the problems with bad loans. It is currently touring select venues around the country, with audiences in costumes followed by conversations with both Terrance and Darren Lynn Bousman. Comments[0] |
Wed, 17 December 2008  Michael Langan grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, where he began his artistic career as a professional stage actor. He returned to his New England birthplace in 2003 to attend the animation program at Rhode Island School of Design, completing Doxology as his thesis film. Doxology has since won 12 awards and screened at over 50 film festivals worldwide including the Ottawa International Animation Festival, Crossroads Film Festival, ASIFA-East Animation Festival, and the Animation Block Party.
His latest film titled Dahlia is a fast paced, visually and musically charged live action animation that will debut at Slamdance in early 2009. Comments[0] |
Wed, 10 December 2008  Nate Wragg is an renowned artist, illustrator, and animator. He left home after high school to study character animation at Cal Arts. Nate received an animation internship at James Baxter Animation Studios after his 3rd year of school, followed by an internship at Pixar Animation Studios in the art department on Ratatouille leaving school early. He has designed, developed and art directed the end title sequence for Ratatouille and was the Production Designer on Pixar’s animated short Your Friend the Rat and was a character designer on Toy Story 3. He left Pixar to move to LA to work as an artist for Dreamworks. He illustrated the feature children’s book for Ratatouille called Too Many Cooks along with plans to develop his own books. Nate’s other illustrations include a short story in the collaboration comic Afterworks 2 and for the art book The Ancient Book of Myth and War. He was accepted into the Society of Illustrators 50th Annual Showcase in New York City and was recently part of an charity art auction called the Totoro Forest Project at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. Comments[0] |
Wed, 3 December 2008  Producer and animator Timothy Schultz and John Grigsby joined us for this week's episode. Tim Schultz went to college to study film and journalism at the University of Colorado before starting Bullhead Entertainment, LLC in 2005. Bullhead recently produced The Cave: An Adaptation of Plato's Allegory in Clay and is currently in production on the feature-length documentary Chasing the Shadows, which follows Tim's journey into the world of ghosts and the afterlife. John Grigsby’s recent animations entitled, An Introduction to Lucid Dream Exploration was painstakingly created on etch-a-sketch. He is also a musician and recently toured the world as a bassist with blues musician Otis Taylor. John is the DOP and animator for The Cave: An Adaptation of Plato's Allegory in Clay. Comments[0] |
Wed, 26 November 2008  Scott Bunt has written for newspapers, magazines and standup comics, penned radio and television shows, worked in the music industry as a songwriter, producer and musician. His recent feature film, Sea of Dust, is based on the real life villain Prester John, and his vengeful master plan to sacrifice “the psychologically vulnerable” on the altar of evil. Sea of Dust won Grand Prize for best feature film at the 2008 RI International Horror Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Wed, 19 November 2008  Richard McGuire, musician, artist, and animator, joined us on this episode. Richard is the founder and bass player of the band Liquid Liquid. He is a regularly contributing artist to the The New Yorker magazine. Richard has also created comics, written and illustrated four children's books and has created award winning animation design for television for PBS Kids. He has designed and directed the short film Mico-Loup which was part of the feature film, Loulou and other Wolves. Most recently, Richard has co-written and directed the closing piece in Fear(s) of the Dark, a French animated feature film from a variety of animators who went back to the origins of their terrors and agreed to animate their drawings that inspire them. Fear(s) of the Dark is currently playing in limited release in theatres in worldwide. Comments[0] |
Wed, 12 November 2008  We were fortunate to catch a glimpse into the world of renowned animator Bill Plympton. Comments[0] |
Wed, 29 October 2008  Mason Daring is a talented film composer, musician, and record label head. As a musician with a law degree, Mason was legal counsel to director John Sayles for his first film The Return of the Secaucus Seven. Daring ended up composing the score to that film, as well as John Sayles’ other films up to and including Honeydripper, a story of blues musicians in 1950s Alabama. Mason has done television scoring as well, including the themes to the series Nova and Frontline on PBS. He also releases some of his and his collaborators recordings on his label Daring Records, a sub-label of Rounder Records. Mason currently splits his time between his studio and home in New England and a place in the Hollywood area. Comments[0] |
Wed, 22 October 2008  Geoff Thompson is a BAFTA winning writer, teacher, and martial artist. Geoff Thompson has worked through a plethora of menial jobs, from glass collector to floor sweeper; he even spent a decade working as a nightclub bouncer. Geoff decided to become a martial arts instructor and then followed this by living out his dream of becoming a writer. He is now the author of over thirty books, a stage play, a BAFTA winning short film, Brown Paper Bag, and two feature films. He wrote a screenplay to the award winning short film, Romans 12:20, which won the Grand Prize International Discovery Award at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. His latest feature film, Clubbed, about a lonely factory worker whose life is transformed when he becomes a nightclub doorman, has screened a variety of film festivals including the Raindance Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Wed, 15 October 2008  William Donaruma has years of production experience having worked for Universal Studios as well as a variety of production companies and major television networks. Returning to Notre Dame to teach production courses, he has won the Kaneb Teaching Award and was granted a fellowship at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He is currently worked on a documentary about the His short films screened in the Feel Good Film Festival, the Chicago International Film Festival, and the MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Wed, 8 October 2008  Based in Auckland, New Zealand, Justine Simei-Barton has worked in film, television, and theater, as director, writer, producer, and instructor. She heads her own film production company, Tala Pasifika Productions. Justine has won a number of awards including the Senior Pacific Artists’ Award, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, and a QE II Arts Council Travel Grant. Her recent film The Trophy, portrays a young Samoan girl whose science project wins her a trophy, but creates tension within her tradition-oriented family. The Trophy has played in film festivals around the world, including the Berlin International Film Festival, the Fajr Iran International Film Festival, and the Rhode Island International Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Wed, 1 October 2008  We spoke with members of the Toronto film collective team, Flemish Beauty, behind a number of films including the 1 minute animated short, The Inquisitive Snail. The Inquisitive Snail is the story of Luke, an average, everyday nosy neighbor and his newly acquired pet, an inquisitive snail. When the inquisitive snail is dispatched by Luke to spy on the inhabitants of a small town, the snail soon discovers that all is not what it seems and other people's secrets can be absolutely delicious. The Inquisitive Snail has been selected for a variety of film festivals including Annecy, DC Shorts, The Seattle International Film Festival, and the Rhode Island International Film Festival, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, and the MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Wed, 24 September 2008  Ryan Gielen was born and raised in Columbia, MD. Ryan attended Washington and Lee University, where he majored in Journalism. He taught himself editing by sneaking into the editing suites after the Broadcast Journalism students left for the night. Following graduation, Ryan Gielen started his own production company we have creates, training and promotional videos for clients like Johns Hopkins University and MADD. The steady work funded his first documentary, Larry Keel: Beautiful Thing, following a year in the life of an underground bluegrass legend. Since moving to New York, Ryan has focused on screenwriting, producing and directing. His first short, Deleted Scenes, has won awards andplayed in festivals across the country. His recent feature film, The Graduates is inspired by his experiences growing up in Columbia, and attending several Senior Weeks in Ocean City. It has played several film festivals and has won the 2008 Directorial Discovery Award at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Wed, 17 September 2008  Marlyn Mason has been an acting professional from the age of 9. By the mid 1960s, she was playing a recurring role of Sally Welden on TV's Ben Casey. In 1967, she starred as Carrie Pipperidge in a television version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel and in 1969, she made her big-screen debut opposite Elvis Presley in The Trouble With Girls and as Nikki Bel in After a long absence, Marlyn returned to television in the early 1990s in a variety of roles. Most recently, she has written, produced, and starred in award winning short, Model Rules. Model Rules is film about a 70 year old woman who works as an artists’ model posing nude for a classroom full of men. During the session, she begins to fantasize about one of the artists as he draws her nude form.
