[artinfo] MadCat Film Festival is coming!

[MadCat Women's Film Festival]

THE 7TH ANNUAL MADCAT WOMEN¹S INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Growing Stronger Every Year!
September 9 ­ October 5
VENUES
*El Rio, 3158 Mission Street @ Precita. SF. Tuesdays, September 9, 16, 23,
30. 6:30pm Free BBQ. Movies 8:30pm.admission:  $7-20 sliding scale.
Available in advance or at the door.
*Artists Television Access, 992 Valencia Street @ 21st, SF. Fridays,
September 12, 19, 26 & Oct 3. Movies 8pm. admission: $7-20 sliding scale.
Available at the door.
*Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft Way @ Bowdich, Berkeley. Saturday,
October 4.  Movies 7pm and 8:30pm. Sunday, October 5.  Movies 5:30pm and
7pm. admission: $8 general, $4 UC Berkeley students.  Available in advance
or at the door.
*Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street @ Third, SF. Thursday,
October 2.  Movies 7:30pm. admission:  $7.  Available at the door.

The MadCat Film Festival tests, expands, and evolves the traditional,
politically motivated, 20th Century definition of Œthe women¹s film
festival.¹
‹ The Independent Film and Video Monthly

The 7th Annual MadCat Film Festival screens 81 films over four weeks! This
year MadCat received submissions from Croatia to Korea to Australia as well
as emerging artists in the Bay Area. Featuring shorts, documentaries,
narratives and animated jewels selected from a record 881 submissions,
MadCat¹s audience has access to rarely seen choices and hot off the editing
bench premieres. We are thrilled to share with you TWELVE programs of
experimental and independent films and videos by women from around the
globe. The entire program is online at
http://www.madcatfilmfestival.org/festival_info.html

MadCat¹s screenings include diverse thematically-curated shorts, a
celebration of women directors from the silent film era, a B-movie
exploitation feature, educational films from the 40s to the 70s, plus live
musical accompaniment and slide presentations. Shows not to be missed
include Stephanie Rothman¹s The Student Nurses (1970), Educated Ladies:
Films from the PFA Collection (never screened publicly!), two nights of Cut
Snip Ooze: Contemporary Animated Films by Women and silent films by Maya
Deren, Nell Shipman and Lois Weber.

Upholding its mission to explore notions of visual storytelling, MadCat is
proud to present live presentations by local artists. Accompanying the
silent films is live music from The Secrets of Family Happiness, San Andreas
and Epic [Abridged]. Continuing a five-year collaboration with MadCat, Point
Blank presents slide shows at all screenings. Point Blank, a local queer
photography collective headed by Rebecca McBride, Dusty Lombardo and Cara
Gurney, has garnered recognition for their photography and renegade slide
shows on buildings around the city.

Schedule-at-a-Glance
Program 1 Gotta Get It    Sept 9 El Rio 8:30pm (6:30 Free BBQ)
Passions and obsessions are exposed through documentary, animation and
experimental short films and videos. Tami Wilson¹s Bingo Ladies is a
documentary about women in Canada who spend their last dime for a game of
bingo. Carolyn Kaylor reveals a young woman¹s obsession with shoes in Kate¹s
Sole Excess. Under the fluorescent lights and piped-in ³muzak² of a grocery
store Jennifer Drummond¹s The F.E.D.S. gives an insiderŒs look into the job
of ³slinging samples.² Join us for a game of bingo! Free giveaways!
    
Program 2 Coming FromŠ     Sept 12 ATA 8pm
Lets take a closer look at family dynamics, navigating through friendships
and just plain getting along. Circa Oasis by Tatjana Bozic (Croatia, US
Premiere) is a film about a house in Rovinj that is shared with people from
five different nationalities. Using cinema verité Bozic observes how people
from a vast range of backgrounds learn to coexist.  Local filmmaker Kristin
Pichaske presents Teatro Roots, a documentary about the acclaimed Teatro
Campesino (Farmworkers Theatre). Wenhwa Ts¹ao's experimental portrait
Exercise with Chin Yung (West Coast Premiere) follows her father as he
performs his own creation of Tai Chi in public and sings Karaoke with
friends.  In Susan Stamp's Nan is in a Box (UK, US Premiere), an animated
child grapples with death.  Local filmmaker Gina Carducci presents her first
film Stone Welcome Mat, a recent selection of the Venice Biennale.

Program 3 The Student Nurses     Sept 16 El Rio 8:30pm (6:30 Free BBQ)
Stephanie Rothman¹s 70s B-movie classic puts a twist on exploitation films
with unique style, feminist politics and crowd pleasing sexy young ladies.
The Student Nurses follows the adventures of four nurses, ³the tentative
diagnosis is T&A with a feminist twist - the women fall in and out of love
and in and out of their uniforms... But director Rothman prescribes a strong
dose of fem-lib for her novice nurses - a remedy to return health to the
body politic.²‹S. Seid.

Program 4 Divided Spaces     Sept 19 ATA 8pm
Physical boundaries, public space and the power of words is reinvestigated
in this program of shorts. New York¹s Big Back Yard by amateur filmmaker
Rose Dabbs reveals the wonder that is Central Park with lush super-8 footage
of free concerts, anti-nuclear weapons protests, cameos of Charlton Heston
and mayor Ed Koch, and children running free on large patches of grass. The
premiere of Vivian Ostrovsky¹s new film, Nikita Kino is an inspired blend of
1960¹s and Œ70s home movie footage of visits to her family in Moscow with
Soviet feature and propaganda films of the same period. Brilliantly edited,
Ostrovsky blends these disparate elements creating a cohesive story that is
not merely personal documentary but a comment on political corruption and a
look back on Russian history. Also including films by Haruko Tanaka, Mary
Beth Reed and Jacqueline Goss.

