...And Then There Were Four
21 minutes, 2005 miniDV, USA By Leah Helaine Bell Northwest Premiere Special Presentation

Seventy-seven year old Laura Ann Gamble has taken on the task of raising four of her grandsons, ages five through eight, whose parents have been unable to care for them. The four brothers not only have trouble with authority but also have not fully learned to respect one another. However, due to their grandmother's guidance, the boys are improving every day and becoming the exceptional children that they are destined to be. ...And Then There Were Four tells the story of Laura Ann Gamble and her challenge to provide a better life for her grandsons as she did for her own children.

leah@unt.edu

A Revolving Door
40 minutes, 2007 DVCAM, USA By Marilyn Braverman and Chuck Braverman 2007 Best Documentary Short World Premiere Documentary Short Competition

A Revolving Door is the story of 33 year old Tommy Lennon. Struggling to deal with the dual diagnosis of mental illness and drug addiction, the film focuses not only on Tommy's life but also on his family's frustration, helplessness, courage and resilience. Was it a surfing-related head injury that turned Tommy's life upside down? For 20 years, Tommy has been stuck in a revolving door of homelessness, drug abuse, mental institutions and jails. Will Tommy and his loving family learn to deal with this constantly shifting reality?

www.arevolvingdoor.com

32 minutes, 2006 Digital Betacam, USA/Israel By John Reilly Northwest Premiere Documentary Short Competition

Why have there been so many bystanders to genocides and war crimes?Bystander not only portrays three individuals who intervened in unfolding crimes in order to thwart the mass murder of innocent victims but also frames these portraits with riveting psychological experiments on the scarcity of moral courage.  

John.reilly@yahoo.com

De Arbol a Arbol
28 minutes, 2006 miniDV, Spain By Belén Gonzalez Blanco North American Premiere Documentary Short Competition

De Arbol a Arbol ("Trees from Trees") documents the creative processes of wood artist and craftsman Urcino Martinez. A quiet and meditative film, De Arbol a Arbol's tempo and spare dialogue resonates with both the pace of the artist's work and the realities of the natural world.

www.stanford.edu/~samuelso/tdth.html

Freeheld
38 minutes, 2007 DVCAM, USA by Cynthia Wade Northwest Premiere Documentary Short Competition

FREEHELD follows the desperate battle of Lieutenant Laurel Hester, a dying New Jersey police officer who fights to transfer her pension to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree. As her elected officials, The Freeholders, stand firmly against her and the town explodes around her, Laurel races against time to provide for the love of her life -- before it is too late.

www.freeheld.com

Gimme Green
27 minutes, 2006 miniDV, USA By Isaac Brown and Eric Flagg World Premiere Documentary Short Competition

Lawns are undeniably an American symbol. But what do they really symbolize? Pride and prosperity? Or waste and conformity? Gimme Green is a humorous look at America's obsession with the residential lawn and the effects it has on our environment, our wallets, and our outlook on life. By examining the social, commercial, and environmental pressures surrounding the green grass aesthetic, we begin to understand how a non-edible, resource-intensive plant could become our nation's largest irrigated crop.

www.gimmegreen.com

Holy Warriors
30 minutes, 2006 DVCAM, Russia/Afghanistan/Chechnya By Marianna Yarovskaya Northwest Premiere Documentary Short Competition

Holy Warriors chronicles the spiritual upheaval brought about by war. Offering profound insight into the resilience of the human spirit during trying times, Holy Warriors demonstrates the traumatic effect of enlisting unwilling soldiers in wartime and highlights the pertinent link between war and religion. As one characters states, "There are no atheists in a foxhole."

www.holywarriorsthemovie.com

Kobe
45 minutes, 2006 Super 16mm, Japan/Germany by Rainer Komers North American Premeire Documentary Short Competition Asia Docs Series

Kobe is a composition of images and sound. With neither narration nor interviews, the film explores the daily tasks and pleasures at a Japanese seaport: a fish auction at the wholesale market, Karaoke singers in a private music saloon, the men of Kobe Rescue on their training ground. Kobe is a poetic, observational documentary that offers insight into the human condition and tracks the turning point of postwar Japanese society.

r.komers@t-online.de

44 minutes, 2005 16mm, Austria/Switzerland By Gerald Salmina Northwest Premiere Documentary Short Competition

What happens when a crazy movie maker meets a crazy boulderer and they decide to make a movie together? You could call it preprogrammed chaos or the beginning of a joint vision. A beautiful film about the sport of bouldering, shot in the spectacular Ticino, Magic Wood and Silvretta Mountains of Europe, Memento documents the philosophy and climbing artistry of Bernd Zangerl.

