The Rutgers Film Co-op presents the 5th Annual
1993 UNITED STATES
SUPER 8 FILM/VIDEO FESTIVAL
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Milledoler Hall 100, College Avenue Campus
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
1993 United States Super 8 Film & Video Festival Celebrating its fifth year, the United States Super 8 Film & Video Festival has become a mecca for Super 8 f1lmmakers and 8mm video artists. As the only annual8mm festival in this country, it encourages any genre (animation, documentary, personal, narrative, experimental, etc.), but the submissions must have originated on Super 8mm f1lm or 8mm video. The Festival continues to evidence the vitality of Super 8 f1lm as an artistic medium. Over 130 works were submitted by artists from throughout the United States (including Hawaii, Kentucky, Oregon, California, New York, Massachusetts, Texas, Washington, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, Missouri, Louisiana. Rorida, Maryland, etc.) -- almost doubling the 75 entries submitted to last year's festival. Of the 130 entries, 88 were originated on Super 8mm f1lm, 33 on Hi 8mm video, and 13 on 8mm video. Most of the Super 8 works, however, were submitted on video. Many Super 8 artists are now shooting on fllm and post-producing on videotape. For the first time the Festival was open to work shot on 8mm video. The Super 8 Festival is dedicated to supporting both small-gauge media art forms. All entries were screened by an eight-member selection committee: Tim Campbell, Irene Fizer, Chetin Gandhi, Brian Kearns, Nicole Johnson, Rosemary Passantino, Salwa Shamy, and Jim Vant. The selection committee chose the thirteen finalists, which are being screened tonight. In addition to the finalists, nine entries were deemed to be of special merit by the panel ofjudges. Time limitations will not permit the public screening of all these works. Nonetheless, the judges wanted them to be acknowledged. The Finalist and Special Merit works are listed in this program. Tonight, five judges will choose the winners from the thirteen finalists and will award $1000 in cash and prizes. The judges are: Professor Alan Williams (Department of French and Program in Cinema Studies, Rutgers University), Wendy Liddell (Director of the International Film Circuit), Kristine Diekman (independent media artist and a prizewinner in the past three US Super 8 Film & Video Festivals), Craig Shearman (journalist from The Central New Jer~ Home News. and the festival director. In addition, the audience will be asked to participate in the judging process by voting for the "Audience Choice Prize." The Festival takes as its mandate the spreading of the Super 8 word. Toward that end, the Rutgers Film Co op has sponsored a touring program culled from Super 8 Festival fmalists for the past three years. The Selections of the U.S. Super 8 Film/Video Festival Touring Program has been screened at a variety of media art centers, f1lm festivals, and universities including: the 2nd World Festival of Video in Brussels. Belgium; the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York; 911 Media Art Center in Seattle, Washington; Boston Film & Video Foundation; Hallwalls in Buffalo, New York and many others. Special thanks to all the pre-screening and finalist judges listed above; Irene Fizer; Professor John Belton of Rutgers University Program in Cinema Studies; Bob Brodsky and Toni Treadway of the International Center for 8mm Film & Video; Pat Thompson and Ellen Levy orThe Independent!AIVF; Eric Enderlin and Eric Donlan of The Bagel Dish; Richard Haag and Diane Howe of Kodalux Processing; DAK Productions; Dave Freese of Photo Plaza; Bill Brand of BB Optics; David Anderson of Yale Laboaratory Inc.; Mark Polyocam of The Tape House, the Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission; the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State; and the Rutgers Film Co-op for making this festival possible. We urge you to submit work to the 1994 U.S. Super 8 Film & Video Festival. Look for the entry form in this program. Thank you for making this year's festival a huge success, and hope to see you in 1994. -AlbertG. Nigrin Director & Founder, Rutgers Film Co-op and the U.S. Super 8 Film & Video Festival Program Designed by A. G. Nigrin Program Edited by Irene Fizer Front Cover: "Crazy 8s" by A. G. Nigrin Š1993
1993 United States Super 8 Film & Video Festival Finalists Coyoteland Stick Figures Back In The Box Drink Deep Home Is Where The Heart Is Slypefilm Party Line Parada Vida 3 Scripts for Performance Earthly Posessions Walls and Away Stolen Tango Night of the Black Widow
1992 1992 1993 1991 1992 1992 1991 1992 1992 1992 1992 1992 1992
Jay April Oakland, CA 17 Diane Bonder New Brunswick, NJ 3 Richard Clark Somerset, NJ 7 Jem Cohen Brooklyn, NY 10 Sian Evans Brooklyn, NY 28 James Harrar Pipersville, PA 4 Jenny Kane & Anne McCabe New York, NY 10 Konkapot Big Boys Great Barrington, MA 8 Robert Lawrence Minneapolis, MN 5 Pelle Lowe Boston, MA 23 Michael Mehl San Antonio, TX 4 David Moore New York, NY 9 Trey Turner & Andrew Piccone Tallahassee, FL 9
1992 1991 1991 1992 1991 1992 1992 1990 1992
Pedro Ballesteros Dorothy Fadiman Laurel Greenberg Bryan Glickfield Zig Gron John Holland Christopher McElroy Philippe Roques Mark Zero
min. min. min. min. min. min. min. min. min. min. min. min. min.
