Illumined Pleasures: Dali & Film

In conjunction with the current ground-breaking Dalí Museum exhibit, "Dalí & Film", this talk by Dali Museum Curator Peter Tush (with film clips) focuses on Dalí's involvement with film - as a fan, a screenwriter, a filmmaker, and an art director - examining his remarkable collaborations with such film greats as Luis Buñuel, the Marx Brothers, Alfred Hitchcock and Walt Disney.

Peter Tush is the Curator of Education at the Salvador Dalí Museum and the instructor of "Dalí & Film" at the University of South Florida.

Cantata in C Major

Six-hundred-five film clips are assembled and used to create a piece of electronic music.

The Distance to the Sun

Bob Lazar talks, while we move to one of the most secret places ever, the "Groom Lake S4 Zone". The "Area 51" shapes a far mind-location for a unique deep experience.

Fracas

"Fracas" is a social comment on missing children. It tries to question our reactions and actions towards an individual's misleading image and its appeal for help in a mundane setting.

Dinner Table

A couple is having dinner on an ordinary day. The girl casually asks the boy who the food is. He answers. However, his manner of speaking takes her to her psychological journey.

Bottled

"Bottled" is about two people living in glass bottles. The bottles are located in an artist's studio and the characters are the creations of the artist. The hand, the artist, creates another male character for the woman to save her from loneliness.

HCC Dance Department

24 Frames

"24 Frames" is a stop-motion animated black comedy mockumentary about a stop-motion animated film production at an art college in the southern U.S. The crew, which consists mainly of ambitious animation students, aspires to adapt a children's book into an animated film to impress the school's president, who also happens to be the director's mother-in-law.

..Nästan som en i familjen (..Almost like one of the family)

In 1933 Anna-Helèn Johansson wrote 30 letters to her sister Clary. Anna-Helèn, young farmer's daughter, got the chance to live in a city household in Stockholm. There is a flow of descriptions in these letters and above all - a flow of feelings. Anna-Helèn was supposed to be like a member of the fine opera-family Stiebel. Instead, she became their maid.

Simulacra

In the vast universe, there's one robot planet where everything is machines and robots. One day, one robot found the one organic lifeform existing in his world. He decides he must have it.

"Anna in the Tropics" - scene from Act 1 - HCC Theater Department

Anti-Narrative Number 4

"Anti-narrative Number 4" is an experimental film devoid of a traditional plot.

The film does contain a through line of ideas and themes. A man's life is examined; a narrator gives the audience insight into a man's thoughts and feelings.

"Anti-narrative Number 4" is an experimental film in which a man's life is examined.

Themes & Variations for the Naked Eye

"Themes & Variations for the Naked Eye" borrows tropes from the still life and aspires to the medical film. The curious subject uses a series of demolitions to think through the status of ordinary objects and their pictorial histories.

"Anna in the Tropics" - scene from Act 1 - HCC Theater Department

Gustav Braustache and the Auto-Debilitator

Gustav Braustache, inventor of the Pedestrian Direction Reverser and other popular devices, has never been one for managing the mundane details of daily life. His unconventional method of rent payment along with the untimely misfiring of his Position Despecifier launch him on a bizarre journey.

Topy Archer-Projections

HCC Art Department digital art-projections.

Torn Asunder

This video creatively explores the increasingly frayed American national psyche. The young urban voices are two of Tampa Bay's most popular performance poets. The art and post-production were handled by two baby boomers.

Bottled

"Bottled" is about two people living in glass bottles. The bottles are located in an artist's studio and the characters are the creations of the artist. The hand, the artist, creates another male character for the woman to save her from loneliness.

Moving Along

Patrick Smith presents his animated music video "Moving Along" by the enigmatic UK hip-hop group "The Planets". Smith, is best known for his independent films, and his familiar, iconic, commercial productions like the Zoloft "Dot", and animated series like MTV's "Daria" and "Downtown".

