Friday November 12 7:30pm
Saturday November 13 10pm

$7 - Short Film Program I

Conspiracy J
Steve Wood * Chicago
Super 8 & Digital Video, 4:30 minutes
Ahh the commodity fetish, or is it the commodity conspiracy? Wood puts phat beats behind an Atari joystick and comes up with a punchy neo-noirist narrative puzzle.

The Ugliest Fountain in the World
Jensen Rufe * Arcata, CA
16mm, 13 minutes
Lashing out against the lethargic and begrudging acceptance of the status quo, Rufe sets out to improve the quality of life in his community with an environmental beautification project.

Documentary 1171 Possessions
Lila Yomtoob * New York City
Hi8 video, 4:30 minutes
The distillation of the hi/lo philosophy. One New Yorker enters her apartment with a hi-8 camera and nothing else. Despite her claims to the contrary, Yomtoob is a filmmaker with something to say.

Earl and Edna
Sarah Shute * Santa Monica, CA
Digital Video, 8 minutes
Dissembling language, human relations, and the line between the natural and man-made worlds, Shute returns for the third time to the hi/lo film festival with an exquisitely shot piece featuring an elderly couple perfectly at home while lost in the woods.

Stir
Marc Lepson * Brooklyn
16mm, 3 minutes
Does time expand when our expectations of narrative fulfillment are cruelly dashed? A study in anticlimax, Lepson's three-minute close up everyday activity makes us question our most basic cinematic assumptions.

The Amateurist
Miranda July * Portland, OR
Video, 14 minutes
The formidable K Records veteran and performance artist Miranda July inventively dissects academics, professional training, and expert analysis in her hilarious and poignant look at one woman's puzzling vocation.

Asleep In the Deep
George Nachtrieb * Mill Valley
16mm, 1:30 minutes
You go to the movies, you see the signifiers, you know the deal: gorgeous ocean panorama, the tide sweeping in, birds skittering in the surf. It could be a Costner flick, or a Madonna video, but it's not. It's Mr. Nachtrieb.

Pop-Corn
Len Borruso * San Francisco
Digital Video, 2:30 minutes
Borrosu punctuates low res video footage of train riders with stunning still photographs, illuminating the depth and the gravity of daily routine.

Purgatory
M. Frank * Australia
Digital Video, 7 minutes
Performed backwards and shot in one take, M. Frank's Purgatory captivates with its motion, lending eerie suspense to one woman's silent journey though hospital corridors.

This is for Betsy Hall
Hope Hall * San Francisco
16mm, 6:30min
Hall, a Stanford film student, has made the moving family photo album one hardly ever sees. Comprised of blurry images, and a sober narrative tone Hall traces her mother's struggle with an eating disorder--curiously creating a lasting series of images surrounding a woman whose tortured relationship with her self-image has consumed her entire life.

Reinvention
Sadia Shepard * San Francisco
16mm, 4:30 minutes
Lo fi filmmakers are allowed to make sweet and sentimental films too! Shephard's black and white mini-doc profiles an eccentric man, the improbable machines he makes, and the woman who can't help loving him.

hi/lo Film Festival
--high concept/low budget films for the adventurous and disenchanted
because $40 million can kill a good idea

back to the killing my lobster website