3/4"V 3/4"V 3/4"V 3/4"V 3/4"V 3/4"V 3/4"V 3/4"V 3/4"V 3/4"V 3/4"V 3/4"V 3/4"V
Special Merit Somhras (Mirra AI Terra) When Abortion Was Illegal Something Missing Nippono Ballad of the Laughing Man Pastiche Amazonia: The March West Laura, Ingrid and Rehecca Twenty Pieces of Time
Somerville, MA Menlo Park, CA Jamaica Plain, MA Fort Worth, TX West Hollywood, CA East Brunswick, NJ Dearborn, MI San Francisco, CA New York, NY
12 min. 1I2"V 28 min. 1I2"V 5 min. 1I2"V 9 min. 1I2"V 3 min. 1/2"V 6 min. 1I2"V 30 min. 3/4"V 7 min. 1I2"V 11 min. 3/4"V
••••••• Finalist Descriptions: Coyoteland 1992 Jay April Oakland, CA 17 min. 3/4"V "Using a hand-held camera and a cinema verite style. Jay April captured a real-life conflict between urban development and wildlife. After a coyote carries away a local dog, animal control officer and trapper Louis Dedeaux is called upon to stop the coyote's predation on the pet animals of the well-to-do who live in a canyon housing development As Dedeaux sets his traps, he encounters Lila, an elderly woman who is a spirited and articulate defender of wildlife. Through their amiable confrontation, they clearly express conflicting demands of development and wildlife habitat. Coyoteland is a sometimes humorous, though provocative video on civilization's impact on urban wildlife" .--The Video Project Stick Figures 1992 Diane Bonder New Brunswick, NJ 3 min. 3/4"V "Stick Figures examines the convergence of gender and sexual identity in the form of a short narrative. It is the story of an attempted gay-bashing that occured as the result of gender misidentification. The video hopes to express not only the visceral experience of violence. but also the shared experience of homophobia that threatens all of us. The title refers to a child's rendering of the human form, that appears gendedess until the signifiers of clothing, hair or other objects are added." -DB Back In The Box 1993 "Repressed things come to life."--RC
Richard Clark
Somerset, NJ
7 min. 3/4"V
Drink Deep 1991 Jem Cohen Brooklyn, NY 10 min. 3/4"V "The piece was constructed primarily from footage I'd shot at swimming holes in Georgia and rural Pennsylvania. It is about water and memory and narratives just submerged. It is also, in part, a response to thinking about censorship. I would say that Drink Deep is both unabashedly and deceptively romantic. Surface, flow, and undertow. What looks like paradise is always paradise lost"--JC
Finalist Descriptions continued: Home Is Where The Heart Is 1992 Sian Evans Brooklyn, NY 28 min. 3/4"V .. An experimental documentary bridging multiple defmitions of 'home' -- through the analytic perspective of the developmental psychology of children; conversations about home with construction workers, developers and residents of Ft. Greene, Brooklyn; the global allegories of nursery rhymes and global images of home life. --SE It
Slyperum 1992 James Harrar "A playful 'sUp' into the passage of rhythm and rapturous delight "--IH
Pipersville,
PA
Party Line 1991 Jenny Kane & Anne McCabe "A brief look at the modem obsession with the telephone. "--IK & AM
New York, NY
Parada Vida 1992 Konkapot Big Boys "Parada Vida - - to halt or suspend life, a stopping place in life, a life pause."
Great Barrington, MA
4 min. 3/4"V
10 min. 3/4"V
8 min. 3/4"V
3 Scripts for Performance 1992 Robert Lawrence Minneapolis, MN 5 min. 3/4"V "3 Scripts for Performance is an unconventional meditation on environmental issues. The tape uses a language that was common in 'early video' but is virtually unheard today. It is minimal and conceptual. My interest is not in the 5 minutes running time of the tape. but rather the projected 'performances' outside the video display. I think of the tape as a 'master sign' JX>inting to metaphoric activities in the 'real world.' In that sense the tape is a kind of t.v. commercial, or maybe a public service announcement. It is part of an ongoing series of work dealing with our discourses on nature." --RL Eartbly Possessions 1992 Pelle Lowe Boston, MA 23 min. 3/4"V Eartbly Possessions is an exploration of the eroticism of grief, loosely derived from Emily Bronte's Wutherimz HeiiWts and Herculine Barbin 's, Memoirs ofa 19th-eentury Hermaphrodite. Visual cliches from Gothic romance swirl around the texts of three women's love poems. Another group of 'nature' images weave through the fltSt (love) story of the loss of innocence - of the Fall-足 by the naming and JX>ssession of the world. How shall love survive the taxonomic obsessions of a dominating culture and name its own desires? Eartbly Possessions is a subversive elegy for lovers in the plague years."--PL Walls and Away 1992 Micbael Mehl San Antonio, TX 4 min. 3/4"V "A video self-portrait Introspection, the investigation of outer walls (limitations), the quest for essence in nature and self, the formulation and realization of patterns in life." --MM Stolen Tango 1992 David Moore New York, NY 9 min. 3/4"V "After his shopping bag is stolen on a deserted street, a man chases the thief into the alley. A brief encounter ensues which surprises both men."-OM 1992 Trey Turner & Andrew Piccone Tallahassee, FL 9 min. 3/4"V Nigbt of tbe Black Widow "In this 1940s film nair satire, Jack Diamond is a street smart, wise cracking private eye who thought he'd seen it all. But when he's hired by a mysterious dame.... Nothing is what is seems. "--IT & AP
The 1993 U.S. Super 8 Film & Video Festiyal. which is part of the Rutgers Film Co-op's 1992-93 New Jersey Media Arts Festival, is funded in part by the Media Art Fund - sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and administered by the National Alliance of Media Art and Culture, the Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Rutgers University Program in Cinema Studies, and the International Center for 8mm Film and Video.