Film Events

6th ANNUAL STANDING ROCK INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

SATURDAY, JANUARY 24TH, 2009, 8:00PM at the THE KENT STAGE, 175 E. MAIN ST., KENT, OHIO

-Independent Short Films and Videos from around the world!

-Animations, Music Videos, Experimental Shorts and More!

-Opening Remarks and a short film by acclaimed film director and former
Kent State University film instructor RICHARD MYERS.

-Featured Shorts from Last Year’s People’s Choice Award Winner, Julia
Pott of London, England. www.juliapott.com

CLICK HERE for the 2010 Prospectus.

EVENT RESULTS

And so it was...another fine year for the International Short Film
Festival. Good Films, Good Live Music, A Great Filmmaker, an
Exceptional Animator and an enthusiastic crowd. Not to mention the
flowing kegs and the historic building.

Thanks to all filmmakers and audience who participated. It has become a
true celebration of the independent and creative spirit.

And the winners of the 6th annual Standing Rock International Short Film
Festival are...

*People's Choice Award*
First Place : "Because Some Things You Never Forget (Porque Hay Cosas
Que Nunca Se Olividan)" by Lucas Figueroa
Second Place : "Henry's Garden" by Moon Seun and Kevin Geiger
Third Place : "Tequila Tortuga" by Amanda Cates

*Juried Choice Award
"Because Some Things You Never Forget (Porque Hay Cosas Que Nunca Se
Olividan)" by Lucas Figueroa

Thanks again! Films now being accepted for the 3rd annual "Who's Your
Mama?" Earth Day and Environmental Film Festival. Deadline March 15,
2009. See www.whosyourmama.org for a prospectus and application.

*Here is some of the media support we received:

*WVIZ Television Appearance:*
http://www.wviz.org/index.php/WVIZ/applause/15977/

*Cool Cleveland:*
http://www.coolcleveland.com/index.php?n=main.current (scroll down about
1/2 way down the page)

Images from the Event

CONTACT INFO:
Jeff Ingram (Producer) 330-673-4970 / info@standingrock.net
Mike Hovancsek (Director) 330-677-0333 / point@neobright.net

The 6th Annual Standing Rock International Short Film Festival Program

Welcome to the 6th annual Standing Rock International Short Film Festival! This is an exciting time in the world of independent film. In recent years we have seen a major progression in the quality and availability of filmmaking technologies. Suddenly, anyone with a camera and a laptop can explore imaginative new worlds from his or her bedroom. All of this can be done without bowing to the demands of corporate interests or to the watered-down results of market surveys.

Imagine a world where cavemen have access to television, trees have a conscience, and a footage stolen from a collection B-movies sci-fi movies help us to predict the future. Those are just a few of the creative worlds that our filmmakers bring us this year.

Our event will include all the elements that proved to be popular in previous years, including:

Great Short Films from Around the World

We are featuring a wonderful collection of short films in a variety of formats, including animation, documentaries, music videos, comedy, short drama, and abstract collages. The films are from as close as Kent and from as far away as Spain, England, Israel, Amsterdam, and Italy.

People’s Choice Award

During intermission you will be able to vote for their favorite film. Just take out the ballot form from this program, put a check mark next to the film that you feel was the best of the show, and turn it in at the lobby. A winner will be announced in the second part of the program. The winning filmmaker will receive a $100 award.

Juried Award

Jeff Ingram (festival producer), and I will be judging films according to originality, technical skill, and cultural relevance. The winning filmmaker will receive a one-of-a-kind certificate designed by Cynthia Krizo.

Guest Filmmaker

This year we have invited Richard Myers to screen one of his films. To quote film scholar Ruth Bradley, "Few American filmmakers equal Myers in breadth of work and perseverance of vision, built upon self-examination and a deep love of cinema. In articulating his own reality, his own dreams, Myers has created a body of work that constitutes one of the outstanding achievements in American filmmaking."

Featured Artist

We will be screening a collection of short films by Julia Pott. Julia was the winner of our People’s Choice Award last year. This year she will give us an even deeper look into her playful and poignant world.

Live Film Soundtracks

Closing out this year’s event, Joe Culley, Deepali Batavia, and I will perform live music to accompany two short films.

Reception

We are encouraging our audience to stick around in the lobby after the festival in order to meet some of the filmmakers whose work was screened.

- Mike Hovancsek, Festival Director

Films We Will Be Showing:

Prime Time (4:50) Tom Dor - Coming all the way from Tel Aviv, Israel, this film answers that age-old question, “What would happen if cave men had access to television?”

This Bus, Every Day (4:19) Todd Tinkham - Todd Tinkham’s films have appeared in our event in past years. This year he submitted a film that explores loneliness and repetition in the life of one simple individual.

