RIIFF 2002 Film Schedule

Short Films D-L

Saturday August 10th Columbus Theatre 2:45PM
Daypass
Director: Deborah Chow
Company: PIXELCATLAND
Runtime: 12 mins
Country: Canada/USA
Format: 35MM
A wildly delusional romantic returns from the grave to further pursue the love of his life on the evening of her first daypass. He arrives at the local convenience store, only to find her with a new boyfriend and embarks on a campaign to win her back.

Monday August 12th Columbus Cinemateque 2:45PM
My Dear Clara
Director: Garry Beitel
Runtime: 44min
Country: Canada
Format: BETA SP
Set in Canada, Poland, Russia and Germany between 1938 and 1947, this film interweaves love letters, official correspondence and rare archival footage to tell the dramatic story of a Canadian woman's struggle to bring her husband into Canada from Poland.

Thursday August 8th Columbus Cinemateque 7:40PM
Dear XXX
Company: Anchored Entertainment
Director: Daniel Cavey
Runtime: 9 min
Country: USA
Format: 16mm
One man alone in his house with his record collection. Technically speaking he feels fine, but if the lighting and soundtrack to his life are any clue maybe we shouldn't be so sure.

Saturday August 10th Columbus Theatre 12:30PM
Destiny
World Premiere
Director: Katherine Makinney
Runtime: 15 min
Country: USA
Format: 35MM
Jen, a budding photojournalist, meets the man of her dreams. She then finds out she's pregnant and he hasn't called in awhile. Faced with a daunting decision, she decides to abort. A year later, something triggers her grief and she begins to mourn. Using her photos to express her emotions, Jen takes a journey of self-discovery. Her mourning takes her to a place she never imagined.

Thursday August 8th Columbus Theatre 9:30PM
Empty
Director: Jared Micah Herman
Company: Twilight Industrie, LLC
Runtime: 23min
Country: USA
Format: 35mm
It is the end of World War II. The Reich is crumbling; the Soviets are advancing. Only the shadows of men remain. Into this silence, into these woods, two boys escape the fate of the death marches for an even deadlier journey -- finding a way home. But they are not alone. Out of the chaos emerge two stray German soldiers retreating from the front lines. Trapped in the middle of a torrential snowstorm, all four find shelter in the same abandoned barn. When their paths cross the following morning, each of their lives are tragically changed forever. Polish/German/Russian with English subtitles.

Saturday August 10th IMAX 9:30AM
L'ennui de Jean-Robert
Company: Spirafilm
Director: Pierre Brassard
Runtime: 5min
Country: Canada
Format: 35MM J
ean-Robert is bored. He is alone and has nothing, absolutely nothing around to entertain him. But even in the deepest solitude we are never alone as we think.

Sunday August 11th URI 6:30PM
World Premiere
Even More Confused
Director: Nancy B. Rosenberg
Runtime: 14min
Country: USA
Format: 16mm / BETA SP
Young teacher: the subject of schoolgirl fantasy. Welcome to the world of Suzy Spitz.

Friday August 9th Columbus Theatre 7:15PM
New England Premiere
The Fine Line Between Cute and Creepy
Director / Writer: Robert D. Slane
Runtime: 14min
Country: USA Format: 35mm
This hilarious short centers on two women who are pursued by two similar men in the same exact way. Yet, while one of the women falls in love with her suitor, the other believes that she's being stalked.

Friday August 9th URI 2:15PM
World Premiere
Flores
Director / Writer: Kevin Cutts
Runtime: 29min
Country: USA
Format: BETA SP
A Mexican couple has come to New York in search of the immigrant's dream. Settling into his routine, the man, Mateo, continues to see two children in an obviously abusive situation. In attempting to rescue them he jeopardizes every dream he and his wife have. What he does is illegal, but is it wrong?

Thursday August 8th Columbus Theatre 2:45PM
New England Premiere
For Caroline
Company: LuckyBoy Productions
Director: Poull Brien
Runtime: 18min
Country: USA
Format: 35MM
For Caroline is the story of Alan Blok, an intelligent and eccentric eleven-year-old boy that no one likes. Laughed at and abused at school and chastised by his oppressive grandmother at home, Alan must choose between the pressures to be accepted and his need to accept himself.

