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THE FILMSOCTOBER 2-4, 2009
AWARD WINNERSWinners will be announced after they are presented at our Opening Gala on Friday, October 2, 2009.
FESTIVAL PROGRAMThe complete Film Festival program, including schedules, venue maps, and additional information will be available (TBA) in printed form at various locations around Ellensburg and is available now online.
VENUE MAP
FESTIVAL VENUES (Parking at Central Washington University is free on evenings and weekends) 1 - Gallery One, 408 N. Pearl Street, Ellensburg, WA 2 - Student Union Theatre (SURC), Central Washington University, off Chestnut Street. 3 - Music Building Recital Hall, Central Washington University, on Dean Nicholson Blvd.
INDIE FEST ONLINE FILM COMPETITION (sponsored by IndieFlix) Free to watch and vote online. Festival audiences have long felt that they want a piece of the programming action and now, with The winning film will be screened on Sunday, October 4, 2009 at 2:00PM at the CWU SURC Theatre followed by the Shorts Program.
FILMS and SCREENING PROGRAM FOR THE FIFTH ANNUAL ELLESNBURG FILM FESTIVAL *Denotes the short prior to featured film
8:15
Using discarded objects, two children transform themselves into spacemen and cowboys. But an old remnant from the war inspires more sinister fantasies.
BACK TO THE GARDEN Kevin Tomlinson (USA, 2009, 70min) Sunday, 10:00AM, Recital Hall
Twenty years ago, director Kevin Tomlinson traveled to Tonasket, a small town in Eastern Washington, where he interviewed a “healing gathering” of back-to-the-land movement “hippies” practicing peace and love. Forty years after Woodstock, he tracked down the same folks and their children to find out what became of them and their search for environmental utopias. Today, with the green movement looking to protect the earth for future generations in the midst of global warming, the voices of these flower children are prophetic.
CANTATA IN C MAJOR Sunday, 2:00PM, Shorts Program, SURC
Six-hundred-five film clips are assembled and used to create a piece of electronic music.
ENDLESS TUNNEL
An exploration of a stress-saturated world, with over 1,300 hand-cut stencils and an assortment of in-camera effects.
FAN MAIL Sunday, 2:00PM, Shorts Program, SURC
A short documentary about the writing process of someone's first fan letter to their favorite celebrity. Based on a true story.
FAREWELL PACKETS OF TEN Saturday, 7:00PM, SURC
Two ladies discuss the pros and cons of their mutual addiction to cigarettes.
FAX OF DEATH
This music video was inspired by the way old ink jet printers and fax machines used to print documents using a series of dots, as well as by old comic book prints and Roy Lichtenstein paintings.
HART Saturday, 2:30PM, SURC
A fantastical tale of a shy high-school girl with an emerging set of antlers, whose life is complicated when a burning crush inspires her to risk everything.
HERD Saturday, 1:30PM, Recital Hall
A farmer finds a deer befriending his herd of cattle.
HORN DOG
Plympton’s well-meaning cartoon dog falls in love and again proves to be his own worst enemy in achieving the object of his desires.
ICONS AMONG USLars Larson, Michael Rivoira, Peter J. Vogt (USA, 2009, 97min) Saturday, 7:00PM, Recital Hall
Jazz is a living thing, a conversation between musicians and each other as well as musicians and the audience. By combining rare archival stills, interviews with 75 jazz artists and live recordings culled from 25 hours of concerts, Icons Among Us is a dynamic and engaging document of many of the greatest jazz musicians of today.
IDIOTS AND ANGELS Saturday, 4:00PM, Recital Hall
Angel, a selfish and morally bankrupt man, wakes up one morning with wings on his back. He tries to hide them, but eventually everyone discovers them and ridicules him about his bizarre appendages. As Angel tries to adapt to the wings, he discovers that now that he can fly, he has greater opportunities to abuse others. However, the wings seem to have a will of their own, and they foil all of his greedy plans.