American Triptych

A person with a Polaroid camera, a woman utilizing a Singer sewing machine, a young man dressed in a Boy Scout uniform. Arranged in tableaus, the characters relationships to one another never fully coalesce, but rather each leave questions about American identities and the construction of cultural iconography.

The Distance to the Sun

Bob Lazar talks, while we move to one of the most secret places ever, the "Groom Lake S4 Zone". The "Area 51" shapes a far mind-location for a unique deep experience.

Lovely Academic Slaughter Houses

An improvised meditation on the box-like conceptual mindset of academia, as it attempts to grapple with the bubblelike flow of the real world, with animated illustrations.

Cartesian Cunning

Cartesian Cunning is a film of illusion, about illusion and "the slight of hand" of memory.

Butterfly Effect

On a bright, sunny morning, Eric and his neighbours in blue uniforms start the day in their bizarre town. An old brown briefcase fallen from the sky pushes them to a marathon. From the town with queer factories and the broccoli path, to the four characters and their replicas, all made in hard cut photos, this stop-motion video took more than half a year to create.

Kinetic Writings

A selection of pioneering kinetic realizations of words - a selection of kinetic texts made prior to 1988, 22 feet in length, any part of which may be viewed for any length, with a language-like soundtrack by Matthew Underwood.

American Triptych

A person with a Polaroid camera, a woman utilizing a Singer sewing machine, a young man dressed in a Boy Scout uniform. Arranged in tableaus, the characters relationships to one another never fully coalesce, but rather each leave questions about American identities and the construction of cultural iconography.

Cantata in C Major

Six-hundred-five film clips are assembled and used to create a piece of electronic music.

Kinetic Writings

A selection of pioneering kinetic realizations of words - a selection of kinetic texts made prior to 1988, 22 feet in length, any part of which may be viewed for any length, with a language-like soundtrack by Matthew Underwood.

The Distance to the Sun

Bob Lazar talks, while we move to one of the most secret places ever, the "Groom Lake S4 Zone". The "Area 51" shapes a far mind-location for a unique deep experience.

Transmission Collective

The brainchild of Miami artist Judith Robertson, this collection of ten video shorts was part of the 2nd annual HCC-Ybor Festival in 2004, and married the ethereal, high-tech projection of video to the decidedly more low-tech steel chassis of a rented moving truck.

The interior of the truck, converted to an over-sized projector, trawled the streets of the Yborian urban landscape, parking itself amidst the revelry of a film festival, and provided rotating projections to the public a la tailgate.

This year, the projection arena is a glass curtain wall 18 feet square with the videos rear-screened and viewed from the sidewalk of the HCC Performing Arts Building next to the rehearsal hall.

Cyanotype Workshop

Part of "Moving Thought: A Mobile Exhibition of Artists' Books".

Stop the Presses: The American Newspaper in Peril

The woes of the American newspaper put democracy at risk. As paid circulation, ad revenue and stock prices plummet, can the Internet take up print journalism's historic role as the public's chief watchdog?

Director Manny Mendoza will attend.

Animation Snapshots

Global Snapshots

Academy Award Winner: Best Documentary

Taxi to the Dark Side

Viewer descretion advised.

Alex Gibney's "Taxi to the Dark Side" is a gripping investigation into the reckless abuse of power by the Bush Administration.

The film won "Best Documentary Feature" at the 2008 Academy Awards.

By probing the homicide of an innocent taxi driver at the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, the film exposes a worldwide policy of detention and interrogation that condones torture and the abrogation of human rights. This disturbing and often brutal film is the most incisive examination to date of the Bush Administration's willingness, in its prosecution of the "war on terror," to undermine the essence of the rule of law.

Director Alex Gibney will be present to introduce and discuss the film.

Memories of a Dreamer

"Memories of a dreamer" is a first-hand account of the hardship suffered by a political prisoner of Chile's cruel 1973 and inhumane dictatorship. More than 30 years after, Felix Mora relives the shocking details of the human rights abuses he suffered, his escape from the dictatorship, and the challenges he faced as an exile in Italy and Canada.

