The 4th Annual Big Sur
International Short Film
Screening Series
June 11 - August 30, 2009
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Winner of the Short Film Screening Series 2007:
Auf Der Strecke
Director: Reto Caffi, Switzerland
The screening series 2009 was the best so far. We screened 44 films on 12 beautiful Thursday nights under the redwoods.
The final 'Gala' event, Sunday Aug. 30, was a great success with many very attentive and interested audience members.
The five films selected by our jury for the final were:
In order from 5th to 1st place:
5th Place:
Chainsaw
Director: Dennis Tupicoff, Australia
4th Place:
El Pasajero (The Passenger)
Director: Andres Faucher, Venezuela
3d Place:
It's My Turn! (Bende Sira)
Director: Ismet Erguen, Germany
2nd Place:
I Met the Walrus
Director: Josh Raskin, Canada
1st Place:
Auf der Strecke (On the Line)
Director: Reto Caffi, Germany / Switzerland
Screening schedule
June 11th
Dix
Directors: Jules Janaud, Francois Roisin and Fabrice Le Nezet
France
Synopsis: Marc is afraid of stepping on lines. He’s in therapy to overcome his phobia.
15 Minuten Wahrheit (Shift)
Director: Nico Ziegelmann
Germany
Synopsis: 50-year-old Georg Komann and his colleges surprisingly get laid-off by their company. Knowing that none will rehire over-fifty-year-olds, they need a good plan to avert their personal and financial ruin. Komann risks everything by asking his boss for a conversation.
Magritte Moment
Director: Ian Fischer
USA
Synopsis: A frustrated painter searching for his muse gets some help from the surreal visions of Rene Magritte.
Auf der Strecke (On the Line)
Director: Reto Caffi
Germany / Switzerland
Synopsis: A department store security guard is racked by guilt after not helping someone who was being attacked in the subway.
June 18th
Pusling(Crybaby )
Director: Christina Rosendahl
Denmark
Synopsis: 10-year-old Piv is constantly being bullied by her stronger classmate Mia. Piv retreats and tries to avoid the attacks - or even takes the blame. One day, after a particularly harsh round of bullying, Piv meets Mia by chance and sets her revenge in motion...
Irish Twins
Director: Rider Strong and Shiloh Strong
USA
Synopsis: Born within a year of each other, Michael and Seamus Sullivan have become very different men - just how much becomes apparent on the night of their father's funeral.
Before Dawn
Director: Balint Kenyeres
Hungary
Synopsis: Before dawn, people will rise and other people will take away their hope.
Kaveri (A Mate)
Director: Teemu Nikki
Finland
Synopsis: Pera is a hard-rocking metal-head who just wants to try something new. When he asks his pal to give him a hand, unfortunately Pera’s wife interrupts a pivotal moment of friendship.
June 25th
501
Director: Jesper Maintz
Denmark
Synopsis: 501 takes place in the local pub, where an unfamiliar guest disturbs one of the regulars, who is about to throw his last, decisive dart in a game of 501. The darts player gives the guest a second chance, and they get together over a glass of beer at the bar. But the guest is not at all the person he pretends to be, and we go back in time to get to know him a little better. Jesper Maintz is an editor and has previously directed a string of no-budget films as well as music videos.
Chainsaw
Director: Dennis Tupicoff
Australia
Synopsis: You shouldn’t toy with a husband’s emotions. Or chainsaws, for that matter. Men, women, chainsaws, bullfighters, and cowboys all swirl together in this stunningly animated spectacle of love and revenge.
Pop Foul
Director: Moon Molson
USA
Synopsis: When a young boy heading home from Little League game sees his father take a 'beat down' from a local thug, the pair enters into a secretive pact designed to hide the disturbing incident from the boy's mother.
La Lili à Gilles ( Gilles' Lily)
Director: David Uloth
Canada
Synopsis: A child with a vivid imagination, sweet face, and a rather foul mouth, ponders her grandfather's life in this family drama about memory, duty, and impending truths.
July 2nd
Appassionata
Director: Mirko Echghi-Ghamsari
Germany
Synopsis: Based on a World War II legend: A German soldier awaiting his doom in the pocket of Stalingrad spots an undamaged piano in the no-man's land between the lines. The urge to play one more time becomes irresistible....
Love Story
Director: Amit Gupta
UK
Synopsis: A young girl asks her father, 'Why do you love Mummy?' As the man considers this question, his memories of the first sighting of his future wife reveal the depth and complexity of his love for her.
Paseo
Director: Arturo Ruiz Serrano
Spain
Synopsis: Gabino has never declared his love to a woman.
Chief
Director: Brett Wagner
USA
Synopsis: The lush landscape of Hawaii is the backdrop for a suspenseful tale of escape. A Samoan chief tries to run away from his painful past, but a natural disaster forces him to resume his rightful place in the world.