Model Rules has screened a variety of festivals including LA Shorts and has received the Grand Prize for Screenplay at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Tue, 9 September 2008  Trey Gunn, based in Seattle by way of Texas, has an impressive list of credits as a musician, most memorably with the seminal progressive rock band King Crimson, as well as with other artists such as David Sylvian, Brian Eno and the band Tool. As a solo artist, he has released seven CDs. He has moved into the world of film and television scoring, and with Joe Mendelson has developed Quodia concerts, which integrate film, music, language, and storytelling. Trey Gunn's latest CD release is a compilation of film score pieces entitled Music For Pictures, for which he is soliciting animators to contribute visual interpretations. Comments[0] |
Sun, 31 August 2008  On this episode of Spoiler Alert Radio, we spoke with people behind the making of the 2008 Rhode Island International Film Festival including: Demetria Carr, Chase Huneke, Jocelyn Donahue, George Marshall, and Adam Short. This was the 12th year for RIIFF, which has become a leading showcase for independent filmmakers from around the world, this year screening almost 300 films in six days, in addition to year round film events and sidebar film festivals. RIIFF is a qualifying festival for the annual Academy Awards in the short film category, a distinction only about one percent of film festivals achieve. The interviews were recorded on location at the Columbus Theatre and the Courthouse Center for the Arts. Comments[0] |
Sun, 24 August 2008 On this episode of Spoiler Alert Radio, we spoke with filmmakers live from the closing night of the 2008 Rhode Island International Film Festival, or RIIFF. This was the 12th year for RIIFF, which over the years has become a leading showcase for independent filmmakers from around the world, screening almost 300 films in six days, bringing in talented visiting filmmakers from across the globe. Rhode Island International Film Festival is a qualifying festival for the annual Academy Awards in the short film category, a distinction only about one percent of film festivals achieve. We spoke with creators of the short films: Invulnerable, My Inventions, Behind My Eyes, Hugo, and Eclipse. The interviews were recorded live from the Columbus Theatre in Providence, Rhode Island. There will be more RIIFF Wrap-up in our next episode along with more in-depth interviews with festival filmmakers on the future episodes of Spoiler Alert Radio. Comments[0] |
Sun, 17 August 2008 On this episode of Spoiler Alert Radio, we spoke with filmmakers live from the closing night of the 2008 Rhode Island International Film Festival, or RIIFF. This was the 12th year for RIIFF, which over the years has become a leading showcase for independent filmmakers from around the world, screening almost 300 films in six days, bringing in talented visiting filmmakers from across the globe. Rhode Island International Film Festival is a qualifying festival for the annual Academy Awards in the short film category, a distinction only about one percent of film festivals achieve. We spoke with creators of the short films: Hakim, Under My Garden, Gone Fishing, Hold On, and Ikigai. The interviews were recorded live from the Columbus Theatre in Providence, Rhode Island at the RIIFF Wrap Party. There will be more RIIFF Wrap-up with visiting international filmmakers in our next episode along with more in-depth interviews with festival filmmakers on future episodes of Spoiler Alert Radio. Comments[0] |
Sun, 10 August 2008  Dominic Musacchio is a producer at Northern Light Productions in Boston, MA and who has co-produced the powerful documentary, Killer Poet. Killer Poet is about Norman Porter, a controversial Massachusetts prisoner with 2 life sentences who spent 25 years in prison, escaped and lived in Chicago for 20 years as a poet/intellectual under a fake name, and then was caught in 2005 by the Mass State Police and is back in max-security prison. It won Best Documentary in the Boston International Film Festival. It also screening in many prestigious film festivals including: Hot Docs, the Woods Hole Film Festival, and the Rhode Island International Film Festival. It will also be featured in the Newburyport Documentary Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 3 August 2008  The Rauch Brothers, Mike and Tim Rauch, are independent animators out of Brooklyn, NY. In 2007, they formed Rauch Brothers Animation, a studio that collaborates with visionaries in literature, music, performance, and other creative arts through character design, animation, and visual storytelling. The Rauch Brothers have recently teamed with David Isay, five time Peabody Award-winning radio documentarian and founder of StoryCorps, to create an animated documentary of the piece from StoryCorps about a World War II veteran Joseph Robertson who recalls shooting a young German soldier at The Battle of the Bulge, his "saddest memory”, called Germans in the Woods. Germans in the Woods has one 2nd place in the ASIFA-East Animation Festival and is screening at film festivals worldwide including the Animation Block Party, The Rhode Island International Film Festival, and The Palm Springs International Shorts Fest. Comments[0] |
Sun, 27 July 2008 
Simon Rouby is a French animator who completed his studies at Gobelins L' Ecole de L'Image in partnership with the California Institute of the Arts. Comments[0] |
Sun, 20 July 2008  Documentary filmmaker Renee Brown tells great visual stories through her work. She has made several short documentary films that have been featured in a variety of film festivals nationally and internationally including: The New Beijing International Movie Festival, The Nashville International Film Festival, The Dingle International Film Festival in Ireland, and the Short Shorts Film Festival Asia. One of her documentary shorts is called Katy Sullivan. This short film shows the inspirational Katy Sullivan as she trains in her carbon fiber running legs. Comments[0] |
Sun, 13 July 2008  Born in St Petersburg, Russia and having lived in New York City since the mid 1990s, Alex Budovsky is well known for his distinctive style of animated music videos. These include Bathtime in Clerkenwell for The Real Tuesday Weld and Return I Will to Old Brazil from Geoff Muldaur. His videos have won a number of awards including from the KROK International Animated Film Festival in Ukraine and the Boston Underground Film Festival in addition to Sundance Online and the Ottawa International Animation Festival. He has also worked on a number of other commercial and educational animation projects for Sesame Street and Greenpeace. Comments[0] |
Sun, 6 July 2008  Trevor Jimenez is an animator and an alum of the prestigious Sheridan College Animation Program in Oakville, Ontario. Trevor is the creator of a uniquely drawn 2D animated film, Key Lime Pie. It is a 2D animated spin on the noir genre, and the story basically revolves around this character who is obsessed with key lime pie. Key Lime Pie has been screened in many film festivals including Toronto After Dark, The Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and The Animation Show. Comments[0] |
Sun, 29 June 2008  Cecily Gambrell began performing at the age of six, born from a theatrical family, and whose great aunts were Gypsy Rose Lee and June Havoc. Some of Cecily's other work includes acting on Desperate Housewives, and High Hopes for which she wrote the shooting screenplay and co-stars with Edward Furlong, Lacey Chabert, and David Faustino. In the Spring of 2004 she began writing and producing the award-winning documentary Champion, profiling the life of actor and ex-convict Danny Trejo with director Joe Eckardt through The Film Emporium. Also featured are Val Kilmer, Dennis Hopper, Steve Buscemi and Robert Rodriguez. It was released nationwide in 2007. Cecily is also scheduled to co-star in the comedy feature A Happy Death, which she also wrote, and which also stars Chevy Chase, Mercedes Ruehl, and Snoop Dogg in 2009. High Hopes will be released through Lion's Gate on DVD in November 2008. Comments[0] |
Sun, 22 June 2008  Since receiving his B.F.A. in Drawing from the University of Tennessee - Knoxville, Joel Trussell worked as an animation director in Seattle, animating online projects for clients including Disney, Napster, and the band Devo. Joel has also directed animated television commercials for companies including Esurance and Nicorette. Joel has also directed several music videos for popular artists such as M.Ward, Morcheeba, Coldcut, and Jason Forrest, for which he won a number of awards, including the Ottawa International Animation Festival's Best Music Video. His music videos have been featured in dozens of film festivals and have been featured on MTV2, MuchMusic, and MTV Europe. Joel Trussell recently made his television directorial debut with three segments for Nickelodeon's hit kids’ show YO GABBA GABBA! He has created the intro to The Animation Show. Comments[0] |