Hip Hop Snapshots

Why Men Shouldn't Sing

"Why Men Shouldn't Sing" is New Zealand's first independent feature length sci-fi/musical film. Made possible by more than ten thousand hours of volunteered time, it promises to not only redefine what can be achieved on a low budget, but also to invent a unique genre, making it another first for New Zealand's innovative film community.

Cyanotype Workshop

Part of "Moving Thought: A Mobile Exhibition of Artists' Books".

Screen Actors Guild: Independent Films and Low Budget Agreements

Are you considering producing your own film? Don't know where to start? Plan to attend this workshop, presented by Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

Conducted by David Fazekas, SAG South Region Executive, this workshop will introduce and explain SAG's various low-budget agreements, including special agreements for short and student films.

David will walk you through the process of signing a SAG low-budget agreement from start to finish and answer any other questions you might have about the Guild.

Workshop

Sunshine in the Dark: History of Films Made in Florida

Historians Susan Fernandez and Robert Ingalls have identified more than 300 films about Florida to analyze how filmmakers have portrayed the state and its people from the silent era to the present.

In their presentation, Fernandez and Ingalls will discuss their findings about location settings, plot lines, and characters that dominate films produced both by Hollywood studios and independent filmmakers.

Their book Sunshine in the Dark: Florida in the Movies is the first complete study of how the movie industry has immortalized Florida's extraordinary scenery, characters, and history on celluloid.

Panel

Filmmaker Panel: The Documentary — Form and Function

The Festival is screening a number of titles that are considered to be in the genre of documentaries but take very different approaches to this important form of cinema. Filmmakers presenting at the fest will provide insight into their individual vision and approach to their subjects, discuss the challenges of capturing "real life", and share stories of the journey of making a movie.

Bari Pearlman ("Daughters of Wisdom"), Pete and Paul Guzzo ("Ghosts of Ybor: Charlie Wall"), Linda Booker ("Love Lived On Death Row"), Shawn Cheatham (Sightseeing), Charles Lyman (Persistence of Vision), Brenda Medina (Holy Biker), Allison Koehler Untitled (2007), Manny Mendoza Stop the Presses, among others.

Portraits

Global Snapshots

Strong Short Stories

Strong language - viewer discretion advised.

TBA

Stop the Presses: The American Newspaper in Peril

The woes of the American newspaper put democracy at risk. As paid circulation, ad revenue and stock prices plummet, can the Internet take up print journalism's historic role as the public's chief watchdog?

One of the directors, Manny Mendoza, will be present.

El Inmigrante

"El Inmigrante" is a documentary film that examines the Mexican and American border crisis by telling the story of Eusebio de Haro, a young Mexican migrant who was shot and killed during one of his journeys north.

Nice Bombs

Filmmaker Usama Alshaibi returns to Baghdad to reunite with his family after nearly 24 years, documenting his unique relationship to an Iraq that is much different from the country of his childhood.

Daughters of Wisdom

Daughters of Wisdom is an intimate portrait of the nuns of the Kala Rongo Monastery who study and practice full-time, creating new opportunities for themselves and for the community they serve. These nuns, who are receiving unprecedented educational and religious training, are preserving their rich cultural heritage even as they slowly reshape it.

The director, Bari Pearlman, will introduce the film and discuss the film.

Ghosts of Ybor: Charlie Wall

Despite being Florida's earliest crime lord and one of the nation's most colorful individuals in the early 1900s, little is known about Charlie Wall outside of the tiny Tampa historic district of Ybor City.

Using photos, paintings, old film footage, reenactments (including his famous assassination escape when they drove backwards through traffic), written history and oral history, 1 Day Films showcases the most comprehensive history ever told about Charlie Wall and the first documentary ever produced on this legendary Florida crime figure.

Director Pete Guzo and writer/researcher Paul Guzzo, Tampa filmmakers and brothers, will be present.