Program 5 The F-Word    Sept 23 El Rio 8:30pm (6:30 Free BBQ)
A series of haughty, funny and complex films that challenge traditional
notions of feminism. Stephanie Gray¹s Kristy is a hand-processed love poem
to a Little Darling¹s era Kristy McNichol.  Local filmmaker Shawn
Tamaribuchi¹s Kenn's Dream (World Premiere) is an animated short that
captures the timeless love story of a boy and his vagina.  In Naomi Uman¹s
and Melinda Stone¹s Developing Memory the events of an afternoon evade
veracity even when an arsenal of film and audio recording devices are there
to document. 
    
Program 6 Out of the Past    Sept 26 ATA 8pm
Filmmakers from around the world portray characters ‹ both real and
fictionalized ‹ who triumph over difficult times.  Jong Lim Ro¹s Iron
Mountain (Korea, SF Premiere) depicts the lives of modern day miners in Kana
Won, Korea.  Crying and Wanking by Alys Hawkins is an animated drama about
sex, shame and spending too much time indoors.  Frances Nkara¹s bold and
stunning Downpour Resurfacing (N. California Premiere, Filmmaker in person)
mixes her own images with manipulated found footage to reveal a character¹s
strength and rebirth. In A Big Thing Like You Danielle Lombardi breaks down
the constructed view of family, self and sexuality.
 
Program 7 Clear Visions, Silent Filmmakers I    Sept 30 El Rio 8:30pm (6:30
Free BBQ)
Live music by the Secrets of Family Happiness and San Andreas
MadCat celebrates women¹s powerful role in the silent film era with short
films from the first half of the 1900s. Experimental film pioneer Maya Deren
will be featured. Deren has been a constant inspiration for experimental
filmmakers everywhere since her debut film in 1943. MadCat will present
three of her seminal works: At Land (1944), Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
and Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946). Also including Alice Guy-Blachè¹s
Canned Harmony (1912) and Officer Henderson (1913) about cross-dressing
cops. 
   
Program 8 Cut Snip Ooze: Contemporary Animated Films by Women
Two Nights!!    Oct 3 ATA 8pm & Oct 5 PFA 7pm
This collection of animated films investigates unsolved crimes and medical
mysteries. The line-up includes Chronicles of an Asthmatic Stripper by Sarah
Jane Lapp and Celia Julve¹s six minute tour de force Historia del Desierto,
a striking ³documentary² about the brutal crimes of fictitious character
Rosita Guzman, a.k.a La Mocha. With biting humor and dry sarcasm, Jenni
Tietze posits anorexia as a murderer with the organization United Diets as
its accomplice in Anorexie (Germany, US Premiere) ‹ not your typical film
about eating disorders.
    
Program 9 Traditions and Trajectories     Oct 4 PFA 7pm
This visually stunning program of 35mm films takes viewers on a journey from
the jazz and art worlds of the United States to the near-forgotten
traditions of Lapland to the Chinese communities of England and even to
outer-space.  Sonia Bridge¹s Post Mark Lick (UK) explores the succinct and
often lyrical narratives of postcard correspondence using colorful
photograms of stamps.  In Dim Sum Jane Wong (UK) chronicles the lives of
three Chinese women in Liverpool.  A moving commentary on cultural fissures
and alienation, Dim Sum takes a humorous look at the world of strong women
who create homes and families in a foreign land.  Jazz Elegy by Donna
Cameron is a paper-emulsion homage celebrating the work and triumphant
creative spirit of Matisse.

Program 10 Educated Ladies: Films from the PFA Collection     Oct 4 PFA
8:30pm
A selection of educational films by women from the 40s to the 70s, never
before screened at PFA. Films such as Having a Healthy Baby (1969) and Your
Body During Adolescence (1954) are frightening and often unintentionally
hilarious. They reveal some of the attitudes, priorities and educational
principles of years gone by. Making Theatrical Wigs (1951) is an unwittingly
campy look at the construction of a proper wig.  Produced at the UCLA
theater department, the film includes live models, step-by-step instructions
and safety precautions. How to Make a Movie Without a Camera (1972) is a
sampling of the wonders of found footage and hand-made movie techniques. A
program not to be missed!

Program 11 Clear Visions, Silent Filmmakers II     Oct 5 PFA 5:30pm
Live music by Epic [Abridged]!
Born in the late 1800s, Cleo Madison, Nell Shipman and Lois Weber all began
their careers as actors and went on to become revered directors.  Recently
rediscovered, Shipman¹s White Water (1924) will be presented in a newly
restored and tinted print (preservationist Heather Stilin joins us to
discuss the restoration).  In Suspense (1913) Lois Weber and Phillips
Smalley employ an array of innovative formal devices to tell the story of a
mother and child home alone when a burglar invades. Cleo Madison¹s Her
Defiance (1916) is an early feminist story of a single mother who refuses
the economic advantages of an arranged marriage choosing instead to support
herself and her child by working as a cleaning woman.  TRT:  63:00 min.

Sidebar Program    
Leche and Mala Leche    Oct 2 Yerba Buena 7:30pm
Co-Presented with SF Cinematheque                        TRT:  80:00 min.