Sunday August 11th Columbus Theatre 12:30PM
World Premiere
For My Father
Company: 4 Let Films
Director: Luke Carroll
Runtime: 9 Mins
Country: Canada
Format: 35MM
Brad, a seemingly dutiful son, acts as the lifeline to his nursing home bound father and does everything possible to prolong his tormented existence.

Saturday August 10th Columbus Theatre 2:45PM
US Premiere
Freaky
Director: Gabriele Neudecker
Runtime: 27min
Country: Austria
Format: 35mm
The dreamy farmer girl Maria recalls in different flashbacks her friendship with the foreign girl Natalja. Sensitivity and poetically, the film touches on the animosity towards those who think different and recount above a younger generation which wants to liberate itself from the constrictions of hand-me-down values and empty rituals.

Saturday August 10th Columbus Cinemateque 9:30AM
GOKUDO: SWORDSMAN EXTRAORDINAIRE
"Because sometimes a hero.... isn't the answer!" GOKUDO is a Japanese animation ("Anime") that is a bizarre, irreverent parody of such adventure stories as LORD OF THE RINGS and SLAYERS. The protagonist is Gokudo, a young jerk who's out to get "all the money, fame and babes in the world!" Gokudo is joined in his Quest by a drunken genie, an annoying chick, and a magical granny. Too bad they don't know about Gokudo's secret weapon of "gaseous emissions"..... but they will! Visually twisted and comically-obsessed, GOKUDO is perfect Saturday morning viewing for burned-out filmfest-goers.... only leave the little kids at home! Bill Timoney, the script-adaptor and dubbing director of the English language version, will host the screening and conduct a Question & Answer session between the audience and several of the show's voice-actors, including Maine native Daniel Kevin Harrison ("the voice of Gokudo").

Thursday August 8th Castle Cinema 9:30PM
Les Grands Mornes
Company: Spirafilm
Director: Christian Daigle
Runtime: 20min
Country: Canada
Format: BETA SP
Five security guards are bored with their job of watching over an empty warehouse. A robber will change their lives.

Monday August 12th Columbus Cinemateque, 1:00PM
Great Balls of Fire
Director: Leon Grodski, Pearl Cluck
Runtime: 6min
Country: USA
Format: BETA SP I
n this ad monologue, toothless, shirtless, filled with song and spit, this man speaks out about the World Trade Center tragedy like a barometer of the times.

Friday August 9th Castle Cinema 7:00PM
New England Premiere
Happy Halloween
Company: Risiko Film
Directors: Gaby and Simon Bahlsen
Runtime: 10min
Country: Germany
Format: 35mm
A car wash turns into a ghost train.

Monday August 12th Columbus Theatre 9:30PM
Heartstrings
World Premiere
Director: Jean-Pierre Avoine
Company: Les Productions Jean-Pierre Avoine inc.
Runtime: 14min
Country: Canada
Format: 35mm
Disillusioned with life, love and the pressures of the modern world, Jay goes on a quest for higher meaning. He leaves the woman he loves, sells his furnishings, and awaits intervention. But when two violinists, one mysterious man and a briefcase seem to conspire against him, Jay discovers what really pulls the strings of his heart.

Friday August 9th Castle Cinema 9:30PM
Hypocrite
New England Premiere
Director: David Chalker
Runtime: 14 min
Country: USA
Format: 35mm.
Prepare to have your ass thoroughly kicked as an angry protagonist knocks you out of viewer apathy and passive consumption. A thought-provoking piece that puts you on a swooping, spinning ride of enlightenment. This is a definite must-see for everyone intrigued by film theory and the voyeuristic politics of out filmic gaze.

Monday August 12th Columbus Cinemateque 2:45PM
I Remember (Je me Souviens)
Director: Eric R Scott
Country: Canada
Format: BETA SP
This film is about the memory of fascism and anti-Semitismn in Québec during the 1930s and 40s. French and English with English subtitles.

Saturday August 10th IMAX 9:30AM
Inseparables
Company: Spirafilm
Director: Normand Bergeron
Runtime: 10min
Country: Canada
Format: 35MM A
man who thought he was a perfect husband tries to understand the reasons why his wife suddenly left him.

