ART SLOPE '17 'SHORTS IN THE SLOPE' FILMMAKER BIOS
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2017 at 8:00 PM
Grasshopper - Lynn Bianchi, Director
Grasshopper depicts a couple leisurely enjoying a late afternoon on the beach. Interpretations of time and meaning of space are explored in the way that one might bounce off one reality to the next while being thrown into the chaos of alternative dimensions.
Lynn is a fine art photographer and multimedia artist who has shown her work in over thirty solo exhibitions and museums worldwide. In 2011 Lynn began working in video and has to date produced over 20 multimedia works. Some have been featured in many festivals worldwide, including CICA Museum in South Korea, Electronic Language International Festival in Brazil, as well as Coney Island Film Festival.
Lynn’s latest works are suspended between Henri Cartier-Bresson’s idea that to photograph is to hold one’s breath with all faculties converged in an effort to capture fleeting reality, and the belief that flowing processes that transcend reality cannot be entirely captured by static images.
Real Artists – Cameo Wood, Director; Cameo Wood, Ryon Lane, Alexa Fraser-Herron, Producers
Based on Hugo Award-winning author Ken Liu’s short story of the same name, “Real Artists” asks a poignant question: In a dystopian near-future where big data, A.I. and natural-language processing learn and create quickly and at massive scale, what role can a single artist play?
Cameo wrote, produced and directed “Real Artists.” She fell in love with movies at the age of 7 when she saw “Amadeus” on the big screen. Cameo began writing adventures and shooting scenes at the age of 10. She views short films as “tiny stories, perfectly crafted.”
Sunset Park - Andrew Moorehead, Director; Andrew Moorehead, Dustin Flannery-McCoy, Producers
Inspired by real events in Sunset Park, Brooklyn –and set a month before the 2016 Presidential election –a yuppie burnout questions whether he has just witnessed the violent assault of his neighbor.
Andrew is a writer/director from Brooklyn. He works in creative advertising and will burn in hell for it. Dustin Flannery-McCoy is a filmmaker and photographer from Santa Fe. He plans on writing a really slick bio statement one of these days.
Greg's Going to Rehab - Chris Lawing, Director
It’s the 80s, and 15-year-old, drugged-out Greg face plants into a glass coffee table. His parents have had enough – it’s time for Greg to get straightened out. So off to rehab with him! But Greg isn’t done partying. He plans one last bash to send himself off like a king. After a long night, Greg will find out who he really is and who his true friends are.
Chris is an award-winning filmmaker with over two decades of writing, directing and editing experience in film, video and broadcast. “I love Greg! I love the time of life where nothing seems to work right and you’re confronted with a pivotal moment where you can choose to do something different or just keep doing what you’ve been doing. That simple moment can somehow carry the instance of transformation.”
Al Passo Delle Parole (In Step With Words) - Jenny Mascia, Director
Every word has its own weight and can be easily misunderstood. Most of the time it feels like we are forced to walk on tiptoes. Freedom comes only to those who free themselves of the worry of judgment.
Jenny Mascia was born and raised in Urbino, Italy. She is a senior at the School of Visual Arts, where she was awarded a 4-year scholarship. She is exploring animation as a way of creating canvas in movement.
Bereavement - Yolanda Roman, Director
A child loses his pet because it is traveling to a place where it can be cured. A man watches his wife battling a bull she cannot tame. A couple throw in the towel because their fight will never end. And the three stories share the same end . . . A time of bereavement.
Yolanda is a Spanish director and actress. Her short films have been official selections in more than a thousand film festivals, and she has been awarded several prizes. She is currently involved in post-production of her first feature film, “Plantados.”
The Man Who Forgot to Breathe - Saman Hosseinpuor, Director
A man forgets to breathe while sleeping. He recently had a quarrel with his wife, who wanted to leave him and get divorced.
Saman was born in Saqez, Kurdistan, in 1993. He started acting in the theater when he was 14 years old. He then began writing short stories and then, in 2008, began making films. He is a director, cinematographer and writer residing in Iran.