JUICY
This music video was created for Rafter, and features overlapping shapes, colors and imagery in a flow of stream-of-conscious double-image animation.
LIFE ACCORDING TO DINOSAURS
Dinos Steve Green & Dave Yellow share their unique perspective on modern life.
MANTRA Saturday, 12:00PM, SURC
When their guru dies in a hiking accident, six strangers on a spiritual retreat find themselves haunted by their own fears and delusions in this Buddhist horror film. Ultimately, the film serves as a meditation on desire, delusion and death, resolving in rebirth and redemption.
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
A man receives a message in a bottle.
MIASTO PLYNIE (CITY OF LIQUID) Sunday, 12:00PM, Recital Hall
Full of typical Polish scenery and characters, the combination of documentary and animated film provides for strong, original effects. Reality and fairytale are blended to give us a picture of the issues faced by contemporary Poles.
THE MIRACLE Sunday, 10:30AM, SURC
For a chance at redemption, Tekki Lomnicki, a little person, will need all her courage, humor and imagination to face the truth about her life.
MONSTER CAMP Sunday, 12:00PM, Recital Hall
A rare glimpse into the world of live-action role playing. For one weekend a month players transform themselves into warriors, sorcerers, dwarves and lizard people an immerse themselves into a world completely unlike our own. This real life version of World of Warcraft simultaneously shatters and destroys gamer stereotypes.
ON PAPER WINGS Sunday, 12:00PM, SURC
In 1945, a Japanese balloon bomb claimed the lives of the only people killed on the continental U.S. as the result of enemy action during WWII. Forty years later, the decision to fold a thousand paper cranes would unite the Japanese and American civilians affected by this incident. On Paper Wings is the story of four Japanese women who worked on balloon bombs, the families of those killed in the U.S., and the man whose actions brought them all together forty years after WWII, and the balloon bomb project.
PIRATE FOR THE SEA Saturday, 1:30PM, Recital Hall
Hero to conservationists and villain to hunters, marine environmentalist Paul Watson commits himself 100 percent to his cause. In this stirring profile, director and narrator Ron Colby explores Watson's beliefs, blunders, and triumphs. Watson travels from Norway to Costa Rica, standing trial, doing time, and costing various nations millions of dollars by breaking up drift-netting, illegal poaching, and shark-finning operations. Say what you will about the man, but Colby makes a convincing case that the world's endangered oceans are better off for the dedicated and controversial efforts of this “Rambo” of the environmental movement.
POWROT (BACK) Sunday, 12:00PM, SURC
After years spent in space, an astronaut returns and finds his home transformed forever.
THE QUEEN OF BEECHWOOD DRIVE Sunday, 10:00AM, Recital Hall
In a twisted tale of mother/daughter bonding, a jailed woman struggles to reconcile the inaccuracies of her past after learning of her mother's sexual preoccupation. This offbeat comedy is a character driven story that uses voice-over narration to weave past and present.
REAP WHAT YOU SEW
This is a darkly claustrophobic animation about the strained relationship between a struggling farmer and his creative wife.
SHORT TERM 12 Short Sunday, 2:00PM, Shorts Program, SURC
Denim is the supervisor for a residential facility for neglected kids. Fights and restraints happen every day and Demin begins to realize that he is not better off than the kids he's trying to help.
SIN NOMBRE Friday, 7:00PM, Recital Hall
Seeking the promise of America, a beautiful young Honduran woman, Sayra, joins her father and uncle on an odyssey to cross the gauntlet of the Latin American countryside en route to the United States. Along the way, she crosses paths with a teenage Mexican gang member, El Casper, who is maneuvering to outrun his violent past and elude his unforgiving former associates. Together they must rely on faith, trust and street smarts if they are to survive their increasingly perilous journey towards the hope for new lives.
SKYLIGHT
An animated mock documentary about the ecological plight of penguins in the Antarctic, possibly foretelling cataclysmic results for the rest of the world.