Sun, 15 June 2008  Kevin Watkins is a freelance art director, editor, and motion graphics designer in advertising and filmmaker from NYC originally from South Africa. Kevin has worked as both a Associate Creative Director and Senior Art Director for a variety of major clients including: American Express, AT&T Wireless, Heineken, Lego, Sprite, and RCA. He has won awards for his artistic work in advertising including the Cannes Silver Lion and Best of Show at the New York Advertising Festival. He has directed several award winning short films including String, You Were Perfectly Fine, and Hose, an animated film about a garden hose. Hose is screening at several film festivals including the Newport International Film Festival, The Kids First! Film Festival, and the Nantucket Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 8 June 2008  Mary C. Taylor is a designer, editor, and animator from Kansas City, MO who directed the 2 minute animated short How To Put a Square Peg Into a Round Hole. She has worked in graphic art and video editing for PlattForm Advertising. She has also worked in television in design for FOX and NBC networks in addition to multimedia design for National Cinema Network, a subsidiary of AMC Theatres. Her other projects include web design and creating music videos for the Southern Country Rock band, The Gaslights. How To Put a Square Peg Into a Round Hole has screened at the Phoenix Film Festival, the L.A. and San Francisco International Children’s Film Festivals, and was featured on the front page of Yahoo!. Comments[0] |
Sun, 1 June 2008  Julie Stevens works in many aspects of theatre and film as an Actress, Director, Voiceover Artist, Singer, Studio Teacher, and a Private Coach for children. She began her performing career at age ten, appearing on Broadway in the musical Annie. Over the years, she has appeared in several films and commercials, TV movies, recording projects and stage productions. Julie is also the creator of a new product called Acting Outside The Box, coaching cards for actors. Julie co-directed her first feature film, Life After Tomorrow, a documentary about the experience of child actors in Broadway productions of Annie. She and partner, Gil Cates, Jr., won awards for Best Director and Best Documentary at the 2006 Phoenix Film Festival. Life After Tomorrow premiered on Showtime in late 2006 and is now available on DVD through Arts Alliance America. Comments[0] |
Sun, 25 May 2008  Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir is both an author and the director of the Jewish music archival documentary, From Shtetl to Swing. From Shtetl to Swing is a collective journey from synagogue choirs to Harlem hotspots, from Yiddish theater to musical extravaganza, from klezmer to ragtime, from symphonic jazz to swing from the Bowery to Tin Pan Alley to Broadway to Hollywood. It also screened as part of the Great Performance Series on PBS. 7th Art Releasing can be contacted with any requests for theatrical distribution of the film. Comments[0] |
Sun, 18 May 2008  Originally from Pune, India, Arjun Rihan studied Computer Science and Economics as an undergraduate at Stanford University and then purused his MFA in 2008 at University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts. His professional experience includes a Technical Director internship at Pixar Animation Studios. He is the director, writer, and animator of the acclaimed 3 minute short, Abridged. Abridged is a romantic comedy set on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, CA. Abridged has screened several film festivals around the world including: the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival, the Alaska Ocean Film Festival, Anifest in the Czech Republic, Annecy in France, and it received the 2008 USC Phi Kappa Phi Student Recognition Award. Comments[0] |
Sun, 11 May 2008  French teacher and documentary filmmaker Aurelien Foucault found a job teaching French that would allow him to live abroad, where he has lived in Scotland, Russia, and Siberia, where he met his wife. Having worked enough to get a video camera and a good computer, he met Cédric Quennesson in China and worked on his first documentary short Of Shadows and Men under the production company Wuhan Films. Of Shadows and Men is about a theater, a teahouse, and an ancient art that takes place and brings magic back into everyday life in Yunmeng, a rural city in the Hubei Province. It had its world premiere in the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, NC. Comments[0] |
Sun, 4 May 2008 
Filmmaker, Photographer, and Educator, Mitra Sen is a graduate of the She began her career in the Canadian film industry as the Assistant Director on the International Emmy Award winning CBC television series Degrassi Junior High. She has worked in various aspects of filmmaking including scriptwriting, producing, production managing, directing, editing and casting on a variety of feature films including My Own Country, Sam and Me, and Cocktail. Mitra is also a teacher with the Toronto District School Board where her experiences with children have inspired her to create award winning films including Just a Little Red Dot and The Peace Tree. The Peace Tree portrays the wishes of three girls, two Muslim and one Christian, that cooperate in order to find a way to overcome
their parents' resistance to observe each other's holiday
celebrations. The film has also inspired the creation of Peace Trees in schools around the world. The official Peace Tree Day festival is celebrated on June 1st worldwide. Comments[0] |
Sun, 27 April 2008  Scott Kravitz is a character animator in San Francisco, CA who started out as an actor. He became a featured character animator on a variety of film projects including the animation series The PJs, Hollow Man, Matrix: Revolutions, Superman Returns, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and The Host. His personal film projects include Family Portrait, Magic Trick, and Loom. Loom is about a street musician who risks his life to save a child and meets his fate at the hands of an old woman who is more than she seems. Comments[0] |
Sun, 20 April 2008  Zina Papadopoulou is a Greek animator and graphic and web designer who now lives and has studied in the Netherlands. Zina has done commercial work, music videos, and a variety of eclectic short films. Highlights of her work include My Dad, Safe Surf, Rendezvous, and Bloody Mary. In Bloody Mary, Mary faces a strange room with mixed feelings of excitement and greed after her obsession with the famous drink. Comments[0] |
Sun, 13 April 2008  Maria Gigante writes, directs and produces short films in Chicago and in Brooklyn, NY. Her films scripts Petal Fall and Eva Eva won screenwriting awards at Screenwriting Expo in LA and the Columbia College Written Image Screenwriting Competition. Her most recently completed short film, Girls Room, hit the festival circuit in 2007. Girls Room is about a Catholic schoolgirl who discovers that there is nothing more frightening than having to go to the old, creepy restroom down the hall – all by herself. Girls Room was Maria's thesis film at Columbia College and won Best of the Fest and the Audience Award at Columbia's 2007 Big Screen Film Festival. It continues to play at festivals including the Short Film Corner at The Cannes Film Festival, LA Shorts Fest, Berlin, Montreal World, and was nominated for the mtvU Student Filmmaker Award at Tribeca and won best short in the Chlotrudis Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 6 April 2008  Chris Metzler graduated from USC with a degree in business and cinema. His film directing and producing work has resulted in frequent partnerships with Jeff Springer, where together they've made their way in the Nashville country and Christian music video industries, before finally forsaking their souls to commercial LA rock n’ roll. These misadventures eventually culminated in their winning a Billboard Magazine Music Video Award. Chris finished traveling the theatrical circuit promoting his John Waters’ narrated documentary, Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea, which premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival and won both the HBO Producer’s Award and the Robert Altman Award. He is a recipient of the Bay Area Video Coalition’s AEA Award and has previously received funding support from the Pacific Pioneer Fund and the Fleishhacker Fund. Comments[0] |
