Our Festival
50th Festival April 30-May 3, 2008
Sessions
Wednesday, April 30, 7pm
INSTANT KARMA
Director/Producer/Writer: Tristan Higgs; US, 2008, 8 minutes
Alex attempts to end a run of bad luck by trying his hand at credit card fraud.
MURDERING MAMA’S BOY
Director/Writer: Katherine Cunningham-Eves; US, 2007, 18:27 minutes
A young girl’s obsessive jealousy towards the seven-year-old boy her mother nannies for, drives her to desperate actions.
TEMPORARY VIRGIN
Director: Tatsushi Momen; Japan, 2007, 3 minutes
The visual images depict metaphors of a love fantasy in a very romantic and abstract way.
STILL(E)
Director/Producer/Writer: Susan Schwarzwald; US, 2006, 25:38 minutes
Through the lens of memory, the daughter of a refugee from Nazi Germany revisits the pain of remembering, tinged with the fear of forgetting that silently haunts her father, herself, and now her young daughter as well.
ERIN GO WRONG
Directors/Writers/Animators: Brian Kavanagh and Joshua Huber; US, 2007, 4 minutes
Things go awry for two leprechauns who have kidnapped the Easter Bunny.
CHAIN
Director: Hyunmi Park; South Korea, 2007, 16:20 minutes
How far would you go to save a loved one?
CLARITY
Director/Writer: Miles Duffy; US, 2007, 10 minutes
A schoolteacher awakes in a cold sweat from a bizarre dream.
Sessions
Thursday, May 1, 8:30pm
THE REPLACEMENT CHILD
Director/Writer: Justin Lerner; US, 2007, 25 minutes
Todd returns to his conservative, backwoods hometown to find that his best friend, Michael, is deathly ill and his family refuses medical attention for him.
TELL ME WHAT TO DO
Director: Lee Ji Sung, Producer: Joanne Hurley, Writer: Ivaila Minov; UK, 2007, 11:21 minutes
Everything you ever wanted?
OUT OF THE SHADOW
Director/Writer: Andrew Bartels; US, 2007, 8 minutes
A young man being raised by a racist father re-evaluates his upbringing after witnessing a lynching.
MEDIUM RARE
Director: Stefan Stuckert; UK, 2007, 14 minutes
Carl is running for his life. When a beautiful woman offers him an unexpected hiding place, his life seems to change. But desire is about to lay its own subtle trap…
KIRKSDALE
Director/Writer: Ryan Spindell; US, 2007, 22 minutes
A troubled teenager and a lecherous deputy fight for their sanity and their lives in Kirksdale Hospital, a decaying mental asylum in 1960’s Florida.
SOLDIERS OF SISYPHUS
Director/Producer: Bob Barancik, Animator: David Puls; US, 2006, 4 minutes
A meditative look at the futility of war.
G8
Director/Producer/Writer: Make It Short Movie Project; Canada, 2007, 10 minutes
World leaders gather for a G8 summit in Thunder Bay, Canada just as known terrorist, Lutero Babych is spotted in the city.
DAVID BIANCHI’S SOLDIER
Director/Daniel J. Pico, Writer/Producer: David Bianchi; US, 2007, 11 minutes
An experimental film told in performance poetry outlining a day in the life of a soldier on the front lines of the Iraq War.
Sessions
Friday, May 2, 7pm
Movies on a Shoestring 50-Year Golden Retrospective
Director Dan Reardon Producer Josephine M. Perini
Enjoy a short compilation of some of the notable films of the original 1,062 that have been screened in the Rochester International Film Festival since 1959
L’ORO ROSSO (THE RED GOLD)
Director: Cesare Fragnelli, Writer Alessandra Recchia; Italy, 2006, 12:22 minutes
Erika, who has run away from Romania, lives her life in Apulia in southern Italy with a lovely daughter and terrifying memories of the past.
MIA
Director/Writer: Catherine Rehwinkel; US, 2007, 7:43 minutes
A ten year-old girl struggles to reconnect with her childhood crush, an older cousin who has returned from Vietnam frighteningly different
PISMO (THE LETTER)
Director/Writer: Matvei Zhivov; Canada, 2007, 15 minutes
A wounded Russian soldier puts his wife to an emotional test with a result he does not anticipate.
MOJADO
Director/Producer/Writer: Angela Trevino; US, 2007, 22 minutes
After 15 year-old Anne plays a prank on her maid, Sofia, grave repercussions result for Sophia and her 16 year-old son, Miguel.
REBEL SONG
Director/Writer: Simon Arthur; UK, 2006, 14:52 minutes
A woman and two men play out their broken lives amongst the swaying trees.
THE WALL
Director/Writer: Michael Lloyd Green; US, 2007, 7:30 minutes
A New York City cellist plagued by years of unbearable guilt, seeks solace in the music of a Holocaust survivor with whom he shares a tenement wall.
SPEED DATING
Director/Producer/Writer: Crystal Liu; US, 2007, 15 minutes
A yellow comedy about a young woman who devises a sure-fire way to meet the man of her dreams.
Sessions
Saturday, May 3, 2:50pm
BORDERLINE
Director/Producer/Writer: Sam Lembeck; US, 2007, 10 minutes
A dark comedy about maternal love and first dates.
CONFLATION
Director/Writer: Stéphanie Joalland; US, 2007, 14 minutes
Carol wakes up one more time totally confused. Is she a single mother struggling to get by as a free-lance photographer or a brilliant scientist with a loving husband?
COSMOS
Director/Writer: Clayton Hable; US, 2007, 22 minutes
During the fall of the USSR in 1991, a lone cosmonaut circles the earth in Space Station Mir without communication and unaware of his country’s collapse. Some will call him the last Soviet Citizen.
FORASTEIRO
Director/Writer: Thiago Fogaca, Producer: Priscila Andrade; Brazil, 2007, 12 minutes
The son of circus performers avoids intimacy with anyone because he is always moving.
ZEFIRINO: THE VOICE OF A CASTRATO
Director: Gerardo Puglia; US, 2006, 22 minutes
A celebration of the art of a castrato singer named Zefirino, an imaginary character written and performed by Anthony Roth Costanzo.
RACCOON AND CRAWFISH
Co-Directors and Animators: Calvert J. Waller III, Karabo Legwalla, Peter Hale; US, 2007, 7:30 minutes
Like many Oneida Indian legends, this story uses characters from the animal kingdom to teach a moral. A hungry raccoon searches for food, ending up in a battle with a crawfish.
EDGAR AND ELIZABETH
Director/Writer: Renee Webster, Producer: Melissa Kelly; Australia, 2006, 17 minutes
Elizabeth is the shy, new photocopy girl. Edgar is the stuttering photocopier repairman who comes to repair her extremely vicious copier. Workplace attraction has never been so dangerous.
PENGUIN: THE MUSICAL
Director/Writer: David William Metzger; US, 2007, 8:21 minutes
Abe is madly in love with Lilly. He must find a way to tell her before she leaves to tag penguins in Antarctica.
Rochester
International
Film Festival
about Us
The Rochester International Film Festival is produced and presented by Movies On A Shoestring, Inc., offering four distinct screenings each year at George Eastman Museum’s famed Dryden Theatre in Rochester NY.
Films
3 Days. Dozens of Films. 1,000s of Film Lovers. See short films of ALL genres from filmmakers worldwide! Join us! All (4) distinct screenings are FREE to attend.