New Jersey Film Festival screening
you thRill me – Phil Docken (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
This film is a montage that in a very oblique way suggests a narrative. So, one hopes it is engaging one’s intuition rather than, say, cognition. Coming from the world of visual art, I embrace the imperative that visual art is a sovereign language. Ideally, a person reacts to a painting free of instructions, information or intent on the part of the artist. The painting speaks to you … or it doesn’t. Information accompanying a work of art corrupts the moment one becomes engaged with the art. While i was working on you thRill me, I was thinking: “ this is either a baroque fairy tale or a drawing.“ 2023; 16 min.
Shitfaced – Jack E.K. Collier (Shoreline, Washington)
An aspiring artist attempts to sketch her boyfriend only to find the dissatisfaction in her own work does more harm than good. 2023; 4 min.
Roses, Pink and Blue - Julia Yezbick (Detroit, Michigan)
An elegy for a lost balloon. 2023; 4 min.
Elevator to Stardom – Danny Plotnick (San Francisco, California)
Crackling with the energy of a 1980s punk rock, seat-of-the-pants, totally wired DIY production, Elevator to Stardom is a reminder of how films got made back in the day. Come up with an idea, use the small footprint and immediacy of Super 8, and knock out a crowd-pleaser in a month’s time. Grain-be-damned, thread up the projector, and let’s get viewing. Starring: Myles Marquez, Cencere Baker, Chris Rama, Ava Klubberud, Ray Wilcox, Bill Daft and Danny Plotnick. 2023; 8 min.
George – Gregg Chilingirian (London, England)
Momentarily distracted from his existential crisis by the enigmatic Kiyoni, 30-year-old George is suddenly forced to confront his past in an attempt to process a life-altering event. 2023; 11 min.
The Rocket Movies – Carl Weingarten (Alameda, California)
Filmmaker and musician Carl Weingarten recounts growing up in St. Louis in the 1970s and his teenage hobby of shooting aerial movies with a Super8 camera mounted on top of model rockets. Decades before video cameras, GoPros and Drones, the film shows vintage Super8 footage and photographs, all shot, developed and edited with music composed by Weingarten for his DIY NASA inspired rocket launches and regional aerial photography explorations. 2023; 9 min.
Silent chirping of invisible Digits – Vera Sebert (Austria)
Like a single film frame, insects flash for the fraction of a second, only to immediately withdraw from the field of vision again. In between their flickering body fragments, the film shows undefinable voids. What can be seen when familiar filters of vision and the narratives associated with them are missing? 2023; 10 min.
how to outline grief – Kym McDaniel (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
Different water worlds - sea, snow, tears, bodies - collide as grief is poetically explored through movement and landscape. In English, Korean, subtitled. 2023; 6 min.
Lager Hogger – David Thomas Dibble (Hanford, California)
Trains! Libations! Super 8! Isn't that what model railroading is all about? 2023; 2 min.