Sun, 30 March 2008  Ellen Lake is a documentary filmmaker, sculptor, and installation artist from Oakland. CA. She received her MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California in 2002, where she studied sculpture, film and video, and installation. She has worked on an extensive group of experimental documentary short films about collecting, including Trina's Collections and Ann's Hoard. Her films, sculptures, and installations have been been screened at in the San Francisco Bay area at New Langton Arts, The Exploratorium, Pacific Film Archives, Other Cinema, and the San Francisco Art Commission Gallery, in addition to the Echo Park Film Center and Midnight Special Bookstore in LA, and The Pioneer Theater in NYC. She was the recipient of the 2005 Bay Area Video Coalition Mediamaker award, which is a competitive, in-kind grant of post-production, new media services, and certified training classes, awarded to filmmakers in the San Francisco Bay area each year to help them complete public media projects. Comments[0] |
Sun, 23 March 2008  Aideen McCarthy is a a writer and director of short films, commercials, and music videos. Aideen McCarthy decided to pursue her dream of becoming a filmmaker in 2001 after originally getting her law degree, obtaining her Masters Degree in Film Studies at the UCD School of Film in Dublin. She started out working in the camera department on a mix of large scale feature films and short films, including Adam and Paul, Lassie, and Becoming Jane. In 2005, she went onto produce her first dramatic film called The Widow which explores the five stages of grief from a unique view. Her latest work is a five-minute film called The Formorian about a mythological race of Ancient Ireland. Additionally, she came in fourth place in the Jameson Whiskey Film Festival Trailer competition and has directed nine music video promos for the Academy of Theatre Arts in London. Comments[0] |
Sun, 16 March 2008  Spoiler Alert Radio interviewed renowned animator and sex expert, Signe Baumane. Signe Baumane was born and raised in Latvia, graduating from Moscow University in 1989 with a B.A. in Philosophy. She started work at Dauka Animation Studio in Riga as an animator and cel painter. Her animation ranges from her 1991 debut The Witch and the Cow to more recent works including The Teat Beat of Sex, one of few animated films accepted into both Sundance and Berlin, and Veterinarian, about the circle of life and death. Since 1995, she has lived in NYC, having worked on I Married a Strange Person with Bill Plympton and animation inserts for XX/XY among many other projects. In addition to animation, Signe has illustrated books, worked in puppet theater design, taught animation at Pratt Institute, and is periodically publishing parts of a novel about her adventures in New York in Una, a Latvian women’s magazine. She is a 2005 Fellow in Film of the New York Foundation for the Arts, the recipient of an individual artist grant from The Jerome Foundation, a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. Comments[0] |
Sun, 2 March 2008  Richard Rosenblatt is the publisher of the Filmfestivalworld.com. FilmFestivalWorld.com is a membership site targeted to networking people who make films and mixed media with those whose professional focus is programming, distributing, financing and writing about films and media. By using the tools and resources that FFW has assembled, any filmmaker can level the playing field in launching and promoting a film. Unique areas like genre gateways also make it easy to focus on genre-specific film festivals for planning film submissions and festival attendance amd for selecting films. Comments[0] |
Sun, 24 February 2008  Brendt Barbur is the Founding Director of the Bicycle Film Festival. The film festival celebrates the bicycles and bicycle culture through art, film, music and performance and brings together various aspects of bicycling together to advocate its ability to transport people in many ways and to have a good time. The Bicycle Film Festival has traveled from its home base in New York City to San Francisco, Tokyo, Melbourne and many other small and large cities worldwide with each site having their own customized festival with a variety film shorts and features, art, and music. Comments[0] |
Sun, 17 February 2008  Judy Laster is the Founder and Executive Director of the Woods Hole Film Festival. The Woods Hole Film Festival is a week long festival held in Woods Hole on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, from the end of July to the beginning of August. The festival includes workshops, panel discussions, staged readings and parties as well as eight days of film screenings. 2008 will mark the 17th year of the festival, which will have continued great offerings of film and related events for international filmmakers, the Woods Hole community, local filmakers, and fans of the festival from around the world. The Woods Hole Film Festival also presents other film events throughout the year. Comments[0] |
Sun, 10 February 2008  Casey Safron is a film professor, filmmaker, and founder of Animation Block Party. Taking place in late July in Brooklyn, New York, the Animation Block Party (ABP) is a four-night film festival party with the best and most unique animated shorts from around the world with special themed nights and music, attended by over two animation lovers. ABP has also toured with a one-night "best of fest" as a midnight screening at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, where Casey went to college. Comments[0] |
Sun, 3 February 2008  Anne S. Lewis is a featured writer for the Austin Chronicle and writes a monthly column covering the the Austin Film Society documentary tour. Separate Vacations is an animated short film about a dog owner, boarding her dog before leaving for a vacation, is thrown a curve by one of the kennel's information forms. It is Anne's first animated film. It played the SXSW Film Festival and also debuted in New England at the 2007 MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival and was an audience favorite. Anne discussed with us her experiences covering the documentary film tour and the process of her past, present, and future film ideas. Comments[0] |
Sun, 27 January 2008  Liz Van Verth is a filmmaker from Buffalo, NY, who received her BFA in Illustration at Syracuse and her MFA at Pratt Institute in New York. She worked as a graphic artist for NBC Nightly News and eventually as a 3-D animator for show graphics on Dateline NBC. She has also worked on projects for both CBS Sports and MTV. Her MFA thesis animation is called , which won Best Concept for the Department of Digital Arts at the Pratt Show and was screened at the Brooklyn International Film Festival KidsFest and the MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival, where it was nominated for a Heartstrings Award for emotive storytelling. Comments[0] |
Sun, 20 January 2008  Lyn Elliot is a filmmaker who incorporates both narrative and experimental elements into her movies and creates short films that bring to the surface the strange undercurrents of everyday life. Her short films include The Boy in the Air and Mild People in Aggressive T-Shirts, which have screened at film festivals across the United States, along with her latest film, Fish But No Cigar, which was the recipient of the Soul of Wit Award at the 2007 MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival. Fish, But No Cigar is a four-minute animated short about a woman who literally has bigger fish to fry. Lyn Eliot’s films have been compiled onto a DVD available here. Comments[0] |
Sun, 13 January 2008  Sarah Wickliffe was born in New York and raised in New Jersey, the only child of jazz vocalist Roseanna Vitro and record producer/engineer, Paul Wickliffe. She has completed three short animated films; the last of which, Arts Desire, is a 4 minute animation about a character from a Picasso painting in search of a better environment, created with a mix of traditional hand drawn animation, 3d, and After Effects. Arts Desire has won a number of honors including NYU animation’s Richard Protovin Award as well as the Gold Student Academy Award in Animation for 2007, and as a nominee for the Thousand Words Award at the 2007 MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 6 January 2008  Dony Permedi is a character animator from the Los Angeles area. After receiving a BFA (BGSU, Ohio) and MFA (School Of Visual Arts, NYC), both with a focus on Computer Art, he has worked in animation for a variety of commercial, gaming, and corporate clients. His personal projects include a variety of animated heartfelt animated short films Pony and Kiwi! in addition to an upcoming live action short film Since You’ve Been Ong, created in 72 hours. Kiwi! is a charming animated short about the flying hopes of a little kiwi bird which has received huge amount of response online and made its New England debut at the 2007 MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival and was an audience favorite. Comments[0] |
