42 minutes, 2004 DVCAM, Scotland By Doug Aubrey & Marie Olesen

Bedroom Radio is a story of Pirate radio broadcasting, Love, Life, and Death on a different Scottish frequency. Gary (DJ Allusion) and Yvonne (DJ Miss-Chief) are a young couple who live on a tough Paisley housing estate. Most nights they broadcast from their one bedroom flat on Gary’s pirate radio station: Allusion FM. In a world where the drug dealer and money lender rule, and where alcoholism and violence are an everyday reality, it is ironic that the only positive thing that this young couple can do for themselves is illegal. Pirate radio broadcasting is a criminal offence in the UK and although being a radio pirate carries with it the risk of either a hefty fine or prison sentence, the buzz of being a pirate has attracted a whole new generation of what Gary calls `Bedroom DJs’ to the airwaves. Giving voice to the disenfranchised, these pirates are perhaps the real sound of Scotland’s housing schemes. Bedroom Radio is an intimate and compassionate insight into life on the wrong side of the M8’s hard shoulder. It captures the highs, lows, dreams and tragedy of scheme life, yet remains a positive film about aspirations, hopes and dreams in a notoriously deprived area of Scotland.

Bryony McIntyre
Scottish Screen
249 West George St
Glasgow G2, Scotland
bryony.mcintyre@scottishscreen.com
www.scottishscreen.com

50 minutes, 2004 Beta SP, Israel By Tszach Nissenboim & Sylvain Beigeleisen

For two years a film crew documented the daily routine of the Alons, a family of settlers from a settlement near Ramallah. Against the mundane backdrop of familial quarrels and pleasures, the family’s sense of dread from an ever-imminent danger mounted like a ring, which slowly was closing in tighter and tighter.
On June 19, 2002 the coverage of the Alon family took a terrible turn. Noa Alon and her granddaughter, Gal, were killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem.

Ruth Diskin
Marketing & Distribution
13, Diskin St.
Jerusalem, 96440 Israel
Tel. 972-2-5610094
ruthdis@netvision.net.il
/www.ruthfilms.com/html/fs_beyond_mountains_of_darkness.html

30 minutes, 2005 DVCAM, USA By Sarah Prior & Monica Bigler

Buried in the Backyard is a documentary about Americans who are actively
engaged in preparations for nuclear attack. Meet Andre, living alone in the mountains of New England, tending his campground, his public and private bomb shelters, and the ashes of his wife. Meet Steve, whose Michigan basement contains a plywood shelter shored up with several years‚ worth of food and water, as well as other bomb shelter builders from around the country. In Utah, the dirt mound that shields the Jay and Kim’s shelter is visible from the living room doors. Don and Barbara, whose suburban cement safe room is attached to a basement full of exercise equipment, a pool table, and a year’s worth of stored food and water.

Sarah Prior
307 6th Avenue, #1R
Brooklyn, NY 11215
h: (718) 788 - 1087
c: (917) 683 - 4111
sarahprior@verizon.net
www.bombsheltermovie.com

15 minutes, 2004 miniDV, USA By Roberto Oregel

A visual and audio landscape into Noam Chomsky's ideas on terrorism, world dominance, and survival.

“In the final montage, Oregel's Chomsky rolls on like Eisenstein's Potemkin leaving you panting for more and hoping for a holiday weekend."
 - Radio Free Maine

Roberto Oregel
725 Spring St. #18
Los Angeles, California 90014
213 629-8150
oregelfilms@aol.com

Hardwood	Montana Premier
29 minutes, 2004 DVCAM, Canada By Hubert Davis

Hardwood is a personal journey by director Hubert Davis, the son of former Harlem Globetrotter Mel Davis, who explores how his father’s decisions affected his life. Now a coach for young basketball players in Vancouver, Mel recalls falling in love at first sight with Hubert's mother, a white woman, at a time when racism made their union impossible, and then his subsequent marriage to a black woman and the birth of their son. Both women in Mel's life, the mothers of his two sons, speak movingly about love and betrayal, and both sons speak of the pain of their absent father and its effect on their mothers. Elegantly structured, Davis uses personal interviews, archival footage and home movies to delve into his father’s past in the hope of finding a new direction for his own.