July 9th
Shuteye Hotel
Director: Bill Plympton
USA
Synopsis: A film noir murder mystery that takes place in a sleazy hotel. As cops investigate the gruesome murders they become victims of this evil force.
Les Doigts de Pied (The Toes)
Director: Laurent Denis
Belgium
Synopsis: Arthur lives alone in a little room of an old people’s home. His days are exclusively rythmed by the visits of Julie, the nurse. No one else ever come visit him. Therefore, when Julie tells him about the visit of Bernard, Arthur get dressed as for a wedding. But who is this visitor ? Is he there for the good of Arthur ? And Julie ? Is she really a devoted nurse?
Shikashika
Director: Stephen Hyde
Peru
Synopsis: Filmed in the Peruvian Andes, this documentary reveals the process of making a colorful shave ice called 'Shikashika'. To make it, one family must journey afoot to the vast glacial apron of a mountain where they cut enormous blocks of ice with an axe and bare hands.
Free Lunch
Director: Rick Curnutt
USA
Synopsis: Walter Tanner Jr. is done with handouts, he's done with his privileged past, and he's done with having to answer to people. Realizing the value of hard work, Walter sets off on the road to the American dream, in a lunch truck. Together, Walter and his friend Casey serve the working people of LA, while Walter struggles with the realities of business and being a fish out of water. Will the struggle prove to be too much?
July 16th
On the Ice (Sikumi)
Director: Andrew Okpeaha Maclean
USA
Synopsis: Sikumi is the story of Apuna (Brad Weyiouanna), an Inuit hunter, who drives his dog team on the frozen Arctic Ocean in search of seals and inadvertently becomes a witness to murder. In the microscopic communities of Arctic Alaska there is no anonymity, thus the hunter knows both the victim and the murderer. The murderer, Miqu (Tony Bryant), claiming self-defense and desperate to avoid punishment, tries to persuade his friend to forget what he has seen, and help dispose of the body. Apuna is then forced to navigate the uneasy morality between honoring the body and memory of one friend and destroying the life of another.
Esther, Baby & Me
Director: Louis Taylor
USA
Synopsis: Louis Taylor discovers that he is about to become a father. This documentary looks at the emotions that he undergoes - responsibility, race guilt, alcohol and a serious lack of sex.
Sable (Sand)
Director: Joost Van Ginkel
Netherlands
Synopsis: Compelling story about truckdriver Luuk and his daughter Isabel who both like the feel of sand. One day Isabel is unusually quiet and when Luuk discovers the horrific reason he kidnaps his daugh-ter to protect her.
It's My Turn! (Bende Sira - Ich bin dran)
Director: Ismet Erguen
Germany
Synopsis: A declaration of love to the cinema. In a suburb of Istanbul a few kids play a game...
July 23rd
Afterville
Directors: Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro
Italy
Synopsis: 2058. 50 years ago, a number of unknown structures fell upon our world, changing the skyline of the major cities of the planet. These starships, soon renamed as “The Rocks”, never showed any sign of life and were soon integrated as part of the urban growth accompanying the world’s social and economical development in the years. Years later, scientists would make an incredibile discovery: the rocks seemed to originate a signal from their interior. According to our time criteria this signal was codified as a countdown pointing at a specific day and time in the year 2058.
Today, we live the last hours of that “Last Day” through the eyes of two lovers, Sam and Lisa, desperately looking for each other again before the world that we know might end.
Yes, Maybe (Oui, Peut-Etre)
Director: Marilyne Canto
France
Synopsis: Late in the night, she has the boldness to follow him.
The Cleaner
Director: Noel Kearns
UK
Synopsis: Stefan, an emigrant night-cleaner at a London hospital, is called upon to translate for a critically injured man who has been rushed into Accident & Emergency. But Stefan recognises the man as a brutal warlord from their former war-torn homeland.
A Real Doozy
Director: John Burish
USA
Synopsis: Office parties and alcohol should never mix. Unfortunately for Chris, a young ad exec, his coworkers remember last night's party much better than he does.
July 30th
My Name Is Pochsy: An Industrial Film
Director: Karen Hines
Canada
Synopsis: Pochsy works at Mercury Packers. All alone on a stark but spectacular northern industrial landscape, Pochsy muses about life, taxes and the future of the human soul. A satirical, subversive ode to the industrial film genre.
Le Jour de Gloire (The Day of Glory)
Director: Bruno Collet
France
Synopsis: An unforgiving rain gilds soldiers’ trenches as the camera pushes through enemy lines and history. Beautiful animation makes a poignant statement about sacrifice and remembrance.