Sun, 30 December 2007  We spoke with RIIFF Kidseye 2007 participants and Keith Brown of KBro Films, co-Program Director of the KidsEye Film Camp that occurs every summer in Kingston, RI on the URI Campus. Comments[0] |
Sun, 23 December 2007 We spoke with RIIFF Kidseye 2007 participants and Keith Brown of KBro Films, co-Program Director of the KidsEye Film Camp that occurs every summer in Kingston, RI on the URI Campus. Comments[0] |
Sun, 16 December 2007  Jonathan Browning is an actor, director, and writer out of Los Angeles, CA. He is a co-founder of the film production company, Screaming Frog Productions. Jonathan Browning has strong background in traditional and alternative theatre. In Chicago, he was an active member of the great improvisational Annoyance Theatre and a variety of other theatre companies. In Los Angeles he has performed in and directed dozens of staged pieces at such prominent venues. The 3-minute comedic film The Job marks his directorial debut. The Job is a true crowd pleaser and has won audience awards in a number of festivals including in the Lake County film Festival, the DC International Shorts Fest, Chicago Really Short Film Festival, and the 2007 MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 9 December 2007  Ben Peters is writer and producer of a 90 second short short story film called Frog Jesus in addition to a variety of other great short short story films from a variety of genres. Frog Jesus has played a number of festivals and debuted in New England at the 2007 MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival. Ben Peters runs a film production company called Kijo in Vancouver, BC as writer/producer along with Toby Gorman, cinematographer/director, that is currently concentrating on short films and will produce features in the future as well. Comments[0] |
Sun, 2 December 2007  Jonpaul Lewis is the "Jack" and master of many trades as an independent filmmaker. He is the writer, editor, director, producer, and lead actor of a three-minute short short story animation/live action character driven horror film called Jack the Ripper featuring a unique mix of 8,000 still photographs and stop motion animation techniques. He has many other plans in the works including an original remake of David Lynch’s The Elephant Man and a full length version of Jack the Ripper as well. Jonpaul is inspired by a variety of newer and older filmmakers including Tim Burton, Ray Harryhausen, and the early films of Thomas Edison. Jack the Ripper has played a number of festivals and debuted in New England at the 2007 MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 25 November 2007  Craig Shapiro joins us to discuss his documentary film Ice Kings about an unparalleled hockey dynasty. This is the story of Mount Saint Charles Academy in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, a school that won twenty-six consecutive state champisonships between 1978 and 2003. The film is now available on DVD in time for the holidays after playing sold film festivals including winning the 2006 Audience Award at the Rhode Island International Film Festival and playing for a large audience at the Woonsocket, RI Stadium Theatre in November 2007. Craig also discusses his work in television sports features and plans for the future. This episode was originally broadcast in Spring 2007. Comments[0] |
Sun, 18 November 2007  We are joined by Greg Wilcox, director of a short short story documentary called Homage to a Catalonian Christmas, featuring an entertaining look at a featuring the cultural winter holiday traditions of the Tio and the caganer (the crapper) and the need for Catalonia to keep its own culture active. He has also made an experimental political short called Fortunate Son, a music video that shows the irony of a CCR song used for a Wrangler jeans commerical in 2005. Homage to a Catalonian Christmas has played a number of festivals including the Rhode Island International Film Festival. It also screened at the 2007 MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival, where it won the Rammie Award for special recognition for overall short short storytelling. Direct download: GregWilcox-CatalonianChristmas-Podcast.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:00 PM Comments[0] |
Sun, 11 November 2007  Raiya Corsiglia is an actor, director, editor, and producer. She has worked on commercials, music videos, shorts, and has a fantasy feature planned as well. Her latest work is a short experimental film which she wrote, starred in, edited, and directed called Blue Dreams Downtown. It is a uniquely shot film about a down on his luck drifter and his relationship with a woman in a photograph. Blue Dreams Downtown has played a number of festivals including the Dragon*Con Short Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Short Short Film. It screened at the 2007 MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival, where it won the Thousand Words award for excellence in wordless presentation. Comments[0] |
Sun, 4 November 2007  Shane McCabe is from Dublin, Ireland and began his artistic career as an actor before later moving to writing and eventually directing. He wrote and directed the short short story film Lucky Escape, about a man, a woman, a restaurant, and being careful about what you wish for. In 2002, he acted in Jerry Bruckheimer’s Veronica Guerin. He has written six features and is working on lucky #7. In 2005, The Irish Film Board awarded his short film Never Judge a Book funding; it premiered at the 4th Annual Dublin International Film Festival in 2006. The film has screened in a variety of festivals worldwide, including the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival, Lucky Escape also screened at the 2007 MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Soul of Wit award for exellence in clever wordplay. Comments[0] |
Sun, 28 October 2007  Doug Lantz is director of the inspiring and uplifting marching band documentary From the 50 Yard Line, which had its World Premiere at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival, where it won the Viola M. Marshall Audience Choice Award Grand Prize. Doug Lantz has worked in television broadcasting for the past 15 years and currently works at Blake House Media, a production company based in Los Angeles. He has worked in audio engineering, videography, and producing. He has worked many programs including Good Morning America, Nightline, 20/20, Primetime, and World News Tonight. As an alumnus of the Centerville Jazz band in 1985, his current passion includes documenting the life-changing effects of this unique high school marching band program in the film From the 50 Yard Line. In conjunction with the film, he has created a music education fundraising website March4Music. Comments[0] |
Sun, 28 October 2007  Hailing from St. Petersburg, Russia, Writer/Director/Editor, Lidia Sheinin has made her first film Happily Ever After, unique short short story telling a sad romantic tale in four minutes using split screens. It won 1st Place for Best Experimental Film at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival. The film was produced by Gary Cohen, who had brief career as a child actor, later working at KROQ-FM in LA, and eventually for Adobe Systems on their Photoshop and Photoshop Elements products. Together, Gary and Lidia formed Scared Mouse Productions to produce Happily Ever After and other projects. Happily Ever After recently screened at the 2007 MergingArts Short Short Story Film Festival, where it won the Imagination Award for excellence in artistic vision.Comments[0] |