Killer of Sheep

Killer of Sheep examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse.

Writer/Director Charles Burnett submitted Killer of Sheep, his first feature film, as his thesis for his MFA in film at UCLA. The film was shot on location near his family's home in Watts in a series of weekends on a shoestring budget of less than $10,000, most of which was grant money.

HCC's Carlton Williams will introduce the film and moderate a discussion after the screening.

Shorts - TBA

Animation Snapshots

Program 1

American Underground and Personal Films of the 1950's through 1970's

The "personal film" and its sources, "Images from the lives of the filmmakers" — presented by Charles Lyman.

Peter Hutton - "Images of Asian Music" - 29 minutes (excerpt)
A minimalist film, linked impressions of a trip to Asia, contemplative.

Will Hindle - "Saint Flournoy Lobos-Logos and the Eastern European Fetus Taxing Japan Bride in West Coast Places" - 30 min (excerpt)

Will Hindle - "Sucking Alabama Air" - 15 min
The effect of current culture and reading on the life and art of the filmmaker. Charles Manson and the 1960s.

Gunvor Nelson - "My Name is Oona" - 10 min
The filmmaker uses moving images of her daughter's first years of life to evoke the passages of childhood. With Robert Nelson and Dorothy Wiley.

Scott Bartlett - "1970" - 30 min (excerpt)
A visual diary of events in the filmmakers life: trips and voyages, a wife and a film business, the joys and disappointments of a career working in a new art form.

Ralph Arlyck - "An Acquired Taste" - 26 min (excerpt)
A ride through the thoughts of the filmmaker about his growing family and the effort to capture his world on film.

Experimental Visions

Saint Death

In Mexico there is a cult that is rapidly growing — the cult of Saint Death. This female grim reaper, considered a saint by followers but Satanic by the Catholic Church, is worshipped by people whose lives are filled with danger and violence.

Tin Can Man

Recently dumped by his girlfriend for another man, working in a job he hates, things could be better for Peter. One night, while he is alone in his apartment, there is a knock at the door. His life will never be the same again.

Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad (A Little Bit So Much Truth)

In the summer of 2006, a non-violent, popular uprising exploded in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Some compared it to the Paris Commune, while others called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century.

But it was the people's use of the media that truly made history in Oaxaca.

Chuck Norris -- A Cultural Icon for Kids? Visual Literacy and Children

How do young people use things they've seen in the world around them to tell stories and make movies? How and why has Chuck Norris become a cultural icon for kids? How does a seemingly carefree and simple two-minute animated film created by two third graders communicate the complexities of political responsibilities of office holders and their constituencies?

Join young filmmakers from Tampa Theatre's Let's Make Movies summer camp as they screen their stop motion and live action digital short features and talk about their filmmaking experiences. Tara Schroeder from Tampa Theatre and James Welsh from USF College of Education's Florida Center for Instructional Technology will discuss how to interpret, understand and evaluate meaning and purpose in the embryonic stages of children developing a visual literacy vocabulary.

Young filmmakers will be present.

Films for Families (Selected Titles)

Program 2

American Underground and Personal Films of the 1950's through 1970's

The "poetry" and "psychology" of personal film. Where the images come from. Making films about what you know best and personally. Presented by Charles Lyman.

Bruce Conner - "Mongoloid" - 14 min
Found footage. One of the first MTVs ever, on a song by DEVO, now widely featured on YouTube. Sarcasm, humor and detachment, by a founding member of Canyon Cinema Cooperative. Discovery of evidence in past image making and relevance to the present.

Ed Emshwiller - "Thanatopsis" - 5 min
A psychological film which deals in visual metaphors and the mental state of the filmmaker.

Will Hindle - "Chinese Firedrill" - 12 min (Restored print)
The psychological disposition of the artist, depicted in metaphors such as broken glass, and computer cards. Items picked up by the filmmaker in daily life and installed in a constructed studio set. A seminal film, winner of the top prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival.