National Film Board of Canada
1123 Broadway, Suite 307
New York, NY 10010
212-629-8890
j.sirabella@nfb.ca
www.nfb.ca/hardwood/

Herder's Calling	Montana Premier
24 minutes, 2004 miniDV, Canada/Kyrgyz Republic By Najeeb Mirza

“This is where I was born and also where my parents were born - my ancestors have been coming here for 200 years”, says Akim Aliev Datka, a pensioner who has returned to tend horses and sheep on his ancestral pasture lands 200 km from Bishkek, the capital of the Kyrgyz Republic. But he is one of the very few to return; others are leaving for the cities. Life on the high pastures can be difficult, but herding has been a mainstay of Central Asian life for millennia. Herders' Calling focuses on Akim Datka’s pastures, following the lives of families living there. From requisite duties such as tending the herds, to entertaining neighbors and engaging in traditions of song and sport, Herders' Calling offers a glimpse into the life of the Kyrgyz herders. And at times, it simply captures the quiet existence of life in this expansive and distant land.

Najeeb Mirza
3651-109 street
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada T6J 1C2
(780) 434-3929
najeeb@newyoke.com
www.newyoke.com

11 minutes, 2005 Hi8, USA By Joel Webster

In Montana, the deer are as plentiful as the people. In many places, the deer have moved into town and everyone seems to have an opinion about what to do about it. Filmed in Missoula, Managing the Herd wanders through the life of five people who all share a different understanding of what it means have deer in town. While some enjoy having these animals around, others want the deer removed from city limits by any means necessary.

Joel Webster
2321 Gerald Ave
Missoula, Montana 59801
406-829-3850
websterjoel@hotmail.com

40 minutes, 2004 16mm, USA By Robert Hudson & Bobby Houston

Mighty Times: The Children’s March is the never before told account of the most amazing act of civil disobedience in American history. In 1963, heavy intimidation by Birmingham authorities left Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights Movement floundering without supporters until thousands of children and young students rose up and became the unsung heroes.

Robert Hudson
4308 Hendrickson Road
Ojai, CA 93023
(805) 646-7655
Emily@tttpictures.com

My Father Lives In Venezuela Northwest Premier
25 minutes, 2003 16mm, Netherlands By René Roelofs

My father Lives in Venezuela is one episode of a nine part series for children between eight and twelve years old and is meant to deepen and broaden the knowledge of children of their own rights. This episode is based on article 9 of the 1989 “Convention for the Children's Rights,” which states that, “A child cannot be separated from its parents. The state must ensure that both parents can take responsibility a child.” “I didn’t know for how long, but I knew he was in prison. At school I told he was there for business because I was afraid to get a bad reputation. I was afraid they would call me a little criminal.” This is 13-year old Roxana. In René Roelofs film she is talking about her father who has been in prison in Venezuela for two years. She tells us how she kept contact with him and that she missed him very much. She also visits a prison complex in Amsterdam to see what a Dutch prison looks like inside.

Lemming Film
Kromme Mijdrechtstraat 110-3
1079 LD Amsterdam
31 (0) 20 661 04 24
info@lemmingfilm.com
www.lemmingfilm.com

Naomi and Her Mother Northwest Premier
25 minutes, 2003 16mm, Netherlands By John Appel

Naomi and Her Mother is one episode of a nine part series for children between eight and twelve years old and is meant to deepen and broaden the knowledge of children of their own rights. This episode is based on article 18 of the 1989 'Convention for the Children's Rights,” which states that, “The state will ensure that both parents take responsibility for their child. The parents firstly are responsible for the upbringing of their child. Their duty is the protection of the their child’s interests.” Naomi is 12 years old and has a mother who is manic-depressive. In the film Naomi and her Mother director John Appel followed her during a week. During these days she tells her story on how is it is to live with a mother who, at the end of the day, can’t be a mother for her. The film is above all, a film about surviving.

Lemming Film
Kromme Mijdrechtstraat 110-3
1079 LD Amsterdam
31 (0) 20 661 04 24
info@lemmingfilm.com
www.lemmingfilm.com

Old Man and Hemingway	Northwest Premier
8 minutes, 2004 miniDV, Cuba/USA By Hugo Perez

The first thing one notices about Gregorio Fuentes is his eyes. "Everything about him was old except his eyes," was the way Hemingway described Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea. Out of a 102 year-old face that is as worn as the side of a mountain, Gregorio's eyes shine brightly. Gregorio was Hemingway's boat-captain from 1938 until Hemingway's death in 1961, and provided the template for several Hemingway characters including the old fisherman Santiago. The Old Man and Hemingway is a documentary short that chronicles the long friendship between Ernest Hemingway and Gregorio, his boat captain, and the way that at the age of 102, Gregorio remembers his friend.

