Bearded Child Film Festival

Rota

Dance Film by Corrie Befort, JAPAN (formerly of Grand Rapids, MN)

- As a live solo, Rota has been performed in Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, and Vienna. The film has been screened nationally and internationally.

Summer Storm

Experimental by Mark Ryan, Minneapolis, MN

- The sights and sounds of a brief but powerful storm converge over Lake Harriet in Minneapolis.

Twelve Moons On Gichigami.

Experimental Documentary by Mark Ryan, Minneapolis, MN

- A year of Lake Superior’s moods and seasons are presented using Duluth webcam images gathered off the Internet from my home in Minneapolis.

Mouth Movie

Animation by John Akre, Minneapolis, MN

- A movie about mouths: why we love them, why we hate them, why we can’t live without them.

Edification

Experimental Narrative by Schuyler Tsuda, Minneapolis, MN

- Three bizarre scenes, each with no beginning or end. The ironically titled Edification explores the weird, sick, and depraved in human nature.

Mouth Music

Experimental Soap Opera by Genevieve Belleveau, Bemidji, MN

Leagally Dead

Experimental by Bryce Beverlin II & Kurt Welshinger, St. Paul, MN

- the living world is introduced to the dead. many have many mummies. prepare for the journey. raal and crew wait in wings to harvest. she beckons.

The Minneapolis Skyway System

Experimental/Educational by James Gaynor, Minneapolis, MN

- This video examines Midwest office worker culture in its beauties, challenges and even dreams for a better tomorrow.

TB TX Dance

Experimental by Roger Beebe, Gainesville, FL

America in Pictures

Experimental by Georg Koszulinski

- A representation of my American travels from 2001 to 2007. The first part of the film—abstract photosynthetic motions and movements of the sun—is quickly overtaken by the static and impersonal compositions of the American city. As such, these compositions multiply themselves into a never-ending cacophony of concrete and steel.

Memo to Pic Desk

Experimental/Found Footage by Chris Kennedy & Anna van der Meulen

- An idiosyncratic look at staging in news photography, using materials from the archives of a Toronto daily. Moral codes, delinquency and autonomy are pulled into an altered coherence as vintage photos are examined next to their type-written paper trail.

Testing the Undertow

Experimental Documentary by Jennifer Proctor, Grand Rapids, Michigan

- A personal examination of class, pride, and identity as it has played out on the landscapes of Marin County, California from the late 1980s to the present. Shot on 16mm and completed on digital video,the film presents a personal family history of financial struggles and triumphs during the ‘80s and ‘90s in juxtaposition with the country’s current economic and cultural topography.

Count Backwards From Five

Experimental Documentary by Tony Gault, Glenwood Springs, CO

- When someone dies, there’s no more footage of him to be had. This documentary uses material from old films and new material to reflect my brother’s struggle with living the 9-to-5 life, his troubles with addiction and his recent death of pancreatic cancer.

Cinderly

by Alyssa Timon, Madison, WI

- A film about a boy who tries to capture happiness in a jar.

End Time

by Alyssa Timon, Madison, WI

- A film about insomnia and the bottomless bottomful feeling you get when you wake up from a 4 hour nap to silence and darkness.

Startle Pattern

Animation by Eric Patrick

- An interior space of a puppet becomes increasingly reflective, revealing the artifice of his own creation. From the director of Ablution.

The New Era

Narrative by Andrew Malek, Boulder,CO

- A young woman investigates the true nature of her father's experiments. The answer yields results horrifyingly close to home.

Mother Bird

Experimental Narrative by Justin Oakey, Toronto, CANADA

- Mother Bird presents a provocative look at the power of mind as it removes itself from the physical world laden with agony.

She Was Asking for It

Experimental Narrative by Matthew Saliba, Montréal, CANADA

- A sado-erotic giallo about a young man who is tortured, humiliated and raped by two women and then proceeds to inflict the kind of vengeance. From the director of The Manipulator and the Subservient.

*Viewer discretion advised*

Energie!

Experimental by Thorsten Fleisch, Berlin, GERMANY

- An uncontrolled high voltage discharge of approx. 30,000 volts exposes photographic paper which is then arranged to create new visual systems of electron organization.

*If you are susceptible to epilepsy, DO NOT WATCH THIS FILM!*

College for Kids Experiment

Experimental by "Take One", Grand Rapids, MN

- Students ages 10-13 were asked to paint and scratch strips of 16mm film for College for Kids’ "Take One" video class. The strips were then spliced together to create this experimental film.

Cross Country With the Snakes

Ski/Music by Hansi Johnson, Thomson, MN

- Skiers are rock stars but are rock stars skiers? You decide. Follow Al Sparhawk and The Black Eyed Snakes on tour, skiing during the day playing at night.

Footprints and a Flower

Narrative by Ryan Rapsys, Duluth, MN

- A delayed reaction to death separation of love.

Threat Level Orange

Narrative by Ron Johnson, Minneapolis, MN

- A story about John Doe, who comes across a conspiracy theory DVD and investigates the claim in the DVD. When John digs too deep, a government agency gets involved.