Sun, 28 October 2007  Matt Wittmer is a graduate of the Documentary Institute at the University of Florida and a former intern at the documentary production company, Kartemquin Films. He has recently directed the short documentary film The Regiment, which tells the unusual story of a group of Dominican youth from Providence, Rhode Island who take part in a civil war re-enactment in Olustee, Florida. The 14th Rhode Island Reenactors Program helps Providence high school students recreate the history of the 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery Regiment. By being immersed in the life of the Black soldier of the Civil War, the students learn about the role of African Americans during the war and about the history of the war generally. They are led by Robert Goldman, a veteran Civil War reenactor. The Regiment had its World Premiere at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 21 October 2007  Nitzan Mager, is the writer and director of the short film I Am God which had its World Premiere recently at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival. She has also appeared as an actress in a number of films and theatre including Nobody Loves Alice and Hag Same’ach!. I Am God is a powerful short film based on a Israeli poem about a man traveling in Israel who has lost himself. He meets a grieving mother, her orthodox neighbor, a soldier, and a young Palestinian in his travels and discovers that sometimes finding yourself is not enough. Comments[0] |
Sun, 14 October 2007  We speak with the creators of the animated short film Voodoo Bayou, which won Second Prize for best animation at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival and screened at the eighth annual RIIFF Horror Film Festival. Javier Gutierrez is the film’s writer and director and Susana Jacques is the executive producer of the film. They have used their artist’s eye from the world of advertising at Ciber Films to develop a dark and enchanting tale of a Voodoo doll that comes to life and tries to escape from his nemesis, the witch-doctor. This short represents the first film of three planned chapters. The captivating original score, which won First Prize for best score at RIIFF, was composed by Rodrigo Barbera. Comments[0] |
Sun, 14 October 2007  Filmmaker Stacy Dymalski and actress Billie Harsh speak with us about the comedic short film The Write Stuff which satirizes the hypocrisy of critics. A stand-up comic and writer, Stacy is the founder of the independent video production company Saffire Systems. A member of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), she’s also written, directed and produced several successful commercials and short films. Billie started performing at the age of three and has appeared in several musical productions across the country. She currently works with Stacy and three others at Crazy Parkite Productions, where she works managing production in addition to acting. The interview was recorded live at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 7 October 2007  Chris Burgard is the director of the provocative documentary Border, which gives viewers a front row seat along the United States Border with Mexico. The film screened to much acclaim at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival. Chris has quite a varied background which includes having worked as a ballet dancer, stunt double, and actor - both on television roles in Tour of Duty and Growing Pains, and in numerous films including Pirates of the Caribbean and The Last Samurai, featuring his horsemanship. He even wrote and directed a Troma film cult classic, The Ruining. Chris is touring the United States with his latest film Border aboard his "Big Blue Bus" in order to educate people on the situation on the southern border. Details on the tour dates can be found by visiting his website. Comments[0] |
Sun, 7 October 2007  On this episode, we talk with Marcin Glowacki, director of the short film The Stewardess (Die Flugbegleiterin). Born in Poland and living in Germany, Marcin is both an actor and director, as well as the founder of Jim Pansen Production, a Berlin-based film and television production company which focuses on the medical field. The Stewardess is a black comedy short film which investigates over consumption and man’s relationship with nature. It is on the surreal side, both funny and gross, and ironically has a vegetarian edge to it. In addition to the screening at the 11th annual RI International Film Festival, The Stewardess also screens at the 8th Annual RIIFF Horror Film Festival October 18-21, 2007. Comments[0] |
Sat, 29 September 2007  Paula Christensen was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina before relocating with her parents to New York and eventually attending Amherst (MA) College studying Theater and Anthropology. Her first full-length play In Vitro received a workshop reading at the Public Theater in New York in 2004 and has been optioned; she is transferring the story from stage to screen. She has several other projects in the works including a fantasy/adventure TV show and a political documentary. Currently living in LA, she makes her film directorial debut with A Casa, the first part of Tres, three stories of intense emotional connection captured in a fleeting moment from three directors, inspired by the poetry of her grandfather, poet and filmmaker Carlos Hugo Christensen. Comments[0] |
Sat, 29 September 2007  Rhode Island International Film Festival 2006 Screenplay Competition winner Jodi L. Johnson discusses her script Slidin’ Home, about how a young boy afflicted with chronic illness and his grandfather go on a cross-country adventure to fulfill his dream of meeting the Boston Red Sox, and her work behind the screen in the wardrobe industry as well. She will be speaking at the Scriptbiz 2007 workshop later this Fall in Providence, RI. Comments[0] |
Sun, 23 September 2007  On this episode, we talk with Kristian Söderström, director and writer of the short film Darkness Of Truth. The film is a surreal psychological thriller about the secrets of a middle-aged actress and former ballet dancer in Berlin and her tenant, a young, attractive female student. They choose to communicate their anger via the former actress’ diary. Kristian’s film was the winner of the International Discovery Award at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival. This interview was recorded live at the Film Festival. Direct download: KristianSorderstrom-DarknessOfTruth-podcast.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:30 PM Comments[0] |
Sun, 23 September 2007  Todd Robinson is a surgeon in Memphis, TN, who was inspired to document his mother’s "miracle" with his first forays into filmmaking, the feature-length Hidden Treasure and the short Sounds of A Miracle, both based on his mother’s story. His mother, Earnestine Rodgers Robinson, received no formal music training, and with her faith and family, she rose from humble southern roots to become composer of sacred classical music that took her all the way to Carnegie Hall and to a world premiere in Prague. Our conversation with the Robinsons was recorded live at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 16 September 2007  On this episode, we speak with Emmanuel Jespers , writer and director of the short film Personal Spectator, which screened at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival. Emmanuel Jespers is an Institut des Arts de Diffusion (IAD) graduate and has been directing and films and commercials for over ten years. His films include the short film The Last Dream (2000) which won many awards including Un Certain Regard in the Cannes Film Festival, A Night to Remember (2002), and Nervous Breakdown (2002). More recent work includes the 2007 films Two Sisters and a feature he wrote, directed, and produced called Artefacts. His short films have been selected to more than 50 film festivals worldwide, and he has won more than two dozen prizes, including his 1st Place Best Screenplay award at RIIFF for Personal Spectator. Direct download: EmmanuelJespers-PersonalSpectator-Podcast.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:30 PM Comments[0] |
Sun, 16 September 2007  Phil Allocco is the writer and director of the short film Joseph Henry, which screened recently at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival. Allocco began his career as a musician in the bands Law and Order and Dogma. From there, he joined the company Media Jelly, producing and designing projects including Goosebumps, The Magic School Bus, and Fox’s Dr. Dolittle 2. Allocco was also the creator of several original animated series including The Vanderfuls and Bratface and Waffle. In 2005, Allocco joined Red Thread Productions working on many projects including producing and editing The Best of the GLAAD Awards for Logo. Earlier this year (2007), Allocco was one of fifty directors hand-picked by Steven Spielberg for the Fox TV series On The Lot. More information on Phil Alloco is available at his company Make Things Work. Comments[0] |