Hold the Line (6:15) Sem Assink - Coming to us all the way from Amsterdam, “Hold the Line” tells the story of four soldiers marching through the remains of a ruined world. When they are ambushed by an invisible foe, the men come up with the ultimate tactic to take him out.

Aunt Fanny’s Instructional Video (5:17) Colin Studenbaker - In this troubling and informative film Mr. Studenbaker takes us into the mysterious world of workplace instructional videos. Be careful or you may learn something!

Street Musician (2:49) Sooyun Jang - This archetypal story takes the Faustian deal into the realm of 3-D animation.

Mr. Suit Coat and Tie (1:42) Jeff Mancinetti - This film proves that you don’t have to have a big budget, fancy equipment, or even a storyline to create an interesting visual experience. Mr. Mancinetti explores rhythm and repetition here to good effect.

Being a King (3:07) Jacopo Armani - Mr. Armani from Milano, Italy introduces us to the 3-D experience of the court jester who wishes he could be king.

Tiny White Suitcase (2:10) Natalie Schultz - According to the filmmaker: "Tiny White Suitcase is about the various personalities and roles we are forced to take on to get through each day. Sometimes we spend so much time being artificial or hiding things about ourselves that we lose our
true identities."

Temple of Heaven (6:00) Jeff Ingram - The Singing Angels, a children's choir from Cleveland, OH, toured Shanghai, Xi'An, and Beijing in June 2008. This film captures highlights from the trip and demonstrates how music is a universal language. The song in the video is performed by the Shanxxi Normal University Women's Chorus in Xi'An.

Visions of the Future (3:09) Nicholas Peters - Mr. Peters makes some highly accurate predictions about the future here. Even more remarkably, he does this by stealing film footage from various B movies. Check out this film or be forever ignorant about the future.

Lost (3:41) Miles Kalbach - We featured a claymation piece by Mr. Kalbach in a previous festival. This year he shows us his versatility by submitting a completely different looking stop-action animation film video that he made for Coldplay.

Tequila Tortuga (2:50) Amanda Cates - Coming all the way from Cleveland, Ohio, Ms. Cates introduces us to the highly dangerous world of heavy-drinking turtles.

Because There Are Things You Never Forget... (13:30) Lucas Figueroa - Naples, Italy, 1950. Four friends are playing soccer out on the street when their ball is accidentally kicked into the evil old lady's yard. They'll never play with their ball again...and for that, the kids choose the ultimate revenge. This film was sent to us from Madrid, Spain.

Henry’s Garden (8:30) Moon Seun with Kevin Geiger - Simple Henry just wants a nice garden that he can enjoy but modern society keeps intervening.

Intermission

This is your chance to vote for your favorite film that you have seen so far in our event. Take the ballot in your program and select your favorite film. Then, turn it in at the lobby. A winner will be announced later in the evening.

A Film by Guest Filmmaker, Richard Myers

37-73 (10 min. trailer) - Richard Myers. Quoting film scholar Ruth Bradley here: “Richard Myers has always lived in Massillon, and Kent, Ohio. Since 1960 his films have synthesized his own dream world with that of America's collective unconscious, creating films that, while deeply personal and ‘site-specific,’ nevertheless resonate within the larger American landscape.
Myers' films often times depict journeys to places that seem close by, but that virtually explore vast distances within the terrain of dreams and fantasies. His films are like reconnaissance tours through middle America, melancholic searches for something - an object, an idea, a person, a feeling. And the milieu of his films is often that of the carnival, the medicine show, or the movie theater.”

Featured Filmmaker: Julia Pott

Each year we invite one filmmaker to show a collection of his or her films. This year we chose Julia Pott because her film won both the Juried Award and the People’s Choice Award in our event last year. All of the descriptions of her films are from notes she sent us when we were developing this event:

My First Crush (3:40) - “This was the film I submitted last year, it was my graduating film from Kingston University. At the point where I was brainstorming ideas I had just started seeing someone (who I possibly liked a little more than he liked me!) and I had become fascinated with the idea of infatuation and crushes. I went around interviewing a handful of people just to get a few perspectives on the subject but in the end their stories were so great I decided to just animate those and in the end I interviewed 40 people about their first encounters with love. I chose to use animals to tell their tales to add a humorous element to the films and exemplify the idea of mismatched couples and the randomness of love.”

Find Me, Animated Set (extract) (1:24) - “This is an extract from an 8 minute animated set design I created for a production of “Find Me” at Trinity College, Dublin. The story tells of a girl who is sent to a Mental Institution due to Autism. I looked at the film “A is for Autism” for reference and tried to create a style that gave the impression the autistic child had animated the scenes herself.”

What's the Time Mr. Wolf (:43) - “This was my very first animated film and I just wanted to explore space, humor and narrative and just get to grips with how it all works.”