Friday August 9th Columbus Cinemateque 7:40PM
Jan-Michael Vincent is My Muse
Director: Jim Tushinski
Company: Gorilla Factory
Runtime: 6 min
Country: USA
Format: Beta SP
Nerdy 12-year-old Clarence can't keep his mind off his favorite actor, Jan-Michael Vincent. It's 1970. John Wayne rules the box office and Bobby Sherman climbs the record charts. Combining film clips, animation, and video, Jan-Michael Vincent Is My Muse portrays a series of fan letters in which Clarence concocts a goofy, unintentionally erotic Western movie with leading roles meant just for himself and JMV. The result mixes 16 Magazine, the Civil War, and Bubble Gum music into a groovy ode to innocence lost.

Saturday August 10th Columbus Theatre 2:45PM, 9:30PM
Last Train
Director: Keith Jeffries
Runtime: 8 min
Country: UK
Format: 35MM
What starts off as a light-hearted night out turns sour as a cocky clubber tries to bluff his way into a seedy nightspot. Mike sets out for an evening with two friends. He hopes to hook up with club receptionist Tanya and trusts his luck to a dubious scheme to get him past the doorman, Vince. At first we sympathize with Vince -- he's a bit of a loser and Tanya obviously has him in the palm of her hand, but he means well. However, our sympathies are short-lived when Vince reveals a sadistic nature leaving us feeling powerless and cold as Last Train reaches a shocking and disturbing conclusion.

Thursday August 8th Columbus Cinemateque 1:00PM
Latin Doves
Director: Juan Solari
Runtime: 23min
Country: UK
Format: 16mm
London 2000, a cosmopolitan and contrasting city. Paloma (dove in English) is a Latin American girl in her twenties, who, like thousands of other foreigners, comes to London looking for a better life, on the pretext of studying English and traveling "around the world." But after a depressing lifestyle and fleeing affairs, perhaps "The First World" is not the best world for everyone.

Friday August 9th Columbus Theatre 9:30PM
Laud Weiner
Director: Philip Euling
Runtime: 4 min
Country: USA
Format: 35MM
Inspired by the infamous Los Angeles Times-produced cinema trailers profiling different jobs within the film industry, LAUD WEINER follows Lauden Weiner (David Hyde Pierce) from office to sound stage to star trailer in this "behind-the-scenes," up close and personal look at the grueling, thankless work of a Hollywood manager-producer. Not. *** Pronounced 'loud wine-er'

Saturday August 10th Columbus Cinemateque 9:45PM
A'Leau de Larose
Company: Productions Amonis
Director: Cimon Charest
Runtime: 15min
Country: Canada
Format: BETA SP
Three men take on the descent of a cascade where the water tumbles with the echoed memories of a beautiful Indian.

Monday August 12th Columbus Theatre 9:30PM
World Premiere
The Least of These
Director: Rik Swartzwelder
Company: Old Fashioned Pictures
Format: BETA SP
Country: USA
Runtime: 20 minutes
It's the same old, same old at the local diner. Jim, the owner, hides in the kitchen. The regulars retread old banter. And some new guy sits alone at the counter. Then, a simple idea shatters that dull routine. The same old, same old? Not tonight. Not ever again.

Monday August 12th Columbus Cinemateque 2:45PM
Lea's Voice (une fille de joie)
Director: Olivier van Malderghem
Runtime: 23min
Country: Belgium
Format: BETA SP
Don't forget, meet me on the tenth of June, on the pier at Ostend. It's my birthday. Don't forget... During the Second World War, Hermann fled the anti-semitic persecutions, leaving his beloved Lea. It is now the present and Hermann has returned to the pier at Ostend, every tenth of June, since the end of the war. However, it is in the bar where he spends time playing chess that he encounters Lea's voice.

Saturday August 10th Columbus Cinemateque 9:45PM
Legends of Show Business
Company: Rocket Pictures
Director: Mark W. Gray
Runtime: 7min
Country: USA
Format: Beta SP
At His 100th birthday concert in Las Vegas, George Burns, America's oldest and most beloved entertainer, reveals the secret of his longevity.

Saturday August 10th IMAX 9:30AM
Liberte 66
Company: Spirafilm
Director: Martin Brouard
Runtime: 22min
Country: Canada
Format: 16MM
After an overdose, a singer is confronted with the Devil himself. He is offered a strange deal.