SWEET CRUDESandy Cioffi (USA, 2009, 93min) Sunday, 6:00PM, Recital Hall
Seattle filmmaker Sandy Cioffi and her Seattle-based crew made headlines while shooting this documentary about the Nigerian oil industry when they were taken into custody by the Nigerian military. Oil is big business in the Niger Delta, with 80 percent of the revenues going to just 1 percent of the population. Sweet Crude is an attempt to tell the world what's really happening in the Niger Delta, because it will affect all of us eventually.
TAPESTRY
Influenced by the visual style of video games and Japanese manga, this experimental animated film explores the issues of war, peace and the effects they have on one person’s mind. And it includes EVIL CATS!
TRIMPIN: THE SOUND OF INVENTIONPeter Esmonde (USA, 2008, 79min) Saturday, 12:00PM, Rectal Hall
Filmed over two years, this documentary follows eccentric artist/inventor/engineer/composer Trimpin as he devises a perpetual-motion machine, builds a 20-meter tower of automatic, self-tuning, electric guitars for the EMP Guitar Gallery, and collaborates with the Kronos Quartet on an outrageous world premiere. An amazing investigation of an extraordinary creative genius whose self-made world resembles both Santa’s workshop and Frankenstein’s lab, this film will delight anyone interested in the mysteries, pitfalls, and sheer joys of creative experiment.
TURNING A CORNER Saturday, 10:30AM, SURC
Turning a Corner tells the stories of people involved in the sex trade and their efforts to raise public awareness of systemic injustice and promote needed reforms. Created in a media activism workshop with over a dozen members of Prostitution Alternatives Round Table (PART), this ground-breaking film recounts their survival and triumph over homelessness, violence and discrimination, and gives rare insights into Chicago's sex trade industry.
UNDRESSING MY MOTHER Sunday, 2:00PM, Shorts Program, SURC
A documentary that explores a woman's unique take on her overweight and aging body.
USELESS DOG Saturday, 4:00PM, Recital Hall
An observation about an inept but lovable farm dog.
Saturday, 2:30PM, SURC
Follow Canadian Richard Fitoussi on a personal quest into the fiercest parts of Afghanistan’s war-torn southern frontier to learn why Canadian soldiers are dying in a mission that has sparked more controversy than any other military intervention in Canadian history. Embedded with the Canadian military, Fitoussi is faced with the realites of modern day peacekeeping, and tries to distinguish between the reality on the ground and the rhetoric of the U.S. led “war on terror."
THE WAITING LIST Saturday, 4:00PM, SURC *Horn Dog
Based on real events, The Waiting List is about a group of parents who spend the night in a preschool in order to get their kids enrolled. What follows is a profanity-laced, vodka fueled tea party sleepover, where discussion turns to topics such as the sexual attraction of pregnant bellies, lusting after Disney Princesses, and what couples really mean when they say they're trying to have kids.
WHERE HOPE RESIDES Sunday, 10:30AM, SURC
The film examines the present state of the fishery on the Skeena River and the many questions it faces. From the perspective of First Nations, commercial, outfitter, environmental, and government interests, we examine the socioeconomic impact of the declining fish stocks. Hopefully the Skeena River is an inspiration and model of how rivers, fish, and people can co-exist.
WHITEBREAD AND GOATMAN Sunday, 2:00PM, Shorts Program, SURC
Two shady undercover cops have put together what could be the biggest score of their lives -- but when things don't exactly go according to schedule, the partnership inches toward the breaking point and dark secrets begin to emerge...or do they?
WORLD'S GREATEST DAD Saturday, 7:00PM, SURC
A restrained Robin Williams stars as Lance, a divorced, sad-sack high school poetry teacher and failed novelist who dreams of one day being a famous writer. To make matters worse, he must suffer the indignities of living with his thoroughly vile, porn-obsessed teenage son, Kyle. After a horrifying and embarrassing freak accident, Lance finds that his life takes a bizarre turn—for the better. By making the best of what life’s given him, he sets a series of events in motion that could make all his dreams come true.
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