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - White Corolla (2:03) - “This was the official music video for the new single by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. I was given complete artistic freedom on the piece with the only specification being to include no birds in the video. I was looking at the idea of infidelity in relationships, representing these ideas with limb sharing, partner sharing and dance routines. The cat at the beginning watches her original partner cavorting with tigers and pandas but in the end she wins out by pairing up with the unicorn at the rodeo. I wanted to create quite an abstract narrative which still contained some humor.”

Halloween Treat (:45) - “I have recently formed an animation collective with 5 other animators and this was our Halloween Viral to promote our launch. The idea behind it was that of Russian Dolls with monsters coming out of other monsters. The biggest challenge was trying to fit the stop motion paper animation in with the computer animation to add a new dimension to the film.”

Getting to Know Paperdex with Barkley (2:05) - “This was a film I created in a week with 5 other animators for an environmental film festival. Our brief was simply “Business Cards = Trees” and we wanted to create something humorous and satirical but still with a hard-hitting message at the end. It was incredible challenge to create a two minute film in just 7 days but it was a great learning experience and it forced me to get to grips with computers!”

Picasso Pictures Christmas Card (:42) - “This was my most recent film created for the company Picasso Pictures with who I am currently signed to as a director. The two people singing are my mom and dad and it was not scripted...they just burst into song out of nowhere and I was just lucky enough to catch it!”

Learn This (2:03) - “This was a purely visual animation with no narrative storyline, created to be projected at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London to run alongside a new performance from the London Sinfonietta. The visuals are loosely based on the process of learning and repetition.”

Live Soundtracks

Each year we end our film festival by inviting musicians to perform live film soundtracks. The live music portion of our event has always been very popular and it promises to be really special with the eclectic and technically advanced music of Joe Culley, Mike Hovancsek, and Deepali Batavia.

is (12:00) Joe Culley - To quote the filmmaker, “The square and the window motif of this film is akin to the structure of the classical music of India. Such boundaries provide liberation through variation like a child’s sandbox. My intention is to create a doorway into transcendence, by heightening the viewer’s perception of presentness with something that will hopefully turn into nothing. If I pulled off my intention the film will disappear and the sounds and rhythms of the tabla with take you into silence.” This piece will be accompanied by live music by Joe Culley and Deepali Batavia.

Mandala 2 (5:39) Mike Hovancsek - I made this film as part of a multimedia performance piece that I wrote and performed in 2005. The project addressed the issue of sexual assault, using the mandala as a symbol of healing and renewal. This film will be accompanied by live music by Joe Culley, Deepali Batavia, and Mike Hovancsek.

Film Festival Credits:

Director - Mike Hovancsek

Producer - Jeff Ingram

Sound Technician - Tom Simpson

Animated Introduction - Vince Packard

Projection Mastering - Carl Palmer at Wild Life Media

Graphic Art / Poster Design - Vince Packard

Program Design - Mike Hovancsek

Projectionist - Jeff Ingram

Jury - Jeff Ingram, and Mike Hovancsek

Poster Design - Cynthia Krizo

Program Notes and Design - Mike Hovancsek

Animated Festival Introduction - Vince Packard

Richard Myers

"Richard Myers has always lived in Massillon, and Kent, Ohio. Since 1960
his films have synthesized his own dream world with that of America's
collective unconscious, creating films that, while deeply personal and
'site-specific,' nevertheless resonate within the larger American landscape.

"Myers' films often times depict journeys to places that seem close by,
but that virtually explore vast distances within the terrain of dreams
and fantasies. His films are like reconnaissance tours through middle
America, melancholic searches for something - an object, an idea, a
person, a feeling. And the milieu of his films is often that of the
carnival, the medicine show, or the movie theater.

"Myers started out as a painter, printmaker and photographer. As he puts
it, 'What excited me most about film was the idea that it could all be
done by one person, that he or she could do everything: conceive of the
idea, shoot the film, make the sets, edit the film, do the sound, etc.
Film allowed me to do all these things, and 'paint' images from my
dreams, and personal memory.' For Myers, 'film is poetry, painting, and
photography, all in one.'

"His first film, THE PATH, established his 'palette.' 'THE PATH, was a
short silent film based on a dream,' Myers explains. 'I tried to direct
the viewer through forms and substances, rather than with narrative and
story. I thought of the film as a myth, - myth as an intermediate and
indispensable stage between conscious and unconscious cognition.

The film visually and rhythmically evolved from unconscious direction,
and most of my subsequent films have done the same.'

"Few American filmmakers equal Myers in breadth of work and perseverance
of vision, built upon self-examination and a deep love of cinema. In
articulating his own reality, his own dreams, Myers has created a body
of work that constitutes one of the outstanding achievements in American
filmmaking." - Ruth Bradley