Guardrails - Jim Donahue, Director
Guardrails is a short film composed of a series of still photos set to a generic iMovie soundtrack that has been edited as a kind of advertisement. The second part of the film is a re-editing as a deconstruction to amplify the humorous part of the narrative. Jim made “Guardrails” while traveling with his wife and friends in Greece. There were many dangerous curves along the roads they were traveling.
Jim is a painter/sculptor who uses film as a kind of drawing tool to document the way he perceives things. He has been a scenic artist since 1995, and received a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute.
Il Corpo Tirannico - Bill Schaumberg, Director
Il Corpo Tirannico, a parodistic homage to the Italian New Wave of the early 60s, contrasts the self-vaunting inner life of a pampered young man with his idyllic circumstances, striking chords that all moviegoers not inert clods will respond to with wry recognition. The film was reverse-engineered, so to speak, by the team of Bill Schaumberg, Matt DiLoreto, and Jeffrey Gustavson, working in seamless, utterly harmonious collaboration. Nothing in their resumes even begins to explain the artistry they achieved in this most multifarious of shorts, whose charms, according to critics too numinous to mention, "are inexhaustible."
The Fixer - Joe Paul, Director
A runner fixes problems with her super powers, but villainy is afoot!
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14 at 3:00 PM
Ruth Orkin: Frames of Life - Mary Engel, Director
A chronology of the life and work of Ruth Orkin (1921-1985). Ruth Orkin was born in Los Angeles and hung around movie studios, wanting to be a director, but her gender made that impossible. She bicycled across the U.S., chronicled daily life, as well as photographed famous people, and as the mother of young children, took photos out of her window overlooking Central Park.
Mary is the daughter of the directors of “Little Fugitive,” Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin.
Little Fugitive - Ray Ashley, Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin, Directors
Nominated for an Academy Award for best motion picture story in 1953 and winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Included in the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1997!
Francois Truffaut said “Our New Wave would never have come into being, if it hadn’t been for the young American, Morris Engel, who showed us the way with his production, ‘Little Fugitive.’”
Morris Engel and award-winning photographer/filmmaker Ruth Orkin married in 1952 during the making of “Little Fugitive.” They would also collaborate on “Lovers and Lollipops” in 1955. They had two children, Andyand Mary, that Orkin photographed extensively.
Q&A with the filmmakers’ daughter, Mary Engel, to follow Friday's screenings.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2017 at 5:00 PM
Adopt a Highway - Bennett Clarkson, Director; Nicholas Nazmi, Producer
In this short mockumentary, a young married couple adopts a highway and raises it as though it was their human child.
Bennett is a writer and actor living in New York City. A recent Brooklyn transplant, he was born and raised in Bethesda, MD, where he spent most of his time performing in plays and musicals. He spent the last 7 years in Olympia, WA as a member of Pulp Productions, an independent theater production company.
Numbness - Milad Jarmooz, Director
The story of a woman accused of infidelity on the day of her wedding.
Milad is a filmmaker and screenwriter. He was born in 1983 in Esfahan, Iran. As an artist, Milad’s work focuses on humanizing people who have often been misrepresented by the media. After 18 years in the industry, Milad has made and written over 8 feature films and 6 shorts.
Arachnoid - John Maslowski, Director
A giant spider lurks in the forest.
John is originally from Brooklyn. The 2016 Cleveland 48 Hour Film Project nominated him for Best Supporting Actor. He has appeared in 30 films. “Arachnoid,” the second short film he has directed, is an official selection of the Inside the Loop Film Festival, Planet 9 Film Festival and the NightMARE Island Film Festival. He has helped produce twenty-seven films. Always looking to help fellow filmmakers he has a "Thanks" credit on twenty-nine films.
I'm A Man - Liam Parry, Director
After a nasty little breakup, Lucy finds herself living in a new neighborhood, where she meets Cassavetes, a charming and mysterious new suitor. She soon finds that leaving her ex behind isn’t as easy as unpacking her boxes.
Liam hails from Brooklyn. He migrated west in 2010 and has been building a career in film ever since. Known primarily as a screenwriter, he’s also dabbled in some production office jobs, learning as much as he could below the line. “Sleepwalk,” his feature directorial debut, hits the festival circuit in 2018.
