The Best of the 44th Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival touring program presents a carefully selected cross-section of filmmaking from the Northwest. The Northwest Film Center presents this showcase to bring the filmmakers wider exposure while offering regional independent films to venues and audiences large and small. This special program is available for public film screening and exhibition by contacting:
Ben Popp / Northwest Film Center
934 SW Salmon St Portland, OR 97205
503-276-4222 / ben@nwfilm.org
Festival Judge / Deborah Stratman
Deborah Stratman makes films and creates artworks that investigate power, control, and belief, considering how place, ideas, and society are intertwined. She has exhibited internationally at venues including MoMA NY, Centre Pompidou, and the Whitney, and festivals including Sundance, Berlinale, Viennale, Oberhausen, and Rotterdam. Stratman is the recipient of Fulbright, Guggenheim, and United States Artists Fellowships. She lives in Chicago where she teaches Art at the University of Illinois.
The films include:
Time Well Spent / Aaron Bourget / Seattle, WA
(ANI) A hard-working artist is unfairly critiqued. (1 min.)
Do We Leave This Here / Julia Hutchings / Vancouver, B.C.
(NAR) A journalist travels to the Peace River Valley to speak to residents about their community, which will soon be erased after the completion of a dam downstream. (17 mins.) *Judge’s Award: Best Drama
Dinosaurs in the Hood / Long Tran / Renton, WA
(EXP) A cinematic adaptation of a spoken-word poem about negative representations of African-American men perpetuated by mass media. (4 mins.)
Vestibular Matching Soundtrack / McKenzie Blake / Beaverton, OR
(DOC) Advances in technology also create linguistic rifts. Having been born largely deaf, a cochlear implant has provided the director access to sound, but at what cost? (9 mins.)
Float / Tristan Seniuk & Volneak Sip / Seattle, WA
(NAR) Rocky Mang is a Cambodian hustler in 1990’s Seattle who spends his day slinging cheap cologne at the corner store between persistent attempts to convince a local barista to go on a date with him. (24 mins.) *Judge’s Award: Special Mention
Lost Winds / Caryn Cline / Seattle, WA
(EXP) Plant materials taped directly onto the celluloid of 16mm film and optically printed create unique rhythms, patterns, and images. (3 mins.)
CultureTrauma / Jodi Darby / Portland, OR
(DOC) Using clips from Hollywood cinema, religious films, newsreels, and home movies, a reflection on what it means to have come of age in the 1970’s United States. (11 mins.) *Judge’s Award: Best Essay
A Mew Hope / David Koesters / Portland, OR
(NAR) A star fighter and her cat, who doubles as spaceship, must escape an army of soldiers in their own furry ships, or else face the wrath of pug planet. (5 mins.)
The Best of the 44th Northwest Filmmakers’ Fest is sponsored in part by:
LAIKA, National Endowment for the Arts, Oregon Arts Commission, James F. & Marion L. Miller Foundation, Regional Arts & Culture Council, Oregon Film, & the Citizens of Portland through the Arts Access and Education Fund.