A Better Place

Narrative by Zack Anderson, Grand Rapids, MN

- It’s my first film. I made it in order to involve some of my influences from ‘60s European cinema. I’ve got a lot to learn, but the script was very important to me.

Arca

Experimental Narrative by Jakob Swanson, Superior, WI

The Deranged

Horror by Jakob Komula, Grand Rapids, MN

- A high school student is finishing a survey after school and stumbles upon what seems to be a murder and later finds that the murderer is someone much more familiar than he realizes.

Sunshine State (Extended Forecast)

Experimental by Christopher Harris, Oviedo, FL

- A pinhole film that suggests a convergence of the quotidian and the cosmic as a lazy afternoon in suburban Central Florida becomes a harbinger of ultimate destruction. The images of contemporary suburbia have a primitive appearance that references the early history of photographic technology. In this way, the film re-imagines the present as a distant past that is already forever lost.

Meditation

Documentary by Neil Ira Needleman, Katonah, NY

- It isn’t easy to smile—or attempt to smile—when you’re feeling really down in the dumps. But if life gives you lemons—well, you know the old expression.

Maximizing the Flat Plane

Experimental by J.M. Magrini, Chicago, IL

- This film explores the world of abstraction, melting aspect of both the plastic arts (painting) and cinema. The film is composed of scratched, hand-colored celluloid which has been superimposed on black and white Super-8 images of an artist painting in the "action-style" of abstract expressionism.

Uncle Cluck

Experimental by Allan Brown, Montreal, CANADA

- "Chickens are good for two things... layin’ eggs and barbeques!" -Uncle Cluck. A fairy tale embalmed within the obscurity and imagination of memory as the narrator’s uncle transforms into his worst nightmare.

Aurora & the Sea

Experimental animation by Charlotte Taylor, Iowa City, IA

- A girl and her journey to the sea. Stop motion animation, paper maché, Photoshop backgrounds, and 3-D rain.

The Trial of Matthew Barney

Mockumentary by J. Gluckstern, Charlotte Delay, Lou Messing, Isabel Rivero-Marshall, Matt Weedman & Angie Yeowell, Boulder, CO

- Six artists of multiple stripes (dance, film/video, sculpture, performance, graphic design, written word) collaborated to create this parody of/homage to the vision, pretense and absurdity of the famed video artist, Matthew Barney. Dedicated to the memory of Joe Pyzyk.

Canned

Experimental Narrative by JoEllen Martinson & William Scott Rees, Minneapolis, MN

- Anouk and Elsa toil at the chilling EuroDirekt factory, enjoying sauerkraut lunches, until their hungry Ubervisor devours their lulling routine and swallows their friendship whole in this art-film satire.

Mi Burrito Escondido

Wacky by DeWayne Austin, San Francisco, CA

- One man’s search for his mutant burrito.

Billy Boat

Comedy by Lisa Simonson, Oakland, CA

- The Boat Billys wreak havoc among the docks while performing their one hit wonder, Don’t Rock the Dock, in this slapstick short. The loud raucous music creates tension among the neighbors until, finally, a pirate boy puts an end to it. Or does he? You will most certainly get a bang out of this one!

Leperfuck

Narrative by Drew Tobia,

- A young woman must confront a difficult situation.

Margot & Henry Have an Adventure

Comedy by Rachel Wolther, Evanston, IL

- Two idiot slackers hang out in parking lots.

Truck Baby

Comedy by Adam Price, Evanston, IL

- "I’m sorry..." -Adam Price, director

super 8 silent films

by Jason Halprin

- These Super-8 diary films from Jason Halprin shot between 2002 & 2005 contain musings on topics such as repotting houseplants, a solo road trip across Nebraska, the waves rolling in on the Atlantic coast of Florida in winter, and the wonders of a summer day at the farmer's market. At times whimsical, contemplative, intimate, and beautiful these pieces showcase the varied and idiosyncratic styles that Halprin employs when working in a silent, small-gauge motion picture format. Many of the eleven films included in the show were edited in-camera and contain strategies of temporal manipulation utilizing time-lapse and slow motion camerawork. Together they function as a stream-of-consciousness narrative addressing the filmmaker's emotional states and visual obsessions during an adventurous and untethered period in his life.

With music by CAPTAIN CLAWTHROAT

Blood of the Earthworm

Experimental by Brittany Gravely, Watertown, MA

- ...an anti-climactic barrage of both original footage and extractions from horror, science fiction, and educational films, all of which shed a flickering light on contemporary maladies of civilization. The natural course of evolution has been interrupted producing machine-like people who are alienated, destructive, dissatisfied, lifeless. They have been inscribed in the dull job of maintaining the unsustainable, economic system which they created.

Tephrasect

Surrealist Animation by Justin Curfman, Atlanta, GA

Gary's Touch

Narrative by Ken Takahashi, Ottawa, CANADA

- A dramatic short exploring how far a reclusive man is willing to go to satisfy one of life’s most compelling drives: the drive to reproduce. From the director of The Milkman.