Around - Jenny Mascia, Director
The human condition runs in a repetitive cycle from destruction to rebirth. Only our dependence on this earth is something that will not change.
If Only - Sarah Wharton, Director; Anna Frankl-Duval (Writer), Russell Kohlmann, and Sarah Wharton, Producers
“If Only” is the story of three adult siblings, each coming to grips with their mother’s imminent death, as they spend their last day together as a family. Inspired by the writer’s own experiences, “If Only” is an exploration of grief, catharsis, and what could have been.
Sarah is an award-winning producer, actor, writer, and now first-time director based in New York City. Her feature film, “That’s Not Us,” played at over 35 festivals around the world and was released as a Netflix exclusive. Next up, she is producing “Bite Me” with Jack Lechner and Naomi McDougall Jones, a subversive romantic comedy about a real-life vampire and the IRS agent who audits her.
The Waiting Pool - Lynn Bianchi, Director
“Suspended within myself, drifting in a defined undefined.
All about me stops
I wait for my thoughts, to show themselves, waiting for my thoughts to see me.
For myself to see me.
I move within the controlled uncontrolled.
And I float, in the waiting pool, in its fluid, within its life, amidst the stillness
I wait.”
Tales from Shaolin: Pt. 1 Shakey Dog - Louis A. Moore, Director; Stephen Hill, Louis A. Moore, J. Michael Neal, Jeremy Sample, Matt Heymann, Marquette Jones and Rebecca Musarra, Producers
“Tales from Shaolin: Pt. 1 Shakey Dog” reinterprets the works of the Wu Tang Clan as a Shakespeare-meets-Tarantino, crime-filled action dark comedy! Using the lyrics from the song “Shakey Dog” by Ghostface Killah, the film stars Stephen Hill as our narrator, Ghost, and Dominique Spencer as the quiet yet eager Frank in this tale of a stickup gone wrong.
Louis: “I grew up aspiring to be the next Spielberg, and while that dream may seem impossible, bringing the impossible dreams to reality is exactly what a producer and director does. And once you get a taste of making that happen, nothing can stop you.”
Koots - Jake Roseman, Director
Jared Kutoroff has been battling the odds his whole life. Regardless of his circumstances he always manages to get through the rough times with an optimistic attitude toward life. There’s never a dull moment.
Jake: “Our plan right now is to expand the story into a feature with professional gear. I want to inspire people that no matter what position you’re in, you’ve just got to keep pushing forward. If you have an optimistic attitude, like Jared, who wasn’t always in the greatest situation, you can get out of it.”
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2017 at 8:00 PM
Remembering in the Future - Josiah Cuneo, Director
Movement becomes imaginary as the internal feelings of the beachgoer slowly unfold.
Josiah is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker, composer and choreographer. He received his BFA from University of Massachusetts Amherst; his work has been featured at Roulette in Brooklyn, and at many festivals.
The Somnambulist - Duane Michals, Director; Josiah Cuneo, Producer
Dreams of the past become tangible as a man revisits the passions of his youth.
The Pleasures of the Glove - Duane Michals, Director; Josiah Cuneo, Producer
Obsession turns dreams into nightmares as a fetish haunts a young man’s desires.
Duane (b. 1932, McKeesport, PA) is a photographer widely known for his work with series, multiple exposures, and text. He first made significant, creative strides in the field of photography during the 1960s. In an era heavily influenced by photojournalism, Duane manipulated the medium to communicate narratives. The sequences, for which he is widely known, appropriate cinema’s frame-by-frame format.
Steep Education - Luke Namer and Sebastian Buffa, Directors; Redefined Films, Producer
Moe Di, a 14-year-old tea shop worker in Yangon, Myanmar, gets permission to leave his job working in the city to visit home for the day. He’s joined by Tim-Aye Hardy, an exiled Burmese activist who recently returned home to create the Myanmar Mobile Education (MyME) project, which provides non-formal education to young children working and living in tea shops for less than $1 a day.
