Greetings Soldiers and Cinephiles,
Shooting Wall's first ever film festival is only a couple days away! We hope everyone is excited, as this is going to be an incredible day for Philadelphia and for cinema. Remember, doors open at 3pm and the films begin at 4pm. There will be no set times for when the particular films play, instead this will play like a program: it begins at 4pm and the films will play one after the other with perhaps a brief intermission. If you haven't accepted your invite yet on
Facebook, please do so. Also, be sure to check out the write up about the festival in this week's Philadelphia Weekly
here or in print (it's on page 23). We also have a write up in
City Paper both in print and online (pp 36-37). Below is a list of the films we will be screening. We hope to see everyone there!
3pm. Free. PhilaMOCA, 531 N. 12th St. 267.519.9651.
philamoca.org
A Basic Human Problem by Alex McCarron, 5 minutes -
I worked on this film like one works on a sketch book, usually alone with my subject in my room. Its form takes after Picasso's studies of bull.
Video Inquiry: Time/Space/Labor by Ben Webster, 25 minutes -
Time/Space/Labor is a series of short videos on the question of work and political subjectivity. Each video proceeds from an initial encounter to an experimental collaboration between the film-maker and a friend or acquaintance. Structuring the encounter are two initial questions: How is your movement through time and space determined by your forms of labor, both compulsory and voluntary?; and, how does this shape your sense of political identity and possibility?
Several episodes of this work in progress will be screened.
Semicolon; by Nick Weingartner, 7 minutes -
SEMICOLON; was made in a fit of passion and some sort-of internal obligation towards my movie-making tendency. Looking back on it, I think it really represents a certain time in my life and how I was feeling - things that can't really be put into words and things I'm still figuring out from watching the film now. SEMICOLON; was made with a group of friends who were having fun -- and my hope is that some of you out there will respond to it in some way or another and it will stay with you.
Dream State by Derek Scull, 2 minutes -
I came up with the general idea and shooting style of my piece after watching Maya Darren's "At Land". So, myself and my actor set off over the course of a few of days to capture the images of my movie. I wanted to touch upon the journey people go through to have sex, but have the connection to that be quite ambiguous. And, non-diagetic inserts and sound scapes are used to push the narrative along.
Puppy Whistle by Marc Dickerson and Robert Malone, 26 minutes
Puppy Whistle" features Alan Steadman, a world-renowned youtube artist who uploads photo montages of puppies underscored by Mannheim Steamroller-style synth techno orchestrations. Alan and his roommate, Dean - a businessman who enjoys whooping pre-adolescent kids in pickup basketball games - are throwing a last minute loft party for Alan's brother, Jeff, who's going to Australia. When Alan's semi-celebrity status attracts a harem of adoring women to his pad, his calloused indifference to their worship and praise causes the party to go awry. Between here and there all kinds of hijinks ensue. Will Alan and Dean salvage Alan's reputation as an artistic force to be reckoned with or will they be deemed a couple of silly gooses by the underground youtube elite? As Brett Michaels once said, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn".
Motherload by Derick Crucius, 3 minutes -
Man and woman meet. They have sex. Women gets pregnant, and man leaves woman. This film is about the act of sex, creation and the life of abandonment.
Glimpse by Jon Seidman, 3 minutes -
A man gets an idea; he will worry about its future.
Struggles in Opposition by Joshua Martin, 45 minutes -
“Struggles in Opposition” is a film about both the need for individual intellectual growth and cinematic innovation. Utilizing highly stylized cinematic lighting, Brechtian alienation techniques, absurdity, experimental images, and dense soundscapes, “Struggles in Opposition” tries to think about ways in which cinema can progress. The film is an attempt to open up a dialogue about new possibilities for the cinematic future.
American Gothic by Judith Redding, 3 minutes -
Based on a short story by Linda K. Wright, this brief and telling study of violence and emotional dysfunction in American families follows an elderly pair of parents as they wait for their son, who has escaped from an unspecified institution, to return home.
Sports by Erich Hamil, 7 minutes -
After being mistaken for a burglar and having a gun pointed at him, a student develops an adrenaline craving and seeks danger throughout Philadelphia.
Look At You by Karl Starkweather, 25 minutes -
Although this film involves a character development, three acts, etc., it also starts to break with such static cinematic forms. It is a initial formulation of a thesis about a new cinema and a new humanity. This thesis is thought out over an anti-realist BDSM narrative contrasted with the deconstruction of the cinematic production itself.
Friends and Good Conversation by Ben Slater, 10 minutes -
A young man who had been leading what he assumed to be a boring, normal existence decides to make a change. He thinks he knows what it will take to be a better man. All that stands in his way are his wayward friends and his mid-western girlfriend's quest for the American dream.
The Wind Blows Where It Wishes by John Gross, 32 minutes -
The Wind Blows Where it Wishes is a film about a filmmaker who makes a film about the funeral of a poet. Shot in color and black and white in English and Hebrew. In the traditions of Bergman, Dreyer and Jodorowsky. Art-house melodrama and tragicomedy.
Let's Get High on Medication and Bomb Shit by Jill Hackney, 7 minutes
A film about limerence and literature.