Sun, 9 September 2007  Christopher Martini, writer/director/producer of the film The Stone Child, joins us on this episode. He has worked behind the scenes in production in a variety of films including editing The Chris Isaac Show and the documentary Gulf War Syndrome: Killing Our Own. The Stone Child is about an 11-year-old boy, half Lakota Native-American and half caucasian, in rural South Dakota, and his relationship with his father after a painful divorce. There is feature length version of the film in the works as well. The film screened recently at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 9 September 2007  JD Kelleher is an actor making his directorial debut with the short film One Last Drink Before Morning. JD studied English at University College Cork and has an extensive acting background in both film and television throughout the UK. His television and film credits include: Batman Begins, The Art of Flirting (an homage to Buster Keaton), and the BBC productions Little Britain, Murphy’s Law, and Ballykissangel. Most recently, he is starring in the Channel 4 production of City of Vice. One Last Drink Before Morning deals with three characters who come to terms with the crooked twists and turns that have led them to their desperate positions in life, set in a noir-like smoky dive bar. It won 2nd Place for Best Screenplay at the 2007 Rhode Island International Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 2 September 2007  Ursula Burton is a Yale alumna who studied Theater and English Literature. Having done extensive theater work, she has more recently worked in television and film including The Office, The War at Home, and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya-Sisterhood. She founded Five Sisters Productions with her four other sisters. Together, they have produced three feature films in which she has also appeared: Just Friends, Temps, and Manna From Heaven. Her most recent work is a comedy short which she wrote, directed, and acted in called The Happiest Day Of His Life, which won grand prize for best comedy short at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 2 September 2007  Our guest is filmmaker Yoav Segal, director of The Battle Of Cable Street. In 1936, Oswald Mosley and his army of fascist Blackshirts planned to march through the East End. However, Segal’s grandfather, Ubby Cowan, and a host of others, including Jews, Irish, and dockworkers succeeded in stopping the march. This was a seminal event in British history as it loudly declared Britains refusal to accept fascism. Blurring the line between live action and animation, The Battle Of Cable Street
retells the event by presenting a young boy, Danny, who is taken inside
the magical world of his own sketchbook by his grandfather and shown
what it was like to live Danny learns, much as his granddad did, ‘Look up, see the world around you. Find a voice, express yourself.’ The film screened recently at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 26 August 2007  On this episode, we talk with documentary filmmaker Carol Carimi Acutt of Safari Films. Carol is a native New Orleanian and has directed three documentaries about Louisiana musicians: Getting It Together featuring bebop pianist Willie Metcalf, Jr., My Story, My Music, My Life about renowned jazz composer and arranger Harold Battiste, Jr., and most recently Been Down That Muddy Road featuring Louisiana Hall of Fame swamp pop legend Joe Barry. Muddy Road had its world premiere at the 2007 Rhode Island International Film Festival where it won 1st Place for Best Documentary. Comments[0] |
Sun, 19 August 2007  The 2007 Awards Ceremony for the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF), recorded live at the Federal Reserve Restaurant in Providence, RI. The ceremony was hosted by Don Farias of RIIFF, Steve Feinberg of the RI Television & Film Office, and emceed by George Marshall of RIIFF. The Rhode Island International Film Festival is the largest public
film festival in New England, and is rated one of the top twelve film
festivals in the United States. It is also a qualifying festival for
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscars™). The 2007 RIIFF festival featured over 320 films from 70 countries around the world. Comments[0] |
Sun, 12 August 2007  We speak with Jason Connell, president of Connell Creations, a video and film production company in Los Angeles. Jason Connell has recently directed a documentary film about the lives of Hollywood background actors (often somewhat inaccurately called "extras") called Strictly Background. He also founded the Tulsa Uncensored Film Festival, which spread to both New York and Los Angeles, underwent a name change, and is now known as the United Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 5 August 2007  Greg Cahill is originally from Boston and graduated from NYU in 2004. His thesis film there was Wolves of Chechnya, a short film about a Russian soldier’s harrowing experiences in the Chechen War. He then moved to LA, where he produces and directs special features for the NBC TV series Medium. Greg Cahill has recently written, directed, and produced The Golden Voice, a short film about the Cambodian rock singer Ros Sereysothea, one of Cambodia’s biggest stars of the 60’s and early 70’s before the advent of the Khmer Rouge. It is a tragic yet inspiring film featuring some undiscovered gems of rock and roll music. The Golden Voice screened recently at the 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 29 July 2007  Boston native Andrew Filippone, Jr. attended Emerson college and worked on an unfinished project which has recently had new life breathed into it. Called Happy Monday, it is a unique experimental documentary, also referred to as a "documentary film object." It represents the tragedy of unfinished work, the stasis of images captured on negatives but never given life through projection on a film screen. Happy Monday had its World Premiere at the 2007 Rhode Island International Film Festival. Andrew now lives and works in New York City, where he heads the production company Telling Story. Comments[0] |
Sun, 22 July 2007  On this episode we speak with writer George Harrar. George Harrar’s works have appeared in a number of literary magazines, and his 1999 work The 5:22 was selected for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories 1999, edited by Amy Tan. The film was recently made into a short film directed by Bernadette Demisay and had its world premiere at the 2007 Rhode Island International Film Festival where it won 2nd Place for Best Editing. We discuss storytelling from the writer’s point of view, and similarities between short film storytelling and its literary equivalent. We also discuss some of George Harrar’s other past and upcoming works. Comments[0] |
Sun, 24 June 2007  We speak with Montreal director Luc Beauchamp - writer, director, and producer of the film Arthur’s Paradise, which had its U.S. premiere at the 2007 Rhode Island International Film Festival where it won 2nd Place for Best Experimental film. Arthur’s Paradise is a unique film, a blend of documentary and fiction, with almost no dialog and music from opera to mariachi. At times beautiful, at times disturbing, it explores the solitary life of a farmer and his animals. Luc Beauchamp received a degree in music composition from the Université de Montréal before working on a number of short films including the award-winning The Lion & the Lamb. Direct download: LucBeauchamp-ArthursParadise-30m-04-22-2007.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:00 PM Comments[0] |
Sun, 17 June 2007  We are joined by Dana Dorian, founder and director at the Glasgow, Scotland–based studio Axis Animation, where he has directed several award-winning commercials and broadcast projects. Dana recently made his first short film Fetch, winner of the BAFTA Scotland award for best animation. Fetch and another short film of Dana’s, Hip Hip Hurray!, both screened recently at the the 2007 Rhode Island International Film Festival. Comments[0] |
Sun, 10 June 2007  Our guest this week is Nicholas Mason, the founding director of the Manhattan Short Film Festival. The Manhattan Short Film Festival is a unique film festival which presents twelve short films from several countries, all screened during one week, in venues across the globe. Audiences at each venue then vote on their favorites, and the winner is determined at the end of the festival screenings. The 2007 festival will be held around the world between September 23rd and 30th. Comments[0] |
Sun, 3 June 2007  Today’s guest is Alex Merkin. Alex Merkin is the president of Production and Development of He is also the director, creator, and editor of the award-winning short suspense thriller Across The Hall. Comments[0] |
