Animation Films at the 23rd Annual Dallas VideoFest

23rd Annual VideoFest– Sept. 23-26, 2010

ANIMATION PROGRAMS

For press information:

Lisa Taylor

Taylor-Made Press

Dallas, TX – The 23rd Annual VideoFest will be at the Angelika Film Center Sept. 23-26,2010. The oldest and largest video and film festival in the nation, VideoFest shows a diverse range of works by regional, national and international video and film artists that are hard to find at the local video store, the movie theater or on Netflix. Because VideoFest is different than a traditional film festival or just going to a movie, expect something different! For the third year in a row, the VideoFest will be presented thru I-Tunes. VideoFest is presented by Video Association of Dallas.

Patrons may purchase day passes ($25 or $35 depending on day) or All-Festival passes ($75) for over 150 programs making this Festival the best deal in town. Buy tickets online in advance or at the door day of show. Visit www.videofest.org for more information or call 214-428-8700. Sponsors include HBO, Kodak, Texas Film Commission, Dallas Film Commission, Dallas Film Society, City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, and Texas Commission on the Arts.

Schedule of Animated Films

Friday, Sept. 24, 2010

8:30 p.m. Cafe

Alone in the 475th

George Gantzer

Inspired by journals written amid World War II this animated short explores a subjective interpretation of a soldier's written words. As these journal entries are recited the filmmaker uses a mixture of animation and photographs to visualize a surreal experience based on the soldier's actual written words.

Friday, Sept. 24, 2010

8:30 p.m. Cafe

Lake

Sean Capone

“It is my belief that we have moved from the traditional notion of video into an aesthetic territory defined by the screen. This notion embraces a fuller contemporary engagement with the moving image: the screen as interface for information, communication and image-making; from the personal/portable to the environmental facade; the moving image as architectural ornamentation, as post-narrative, as screensaver, as both camera and display. The screen has become a critical field upon which our multidimensional relationship to the environment exists.”

Friday, Sept. 24, 2010

8:45 p.m. Screen 1

Lethe

Lewis Klahr

One of Klahr’s most straightforward narrative melodramas, Lethe conjures up the full emotional spectrum and storytelling potential of a film by Vincente Minnelli or Douglas Sirk, even though the only sets and actors are cut-out pieces of paper brought to life by Klahr’s imagination and storytelling abilities. Without sacrificing his signature forms of poetic abstraction and uncanny imagery, Klahr tells a tale ripped out of a pulp novel. An older scientist devises a way to win the love of a beautiful younger woman, and the film deals with the psychic fallout that this relationship rains on the woman.

Friday, Sept. 24, 2010

9 p.m. Screen 1

Please Say Something

David O’Reilly

Please Say Something is a 10-minute short concerning a troubled relationship between a Cat and Mouse set in the distant future. The final film was completed in January 2009 and contains 23 episodes of exactly 25 seconds each.

Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010

Noon Cafe

Grumpy Old Man Tristan Craig

Lego stop motion animation

Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010

1 p.m. Screen 1

SIGGRAPH 2010

Selections from the world's premier conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques that welcomed 22,549 artists, research scientists, gaming experts and developers, filmmakers, students, and academics from 79 countries around the globe to Los Angeles this July.

Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010

3:30 pm. Screen 1

What Manner of Person Art Thou?

Erin Cosgrove

What Manner of Person Art Thou? is a 66 minute animated video which follows two characters, Yoder and Troyer, the only survivors of a deadly epidemic that struck two small colonies somewhere in the Northwestern United States.

Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010

6 p.m. Screen 2

Confessions of a Superhero

Matt Ogens

Confessions of a Superhero chronicles the lives of three mortal men and one woman who make their living working as superhero characters on Hollywood Boulevard. This deeply personal look into their daily routines reveals their hardships and triumphs as they pursue and achieve their own kind of fame. The Hulk sold his Super Nintendo for a bus ticket to LA; Wonder Woman was a mid-western homecoming queen; Batman struggles with his anger, while the psyche of Superman is consumed by the Man of Steel. Although the Walk of Fame is right beneath their feet, their own paths to stardom prove to be long, hard climbs.

Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010

7:35 p.m. Screen 2

Time for a Hero

Sarah Russell

A superhero musical

Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010

8 p.m. Screen 2

Mars

Geoff Marslett

A new space race is born between NASA and the ESA when Charlie Brownsville, Hank Morrison, and Dr. Casey Cook compete against an artificially intelligent robot to find out what's up there on the red planet. 'Mars' follows these three astronauts on the first manned mission to our galactic neighbor. On the way they experience life-threatening accidents, self-doubts, obnoxious reporters, and the boredom of extended space travel.

Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010

9 p.m. Café The Waltz King

Adnan Popovic

Perfect stop-motion animation location: the desk. The singer Karl Schwamberger (Laokoongruppe) performs as an animated figure on a stack of post-its, as the lyrics to Walzerkönig roll past on a till roll. Alongside there is a video within a video, a train journey drawn with a highlighter, and from time to time the director reveals himself – grabbing his coffee cup, or remodeling the film set as a miniature home disco.

Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010

9 p.m. Café

Tusslemuscle

Steve Cossman A reflection on humanity’s ecological relationship and the ritual of restoration: power is drawn from the colors and forms of the discarded flower image through the use of time, pattern and rhythm. The violent pulse speaks with a sense of urgency and chaotic struggle while the hypnotic arrangement keeps us in blinding awe us to its condition. Tusslemuscle is composed of 7,000 single frames, which were appropriated from view-master reel cells. Each frame was hand-spliced to create a linear filmstrip. Jacob Long created the score.

Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010

9 p.m. Cafe

Sutro

Jeanne Liotta

Animated portrait of the eponymous television tower on the hill, guardian of fog and electronic signals in that earthshaking city by the Bay

Sunday, Sept. 26, 2010

2 p.m. Screen 1

The Zo

Glanda Wharton

The Zo is a hand-drawn animated film about a child trapped in a nightmare house by the monster, the Zo.

Sunday, Sept. 26, 2010

6:15 p.m. Cafe

Fwd: Update on My Life

Nicky Tavares

A hybrid live-action and animated documentary, Fwd: Update on My Life follows Dr. Deanie French, a professor and pioneer of internet-based learning and web accessibility, who decides one day to take a holiday from her prescription mood stabilizers and go on the Atkins diet. With newfound energy, she promptly leaves her husband and sets out starting up multiple businesses, making 10 new 'special friends,' and directing a documentary about her life. In this experimental biography, director and 'special friend' Nicky Tavares pieces together the humorous and tragic life story of Dr. Deanie French through a collection of interviews, personal emails, electronic greeting cards, and machinima footage, exploring Dr. French's complex psychological and professional relationship with the internet and technology. Alternating and probing notions of the virtual and the real, Fwd: Update on My Life reflects upon our idea of reality as it nimbly navigates Dr. French's fluctuating perceptions of the universe.

ABOUT VIDEOFEST

VideoFest is now the oldest and largest video festival in the United States, and continues to garner critical and popular acclaim. Since 1986, VideoFest has specialized in independent, alternative, and non-commercial media, presenting hard-to-find works rarely seen on television, in movie theaters, or elsewhere, despite their artistic excellence and cultural and social relevance. Even in a Web 2.0 environment where everything is seemingly available on the Internet, the VideoFest provides curatorial guidance, a critical voice in the wilderness navigating the vast and diverse landscape of media, helping to interpret its cultural and artistic significance. The event still provides a communal environment for real-time, face-to-face dialogue between makers and audiences.

ABOUT VIDEO ASSOCIATION OF DALLAS

The mission of the Video Association is to promote an understanding of video as a creative medium and cultural force in our society, and to support and advance the work of Texas artists working in video and the electronic arts. The Video Association of Dallas (VAD) is a 501(c)(3) organization incorporated on April 25, 1989.

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