George Kuchar - "Hold Me While I'm Naked" - 15 min
A funny film, which takes a humorous view of the motivations for making a film — such as success with opposite sex.

Stan Brackage - "Window Water Baby Moving" - 12 min
The filmmaker reflects on the birth of his child. Bold in its exploration of anatomy, voluptuous and fertile and intensely personal.

Charles Lyman - "The Persistence of Vision" - 12 min
A reflection on the pleasures and dangers of raising a child. A mix of Charles Manson, insanity, drug-induced visions, quiet joys, personal lives recorded in film.

Sightseeing

The life of a lonely travel journalist is disrupted when he returns to critique his childhood home where unresolved family enigmas lie in wait.

Directory Shawn Cheatham will be present.

Moving Portraits

The New Samaritans

On the mountain Gerizim located between Palestine and Israel live the most ancient people in the world, the Samaritans. The Samaritans have existed for over 3600 years, but the current number of descendants is less than 900. In the early 21st century their spiritual leader broke one of their fundamental commandments, the strict prohibition of intermarriage with non-Samaritans.

The first two lucky men set off to faraway lands in search of brides, on a quest to save this ancient civilization.

War Dance

Nominated for the Academy Award's Best Documentory, "War Dance" follows three children living in a displacement camp in northern Uganda as they compete in their country's national music and dance festival.

Love Lived on Death Row

"Love Lived on Death Row" tells the story of four siblings whose father was sentenced to die for the murder of their mother. Orphaned and estranged, they raised themselves while they lived with hate, anger and confusion as their father lived on death row. But in 2004, they collectively decided to visit him in prison, seeking answers so they could move on with their adult lives.

Director Linda Booker will be present to discuss the film.

Moving Portraits

Things Behind the Sun

Presented by Robert Ingalls and Susan Fernandez, who introduce the film and lead a discussion after the screening.

This serious, powerful film centers on a Florida-based musician, Sherry (Kim Dickens), whose hit song recounts the dark story of her childhood rape. Sherry doesn’t quite remember the experience, and when she is approached by a man from her past, she is unaware that he harbors a dark secret about what actually happened to her when she was a 12-year-old girl.

Several Friends

Several Friends was which was originally planned as a feature but ended up a short. The film is a series of loose, documentary-style vignettes sketching the lives of a handful of characters, mostly played by amateurs (Burnett's friends) living in Watts. Much of the film's theme and aesthetic (even some of its actors) ended up in Killer of Sheep.

Charles Burnett Shorts

My Brother's Wedding

Charles Burnett wrote, directed and produced this low budget independent film on location in the area of South Central Los Angeles where he grew up. Like his films Killer of Sheep and To Sleep with Anger, the locale and the personality of the neighborhood was as important as the characters.

HCC Student Film Program

"Untitled" ("I Still Believe") by Lashara Sullivan and Osdel Porro: a look at the reality that those who serve in the armed forces face and a moving portrait of their humanity.

"The Truth Behind JonBenet Ramsey" by Daniel Kathman and Daniel Rodriguez: two students pursue their own investigation and draw their own conclusions about the death of JonBenet in this pseudo-documentary.

"Affliction" by Kyle Despiegler: a suspenseful thriller where paranoia turns into an even greater tragedy.

"Exactly" by Liz Guillot, Fae Turner and Mike Spindle: an inspirational music video for the song "Exactly" by Amy Steinberg.

"One Egg Makes a Difference" by Mike Mars and company: a young college student relives an unbelievable and embarrassing personal experience.

"Mens REA" by Brittney Buchanan and company: a man's descent into his own mind.

"Underpong: A Drunken Tale of Glory" by Steve Kelly and company: Set in the 1980s, "Underpong" details the glorious victory of the underdog U.S. Beer Pong team against Russian.

Student directors will be present.

Peter Tush Eats Celluloid

Cuban composer Alfredo Rivero and the HCC Jazz Band present the premiere of Rivero's "Film Score for an Imaginary Film".

The End (Roll credits...)