Best Short Documentary , 2004 Lake Placid Film Festival

Hugo Perez
305 7th Street, #3R
Brooklyn,NY 11215
917-279-4846
hugo@aya.yale.edu

Other Peoples' Pictures	Montana Premier
53 minutes, 2004 miniDV, USA By Lorca Shepperd & Cabot Philbrick

Other People’s Pictures is a documentary about collectors who share an unlikely obsession – snapshots that have been abandoned or lost by their original owners and are now for sale. The film is set at New York City’s Chelsea Flea Market where, every weekend, dozens of collectors sift doggedly through piles, boxes and bins of cast-off photos, ready to pay anywhere from a few cents to hundreds of dollars for a single snapshot. While some collectors look at the snapshots as found art, others search for images that reflect events and themes in their own lives. The un-initiated ask: why buy someone else’s family photographs? In Other People’s Pictures, nine collectors try to answer this question as they hunt for the images that feed their fantasies and quiet the voices in their heads.

Winner, Best Documentary, New Orleans Film Festival

Cabot Philbrick
464 42nd Street #2
Brooklyn, NY 11232
(718) 854-0065 home
(917) 648-9059 cell
cabot@availablelightproductions.net
www.other-peoples-pictures.com

59 minutes, 2004 DVCAM, USA By Renee Bergan

Paul Soldner: Playing with Fire, explores the life and art of Paul Soldner – a revolutionary ceramic artist who transformed a three thousand year old craft into a new way of expressing modern art. While earning an MFA at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angles during the mid-1950s, Paul Soldner challenged the established ceramic aesthetic – much like the New York school painters, like Jackson Pollack, did by creating the Abstract Expressionist Movement. It was during this Otis movement that ceramic art graduated from function to fine art. Paul Soldner was at the forefront of this revolutionary period, pushing the boundaries of what the clay and the kiln could do. Today, at 84 and after decades of teaching his skills to younger generations, Paul is still on the cutting edge of modern ceramic sculpture. He pushes no one harder than himself, understanding that one’s only limitation is one’s own imagination.

Renegade Pictures, Inc.
275 Rosario Park Rd.
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
805.967.4679-ph
805.967.5248-f
www.renegadepix.net
www.playingwithfirethemovie.com

6 minutes, 2004 miniDV, USA By Sonja Watson

Rod Crawford, Washington State's only professional arachnid researcher, reveals what drives his interest in the animal kingdom and how he relates to the human world.

Sonja Watson
1111 15th Avenue #5
Seattle WA 98122

Seoul Train Northwest Premier
54 minutes, 2004 miniDV, USA By Jim Butterworth, Aaron Lubarsky & Lisa Sleeth

With its riveting footage of a secretive “underground railroad,” Seoul Train is the gripping documentary exposé into the life and death of North Koreans as they try to escape their homeland and China. Seoul Train also delves into the complex geopolitics behind this growing and potentially explosive humanitarian crisis. By combining vérité footage, personal stories and interviews with experts and government officials, Seoul Train depicts the flouting of international laws by major countries, the inaction and bureaucracy of the United Nations, and the heroics of activists that put themselves in harm’s way to save the refugees.

Best Documentary, Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival

Jim Butterworth
Incite Productions
info@seoultrain.com
www.seoultrain.com

49 minutes, 2003 DVCAM, USA/Cuba By Judith Grey, Katherine Cheng & Eva Orner

After the revolution of 1959 and the U.S. embargo that followed, the people of Cuba were left to fend for themselves. Deprived of even the most basic goods, they scavenge the alleys and scrap heaps, giving new vitality to the discarded. Their recycled products are often remarkably ingenious and creative. For Andrs the sculptor, Tomas the canary breeder, and the other subjects of Sin Embargo, even the greatest pressure – whether levied by government or circumstance – cannot crush the spirit nor quash the desire to forge a better life for themselves and their families. Shot entirely in Cuba, Sin Embargo is a look into the hearts and dreams of struggling peoples and a tribute to their optimistic and resourceful determination to survive.

Best Documentary, Festival de Cine de Granada, Spain

Documentary Educational Resources
101 Morse Street
Watertown, MA 02472
800-569-6621
docued@der.org
www.der.org/films/sin-embargo.html

32 minutes, 2004 DVCAM, France/Serbia By Mathias Barbier

Jovan and Valdan are brothers. They are Serbs living in Belgrade. Fifteen years ago they formed a reggae band called Del Arno Band. Their artistic destiny crossed the path of former Yugoslavia’s political destiny. When the federation began to collapse, the band began to rise. Ever since and despite the wars and dictatorship, they carry on singing their battle for a better life. From Serbia to Slovenia their concerts are the living memory of their country’s fall. Years of war and misery anchored in their souls rise to the surface as a musical breath of wind whose lyrics in Serbian carry the seed of a new vision of the Balkans.