Making the Man
Director: John Susman
USA
Synopsis: A crucial interview hangs on the brink of disaster as one man stumbles through a minefield of questions with comic and potentially life-changing consequences.
El Pasajero (The Passenger)
Director: Andres Faucher
Venezuela
Synopsis: On New Year's Eve in Caracas, Venezuela, a desperate cab driver attempts to hold up a wealthy passenger, but when the passenger offers to buy the driver's gun, it leads to a night neither of them will ever forget.
August 6
The Pistachio Effect
Director: Nick Ball and Gus Johnston
Australia
Synopsis: Mark and Kevin are mates that don’t agree on many things. Mark doesn’t eat any more than two food groups per day, while Kevin loves talking politics and they can never agree on a “hotness” scale for the weather girls on TV. But one thing they can agree on is pistachios. When Mark receives a delivery of 162kg of the little bastards; The Pistachio Effect takes hold and the boys’ innermost emotions are cracked and peeled through bags and bags of salted little nuts. It’s a comedy about love, hate and . . . pistachios.
Haber
Director: Daniel Ragussis
USA
Synopsis: How the father of modern agriculture became the father of chemical warfare.
Peacemaker
Director: Alex Pastor
Spain
Synopsis: A camera team follows two men around what could be the last two hours of their lives. At noon sharp, when the sun is at its highest, they are faced with a duel whereby only one of them can walk out alive.
Kroeskop (Absolutely Afro)
Director: Dorotheé van den Berge
Netherlands
Synopsis: 12-year-old adopted Hanneke is ashamed of her curly afro-hair, so she decides to go to secondary school with a totally new hairstyle in this charming tale about belonging and identity. A story about a child's wish to just be a part of it.
August 13th
Vi Der Blev Tilbage (We Who Stayed Behind)
Martin de Thurah
Denmark
Synopsis: 10-year-old Adam is one of the few kids left behind after all the grown-ups have succumbed to hopelessness and abandoned the city, leaving it in a state of disarray. Adam tries to make sense of it all, along with his friend Ida. But soon she too is struck by the same symptom of disillusion: Her blood turns gray, her look is empty, and she sets off from the city. Determined to put a stop to this madness and bring Ida back to life, Adam leads the children in their struggle to make the city a place worth living in once again.
Desert Wedding
Director: Alexandra Fisher
USA
Synopsis: Marissa, an excited bride-to-be, turns into a raging 'bridezilla', when she learns her maid of honor has lost her bouquet. Furious about her missing flowers, she throws a hysterical fit, until a tragic event unravels the biggest day of her life...
El Palacio de la Luna
Director: Ione Hernandez
Spain
Synopsis: A mother writes a letter to Paul Auster…
Lavatory-Lovestory
Director: Konstantin Bronzit
Russia
Synopsis: Love is always sudden. It isn't surprising that love springs up at work even if the place of work is unexpected.
August 20th
Love You More
Director: Sam Taylor-Wood
USA
Synopsis: Summer, 1978. London. After school Peter goes to the local record shop to buy the new Buzzcocks single, Love You More. It’s the day of its release and he’s desperate to own it. As he’s flicking through the rack of ‘New Releases’ Georgia comes in. She’s after the same record...
The Replacement Child
Director: Justin Lerner
USA
Synopsis: Todd Turnbull returns to his conservative, backwoods hometown to find that his best friend, Michael, is deathly ill. His faith is put to an ultimate test when he learns that Michael's family refuses to seek medical attention in favor of allowing God to heal him.
Niños que nunca existieron (Children That Never Existed)
Director: David Valero
Spain
Synopsis: Somewhere in the world, where blood is mixed with soil and childhood bears the name of a soldier .
I Met the Walrus
Director: Josh Raskin
Canada
Synopsis: In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. Using the original interview as the soundtrack, this narrative tenderly romances Lennon's every word in a cascading flood of multi-pronged animation.
August 27: A special screening of last years finalists.
Bitch
Director: Lilah Vandenburgh
USA
The Torchbearer
Director: Vaclav Svankmajer
Czech Republic
Koest (Doggie)
Director: Simone van Dusseldorp
Netherlands
Traumalogia
Director: Daniel Sanchez Arevalo
Spain
Anolit
Director: Stefan Faldbakken
Norway
The Danish Poet
Director: Torill Kove
Norway
August 30th
Series Finale
Best of Series and the Official Final Night Selections.
Starting at 7.30 PM
Pizza, Wine, Beer, Chocolate, Raffle and Redwood Awards!
Please come to experience four - five of the finest, films this series had to offer.
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Screening 2006 - Winner and participants here.
Screening 2007 - Winner and participants here.
Screening 2008 - Winner and participants here.
Screening 2009 - Winner and participants here.