Through working in Africa and Latin America for Global Brigades, Luke discovered how generalized media portrayal of low-income countries and communities often dehumanizes the locals and renders them voiceless in their own story. As a result, Luke founded Redefined Films, a platform that democratizes media and empowers stories that matter.
Panic Attack! - Eileen O'Meara, Director
You know the nagging thoughts that start with “Did I leave the coffee on?” and turn into “Am I pregnant with a devil-baby?” This hand-drawn animation explores anxiety, obsession, and one woman’s slippery hold on reality as she endures a panic attack. Eileen: “I wanted the transition between reality and her imagined fears to be seamless, so there are no edits – it is one continually transforming drawing.”
Eileen is an American artist known for her hand-drawn films “Agnes Escapes from the Nursing Home” and “That Strange Person.” She received the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and Women in Film Foundation’s Hollywood Film & Video Grants. She has produced and directed commercial animated spots for Warner Home Video, Motown, HBO and WEA Latina, among others.
The Stranger - Katherine Oostman, Director; Rika Dharmesh Bhakta, Producer
Blake left home years ago. Now, she is returning to make amends with her mom, but finds a stranger claiming to be her sister living in the house. As Blake begins to investigate she realizes this stranger is turning people against her. Blake must prove she’s changed or lose everyone she loves. Katherine: “Everyone has knocked on the actual or proverbial door of reconciliation, everyone has hurt someone they love. Mistakes are a fundamental element to human nature, but so is forgiveness – if allowed.”
Katherine studied at Oxford and holds an MFA in Film Production from Florida State University.
The Sound of Dreams - Jenny Mascia, Director
A five-year old lives in a world of her own imagination. She is shy, and her gaze is constantly focused on the ground. Sound becomes her means of orientation, but it also transports her into a world of dreams where she creates her own version of reality.
I_Am_D_Razorz - Sean Rosenblatt, Director; Sean Rosenblatt and Leo Dixon, Producers
Trusting your barber not to totally botch your ‘do is one thing, but trusting him to not accidentally nick you with his scissors is another. Yet that quandary hasn’t stopped Brooklyn barber David Arce, who works at Tomcats Barbershop in Brooklyn, from becoming one of the best-known groomers in the borough despite having Tourette’s syndrome.
Sean is a 31-year-old filmmaker, born and raised in the Hudson Valley of New York. “I met David Arce at the local barbershop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn . . . One day while I was in his chair, he casually mentioned that he would like to have a documentary made about his life.” I_Am_D_Razorz has won multiple awards and has made David a regional legend.
Seven Minutes - Assaf Machnes, Director; Gal Greenspan, Producer
In order to go home for the weekend with the rest of the platoon, a fresh Israeli Defense Force soldier has to complete one final task in seven minutes.
Lily at the Beach - Lee Boyes and William Curry, Directors
There's a lot of things you can do with a hotdog bun.
Lee and William participated in last year's Art Slope with their sound sculpture in Prospect Park's Meadowport Arch – “Electromotility (Lat. 40.67, Long. -73.97)” with Tracey Cockrell and Jeff Wolf. Brooklyn native William has been in numerous bands in NYC, including the Brooklyn Dead, Northbound Red and The Legendary Ex-Co-Workers. He has composed work for dance performances and documentaries. When not cavorting with her little gray cat, Lee works around the City making the world a little better for numerous senior citizens.
Pet Monkey – Eric Maira, Writer/Director; Bri Merkel, Producer
Happy couple Terry and Gwen are spending a quiet night in, watching embarrassing home videos from the comfort of their couch. Between munching on popcorn and laughing at 70s fashion, Terry turns to his girlfriend and offers to buy her a monkey, something she is adamantly against. Frustrated that her boyfriend won’t accept “No” for an answer, Gwen locks herself in the bathroom to ease her nerves, as a now-delusional Terry storms out into the night to cool off in his own strange way.
Eric Maira is an independent filmmaker from Rochester, NY. Notable efforts include writing/directing an independent feature film, “The Dead Deads” (2014), and starring in “Adam Imitating Art” (2015), a short film that was an official selection at the Raindance and Maryland Film festivals.