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Hi/Lo Film Festival
Friday, July 9th, 2004
8:30 - Live music by Reuben Radding String Quartet (details below)
9:00 - High Concept Low Budget Films
At The Old American Can Factory
232 Third Street, in the Gowanus Section of Park Slope, Brooklyn.
In the event of rain the show will be indoors at the same location.
Hi/Lo Film Festival
FROM THE CURATOR:
"Banana banana banana, banana, banana, banana"
- Reuben Maness
Banana Muffin
From Karl Marx to Ian McKaye a great continuum of rabble rousers and punk rockers have championed the idea that if you want to get shit done—or make independent art—you better seize the means of production. Several years into the oughts, the naughts, the naughty-aughties or whatever we call them, everyone and their grandmother can pick up a digital camera at Best Buy and head out to shoot their own proverbial mean streets. My god, my friend's cell phone can shoot movies (and it displays a picture of Garfield whenever I call!).
But now that the instruments of cinematic production have been seized, is there more stuff worth watching? Do we need an anti-establishment Tivo to record the rivers of video-gold that should be pulsing through the film festival circuit, if not through the airwaves? Regrettably, this doesn't seem to be the case. The cameras are cheaper, the editing software simpler, and the video projectors lighter—but on the whole low-budget filmmaking is not qualitatively better than it was when hilo started seven years ago.
The films included in this year's festival stand out from the hundreds that were submitted because they have something to say. At their core these films are the works of agent provacateurs out to get you to think a little. The hilo class of '04 knows how to turn the camera on the person next to them, the images in front of them and the systems around them and do more than document. By means comical and non-fictional, explicit and abstract these films criticize, satirize and dazzle your eyes.
So, by all means, encourage your grandmother to go get a camera and fire up the dvd burner that came in her laptop, but before releasing another film into the worldžand inviting the world to consider itžmake sure your grandmother has something to say. If she does please send it to us next year.
marc vogl
programmer, hi/lo film festival
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The hi/lo film festival celebrates films that are high concept and low budget.
We have been showing films that fit these utterly subjective criteria in San Francisco since 1997 and touring them around the country since 2001.
If you are interested in submitting to our 2005 festival, would like to buy the hilo 2004 dvd or just want to poke around and see what we're up to, please check out: www.hilofilmfestival.com.
Thanks very much to the Rooftop gang for working 365 to bring cool flicks to the spaces of NYC.
THE FILMS:
A Man Crosses the Street (Tim Bartlett, 1:00, 16mm)
An ordinary man in ordinary circumstances in a race against time. Daily survival has never seemed so exciting.
Don't You Bring Me Down (Keith Wilson, 4:00, dv)
Something happens when urban filmmakers are relocated to the burbs. In this case clothing is shed, and Christina Aguillera is channeled.
Springtime for Eva (Russ Forster, 5:00, 16mm)
To the seductive sounds of Nico a collage of found footage situates one happy go lucky Austrian woman in bygone happy go lucky times.
Pay Roll (Noah Klersfield, 13:00, dv)
Is it for real? Is it fake? Is this the mother of all multi-camera action sequences or the insane inner monolog of an archetypal director who wishes he controlled it all.
Hush (Mike Seely, 5:00, 16mm)
There are people who wander into the woods with huge microphones to hear sounds that you just don't get downtown. The natural sounds are sweet and so is this delicate documentary.
Tom Hits His Head (Tom Putnam, 10:00, 16mm)
Style follows substance in this hypnotic trip into one man's nervous breakdown. The camera, acting and editing move in horrifying harmony while trying to explain why some people, totally lose it.
INTERMISSION
The Invisible Hand (Lori Hiris, 13:00, video)
Finally, a stunning visual artist who also reads the business section. A dazzling confluence of stop-motion chalk illustrations, combines with an intricate score and the result is a beautiful, powerful and total take down of today's corporate thieves.
Banana Muffin (Rueben Maness, 4:00, dv)
If you missed last night's local news never fear, it's rebroadcast herežand, for that matter, it's tonight's broadcast too.
Famous Irish Americans (Roger Warren Beebe, 8:00, dv)
A university lecture on miscegenation and American racial history is infused by a filmmaker's love of lo-fi graphics, obnoxiously campy music and, of course, the NBA.
Fischerchicks (Susan Buice & Arin Crumley, 4:00, dv)
Everyone daydreams about starring in their favorite band's music video, this time the dream is accompanied by a couple of super cute little birdies. Awww.
Inside the Insider (Philippe Vendrolini, 4:00, dv)
A digital collage stripping Entertainment Tonight down to its base elements--and then chucking it in the closet.
Girl Dick Movie (Alan Harris, 5:00, video)
If Degrassi Junior High had been made for Showtime and not PBS an episode on anatomical change might have looked like this. Thank god for pillow fights!
Bush For Peace (Sarah Christman & Jen Simmons, 2:00, digibeta)
The anti-war speech President Bush would never make, but wouldn't it sound good if he did?
PLUS A SPECIAL SHOWING OF:
The Future (Casimir Nozkowski, 19:00)
Nozkowski and his crew of wizards, fanatics and time bandits return to Rooftop Films (Store! 9/7/01; ATM 6/28/02) with a tale of hope and dreams. This is the story of a genius professor, an adjunct professor, and their fearless bodyguard, who risked everything they had in an experiment aimed to save mankind, or at least save themselves a lot of money. But sometimes you aim for the future, and end up at the rec center.
THE MUSIC:
Reuben Radding is an improvising bassist who revels in variety, having lent his creativity to all genres, from avant garde to swing, folk, pop, klezmer, chamber music, and all points between. According to Peter Monahan of Earshot Jazz, Radding "veer[s] with abandon between conventional pizzicato work and a post-free liberty-taking aided by bow, sticks, and hands. A muscly, mesomorph figure, Radding bullies, slaps, and worries his bass like a half-bothered, fully curious black bear mauling a backpacker."
Tara Flandreau - violin
Karen Waltuch - viola
Loren Dempster - cello
Reuben Radding - contrabass
www.reubenradding.com
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