www.mementoberndzangerl.com

No Umbrella: Election Day in the City
26 minutes, 2006 miniDV, USA By Laura Paglin Northwest Premiere Documentary Short Competition

No Umbrella - Election Day in the City is an unblinking look at the 2004 U.S. Election Day failures in one of Ohio's poorest neighborhoods. In the most hotly contested state in the country, gridlock at inner city polls ignites tempers and sets off charges of conspiracy. No Umbrella drops us squarely into the chaos as we watch the irascible octogenarian councilwoman, Ms. Fannie Lewis, take on polling place breakdowns, an unresponsive bureaucracy and an increasingly agitated electorate.

www.bullfrogfilms.com

Ordinary Lives
38 minutes, 2005 miniDV, India By Sheetal S. Agarwal Northwest Premiere Documentary Short Competition

Ordinary Lives documents the living conditions in a Mumbai slum, focusing on the daily struggles of a ten member family crammed into a 180-square-foot shack. Representing the bottom of the Indian social hierarchy, this family has different concerns from those of India's government officials whose primary goal is to replace these slums with modern, cosmopolitan development. Through a juxtaposition of voices from both inside and outside the slums, Ordinary Lives re-examines issues of poverty, human rights, and gender equality that have been troubling developing countries like India.

www.der.org

27 minutes, 2007 miniDV, USA By Casey Hayward World Premiere Documentary Short Competition

Ed Marko lost sight of “Plan A”--literally. The story of this occupational-therapist-turned-auto-mechanic would be unremarkable except that, at the age of 20, Marko lost his eyesight to a degenerative disease. An avowed anti-hero, Marko’s modest and unassuming life is powerfully and humorously documented in Plan F, which follows his daily routine as the owner of an auto repair shop. Navigating piles of parts, uncooperative employees, a pesky cat, and customers’ unruly cars, Plan F is a visual demonstration of the power of reinvention when life unexpectedly changes the plan.

http://audience.withoutabox.com/films/planf

Reading the Water: Lectures in Home Video Ecology from the Gulf of ME
42 minutes, 2007 HDCAM, USA By Niklas Sven Vollmer World Premiere Documentary Short Competition

Reading the Water: Lectures in Home Video Ecology from the Gulf of ME is a shot at emotional intimacy with my photographer-naturalist father via a really expensive camera. This high-definition (HDCAM) experimental ‘home video’ and personal-poetic essay mobilizes the coast of Maine—my marine biology and naturalist professor-photographer father's area of expertise and the sandbox of my youth—as a metaphor for exploring the depths of masculine relationships and family ecology across three generations of men.

niklas@gsu.edu

28 minutes, 2006 Beta SP, Russia/Poland By Wojciech Kasperski Northwest Premiere Documentary Short Competition

Set in a small village in the beautiful mountains of southern Siberia, Seeds documents the mysterious world of one family living on the margins of society. With a haunting soundtrack by Phillip Glass, strong characters and complicated relationships Seeds is as "real" as it gets.

www.eurekamedia.info

20 minutes, 2006 miniDV, USA By Octavio Warnock-Graham Northwest Premiere Documentary Short Competition

In Silences, a bi-racial son confronts his mother and her refusal to acknowledge his African American descent. While trying to understand his mother's choices, filmmaker Octavio Warnock-Graham discovers that, all too often, the truth reveals itself in the unspoken.

www.silencesfilm.com

25 minutes, 2005 miniDV, Russia/Mongolia/China By Claudia Ruiz and Gijs Verkoulen North American Premiere Documentary Short Competition Asia Docs Series

A beautiful no-dialogue documentary from the perspective of a passenger aboard the Trans-Siberian Express railroad, Trans is a visual poem that presents a new view on a classic journey on the longest railway on the planet.

"The colour pallet, the rhythm and the balance between audio and visuals are witness of a great sense of feeling for the possibilities of the medium and a great poetic judgement." - Conservator Saskia Asser, House Marseille; Museum of Photography Amsterdam

www.cruiz.nl

Ulbert
21 minutes, 2006 miniDV, USA By Declan Ryan Northwest Premiere Documentary Short Competition

Joe seemed to have normal feelings through most of his early life. But during puberty things began to change. His anger grew larger as his frustration with life increased. Outbursts and fits of rage were not uncommon and almost always followed by a depression. Joe eventually left teen life behind and replaced it with marijuana, LSD and alcohol. This led Joe to a path of sobriety and personal growth accompanied by great family support. Ulbert is an exploration of a bipolar man's story, artwork, philosophy and growth throughout the last 10 years.

www.ulbertthemovie.com