Sun, 27 May 2007  We speak with Giovanna Chesler. Giovanna is an Assistant Professor in Communication at the University of California San Diego, and works professionally as a cinematographer and film/video curator and juror. She is the director and producer of internationally exhibited documentary and narrative films including BeauteouS: The Trilogy and hand-some. Her most recent film is Period: The End of Menstruation, a feature documentary film exploring trends in hormonal birth control which change the way we think of gender, health and the ‘natural’. Comments[0] |
Sun, 20 May 2007  May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month. On this special episode of Spoiler Alert Radio, we talk with Barbara Silvestro. Barbara Silvestro is a 41 year old mother of three a who lost 65 pounds through diet and exercise, including using Leslie Sansone’s and other fitness DVDs. She was eventually invited to be a participant in the filming of a new edition of Sansone Walk Slim DVDs. We talk about her experience. Comments[0] |
Sun, 13 May 2007  On Spoiler Alert Radio’s hour long Mother’s Day Special, we explore the theme of motherhood with Mary Mazzio of 50 Eggs Productions, who discusses her three documentary films: A Hero For Daisy, Apple Pie, and Lemonade Stories and her unique approach to documentary filmmaking. A Hero For Daisy is a film about Title IX pioneer and two-time Olympian Chris Ernst who through her protests for gender equity athletic facilities for women has opened the door to daughters everywhere. The film is dedicated to Daisy, Mary’s daughter. Apple Pie is a film about professional athletes and their mothers from the aspect of their mother’s stories and the connections to their children’s lives. Lemonade Stories is a film about renown entrepeneurs and their mothers, highlighting each mother’s impact on the entrepeneurial spirit and success of their sons and daughters. Comments[0] |
Sun, 6 May 2007  J.L. Aronson has written, directed, and produced Danielson: A Family Movie and discusses this and other documentary work of his. Danielson: A Family Movie follows Daniel Smith, an eccentric musician and visual artist, as he leads his four siblings and best friend Chris to indie-rock stardom, while mentoring a then-unknown Sufjan Stevens along the way. The film deals with a number of themes, including the challenges of being a sincere Christian in the po-mo underground, balancing individual needs vs. commitment to family, and maintaining artistic integrity while reaching out to a wider audience. Comments[0] |
Sun, 29 April 2007  We speak with actor, writer, and director David Dean Bottrell, who has recently written and directed an award winning comedy short film Available Men, representing his first effort as both writer and director. David Dean Bottrell has appeared on a number of television series, most recently with a recurring role as the creepy Lincoln Meyer on the hit show Boston Legal, and co-wrote the screenplay for the film Kingdom Come. Comments[0] |
Sun, 22 April 2007 We speak with Montreal director Luc Beauchamp - writer, director, and producer of the film Arthur’s Paradise, which had its U.S. premiere at the 2007 Rhode Island International Film Festival where it won 2nd Place for Best Experimental film. Arthur’s Paradise is a unique film, a blend of documentary and fiction, with almost no dialog and music from opera to mariachi. At times beautiful, at times disturbing, it explores the solitary life of a farmer and his animals. Luc Beauchamp received a degree in music composition from the Université de Montréal before working on a number of short films including the award-winning The Lion & the Lamb. Direct download: LucBeauchamp-ArthursParadise-30m-04-22-2007.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:00 PM Comments[0] |
Sun, 8 April 2007  Craig Shapiro joins us to discuss his documentary film Ice Kings about an unparalleled hockey dynasty. This is the story of Mount Saint Charles Academy in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, a school that won twenty-six consecutive state championships between 1978 and 2003. Craig also discusses his work in television sports features and plans for the future. Comments[0] |
Sun, 1 April 2007  Director Skye Fitzgerald discusses his documentary Bombhunters and his work with his production company spinfilm. In 1969, the US launched secret bombing raids into Cambodia in pursuit of the Viet Cong during the Vietnam war. Until suspension as part of peace agreements in 1973, over one billion pounds of ordnance were dropped on Cambodia. Over thirty years later, much of that deadly ordnance is still scattered unexploded across the Cambodian countryside, where it is "harvested" by enterprising - and desperate - people. Bombhunters is their story. Comments[0] |
Sun, 25 March 2007  Valerie Weiss, filmmaker and BioPhysics PhD, discusses her AFI Women’s Fellowship, the Dudley Film program she created at Harvard, and her film projects Dance by Design, Transgressions, Losing Control, and more. Transgressions has been described as A Clockwork Orange meets Pleasantville.
It takes place in the not-so-distant future, in a society combining the
worst elements of the nanny state and reality TV. Domestic strife
with a darkly ironic twist. Direct download: 03-25-2007-ValerieWeiss-Transgressions.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:00 PM Comments[0] |
Sun, 18 March 2007  What does it take to make a movie in Rhode Island and why should a filmmaker ply their craft in the Ocean State? These questions were discussed on March 9th at Borders in Cranston, RI. Recorded guests included:
Comments[0] |
Sun, 4 March 2007  We discuss the success and failures of filmmaker/crew member Luke Bittel behind the scenes in LA and his doc on a failed film Help Wanted called Some Assembly Required. It is rare for a filmmaker to actually admit that their film is a failure – a poorly produced, written, and directed film. Luke did this and is using it as learning tool and now can laugh at a project that made him miserable. He uses Some Assembly Required to show others what not to do as a newbie filmmaker. Direct download: 03-04-2007-SpoilerAlert-Luke_Bittel_FINAL.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:00 PM Comments[0] |
Sun, 25 February 2007 
Part Two of the 2006 Academy Nominated Short Film discussions features the live-action short nominees. Films include The Saviour, Helmer and Son, One Too Many (Eramos Pocos), Binta and The Great Idea, and West Bank Story. Comments[0] |
Sun, 18 February 2007
Part One of the 2006 Academy Nominated Short Film discussions features the Oscar Animated Short nominees as well as the "Short-listed" films which were almost nominated. Animated nominee films include The Danish Poet, Maestro, The Little Matchgirl, No Time For Nuts, and Lifted. Comments[0] |
Sun, 11 February 2007  Publisher/founder Michele Meek joins us from nefilm.com to discuss its impact in the film community after approaching ten years of existence. She also discusses her own short children’s film Red Sneakers, and the developements of the international educational and independent distribution site, BuyIndies.com, and coordinating the restoration of the historical film magazine The Independent with the Independent Media Publications group. Comments[0] |
Sun, 4 February 2007  Writer, Director/Producer, Instructor, and Actor Chris Sparling joins us to discuss differences in marketing two completely distinct films and about the grassroots approach to filmmaking. He also discusses his experiences in LA as an actor to focusing on writing and producing back in Providence. Comments[0] |
Wed, 17 January 2007  The renowned experimental band Cul de Sac joins us to discuss their work on live film composition. This includes currently focusing on F.W. Murnau's Faust and starting an annual winter tradition of performing a live original score to Raymond Brigg’s The Snowman. Direct download: 01-17-07-CulDeSacSpoilerAlertInterview.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:00 PM Comments[0] |
Wed, 10 January 2007  Actor, Writer, Teacher, Counselor, philosopher, "renaissance man"... T.J. Paolino travels from L.A. to Providence, RI and discusses the process of casting for the role of former Providence mayor and "renaissance man" Buddy Cianci for the upcoming film The Prince of Providence. Direct download: 01-10-2007-SpoilerAlert-TJPaolinoArchive.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:00 PM Comments[0] |
Wed, 3 January 2007  Casting Director Annie Mulhall of LDI Casting stops by Spoiler Alert Radio. She enlightens us on the casting process for major films in Southern New England and beyond. Direct download: SpoilerAlert01-03and06-2007-AnnieMulhall-FINALArchive.mp3 Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:00 PM Comments[0] |
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