Des Mondes Productions
515, route de Carpentras
84170 Monteux, France
desmondes.prod@voila.fr

18 minutes, 2004 miniDV, US/Cambodia By Sonya Shah

Something Between Her Hands examines the growing problem of sex slavery and labor for women in Southeast Asia through the eyes of six young Cambodian girls who were trafficked into prostitution in Cambodia and Thailand. From the brothels to a transitional shelter, the girls are faced with the toughest decision of their lives- to return to prostitution, to join the garment factory work force or to return to their villages and face the stigma of being sold.

“The talking-head shots of Cambodian survivors of sexual slavery in Sonya Shah’s Something Between Her Hands demonstrate that sometimes the best choice a filmmaker can make is to dispense with artifice entirely. Haltingly without self-pity, the women recount how they were duped, sold, drugged, and forced to serve 30 clients and more a day”.
 - The Chicago Reader

Sonya Shah
1355 3rd Avenue, apt. #4
San Francisco, CA 94112
415-566-5033
SonyaShah@hotmail.com

Song of Roosevelt Ave.	Northwest Premier
13 minutes, 2004 miniDV, USA By Aaron Schock

Song of Roosevelt Avenue is a meditation on Queens, New York -- home to over one million foreign-born immigrants and arguably the most diverse place in the world. Stretching over sixty blocks, Roosevelt Avenue is at the center this global crossroads, a place where new immigrants get their start as street vendors, day-laborers, can-collectors, and in the thousands of stores that serve this immigrant population. The film tells the stories of three immigrants whose lives intersect with Roosevelt Avenue and examines the difficulties they face as they begin their American journey.

Aaron Schock
35-40 87th Street
Jackson Heights, NY 11372
718-446-1234
aaronschock@earthlink.net

Street Denizens	World Premier
15 minutes, 2005 miniDV, USA By Margot Higgins & C. Wolf Drimal

Street Denizens is a character driven film that creates a collage of personal narratives depicting life on the streets. Here are the often marginalized words of a few homeless souls. With humor and raw sensitivity, the film weaves together individual stories ranging from a train hopping vagabond, to a soft spoken Native American outcast with compassion for his fellow brethren, to a jocular street philosopher, among others. Street Denizens was shot entirely in Missoula, Montana, but serves to illuminate an issue of national consideration. Filmed by two graduate students with an assignment to document and search for the meaning of “community.”

Margot Higgins
(406) 543-0702
margothiggins@hotmail.com

C. Wolf Drimal
(406) 543-3221
dharma_wolf@hotmail.com

The Mantelpiece	Northwest Premier
27 minutes, 2004 miniDV, Canada/USA By Samantha Hodder & Geoffrey Siskind

The Mantelpiece is an observational film about the people who make taxidermy their art, the process of creating taxidermy and a peek inside the world where people hunt and collect animals for trophies. While the taxidermists struggle to maintain their personal and creative lives, their job requires them to cater to wealthy American hunters who want to immortalize their kill. Their craftsmanship, combined with their passion for their work begs the question: Is taxidermy art? From the wild to the wall, this film spans the length of North America, beginning in Canada’s Northwest Territories at a hunting camp, then moving to a taxidermy shop in Saskatchewan, and finishing with a road trip to Texas for home delivery of the completed pieces. The Mantelpiece presents a whole new way of looking at migration.

Tightrope Entertainment
192 Spadina Ave # 106
Toronto, Ontario M5T 2C2 Canada
416 369 9889
shodder@tightrope.ca
www.tightrope.ca/mantelpiece

58 minutes, 2004 miniDV, USA By Teresa Konechne

This inspiring documentary chronicles the story of Bayview, Virginia, a community that fights the system, redefines the needs of poor people and challenges all conventional ideas of community development. In this tiny rural African-American village, 85% of the residents live without indoor plumbing or safe heating in below sub-standard housing. In 1994, Virginia's Governor announced the building of a maximum security prison in their front yards. But Bayview said no. Catalyzed by defeating the state's plans, the powerful women leadership have acquired the prison site land and over $10M to build a new community. This extraordinary vision of a new rural village includes affordable housing, a sustainable economic base, community and daycare centers, a laundromat, and a community farm which provides jobs and income for the organization.

Working Hands Productions
2613 Garfield AVE S
Minneapolis, MN 55408
612-871-2576
tkonechne@workinghandsproductions.net
www.workinghandsproductions.net