POWFest HAS OPENED THE GATES TO 2013: SUBMIT NOW!

 

A big heads-up to all you creative women working in film:

Jen Wechsler, the managing director of POWFest, reached out to me (quite a while back, admittedly) to share the news that the annual Portland Oregon Women's Film Festival is accepting submissions for their 2013 outing.  

Here's what Jen wanted to convey to any and all interested parties:

The Portland Oregon Women’s Film Festival (a.k.a. POWFest) is now accepting entries for its sixth annual festival scheduled to take place March 7 - 10, 2013. The regular deadline for entries is Friday, August 17, 2012. POWFest showcases the art and cinematic contribution of women directors from around the world and seeks to present films that have been directed or co-directed by women; of any length, style, or genre. 

Deadlines & Fees Early Bird Deadline: Postmarked by June 20, 2012 ~ $20 

Regular Deadline: Postmarked by Friday August 17, 2012 ~ $30 

Late Deadline: Postmarked by Friday September 14, 2012 ~ $35 WAB 

Extended Deadline: Postmarked by Friday October 5, 2012 ~ $45 

For more details regarding the submission process go to www.powfest.com. Filmmakers can also submit via Withoutabox by clicking on this link https://www.withoutabox.com/login/6065.  

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WRITING MYSELF & THE LOVE OF BEER: 2 LOCAL DOCS HIT PDX TONIGHT

Those looking to check out the work of solid, locally-based filmmakers have two strong options this evening.  Brian Lindstrom's (director of Finding Normal and the much anticipated Alien Boy) latest documentary Writing Myself will have its local premiere at Cinema 21.  The film is Lindstrom's exploration of Portland's own Playwrite Inc., an organization that helps "underserved-youth" create works for the stage. 

The official synopsis goes something like this:

“Writing Myself” is the newest full-length documentary by filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, taking a peek into a 2-week PlayWrite workshop and showing the transformation of 8 students into performed playwrights.

Also screening tonight at the NW Film Center is Alison Grayson's The Love of Beer.  Grayson's documentary takes a look at the local brewing explosion, spending much of its time with women who are carving out a place for themselves in the overwhelmingly male world of meticulously-crafted beer.

The film's website describes the doc as being:

...a feature length documentary celebrating the women in the Pacific NW beer industry. Produced by Lingering Illocutions and created by Alison Grayson, The Love of Beer stars Bend Brewing’s Tonya Cornett and Saraveza’s Sarah Pederson and featuresTeri Fahrendorf, Lisa Morrison, Gayle Goschie, Amy Welch. 

The Love of Beer from Lingering Illocutions on Vimeo.


Writing Myself screens at Cinema 21 on Thursday, June 14th at 7pm.  More info available here. 
The film screens again at the Clinton Street Theater on Friday, June 15th at  7pm.  More info on that screening here.

The Love of Beer screens at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on Thursday, June 14th at 7pm.  More info available here.


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KUNG FU THEATER presents MERCENARIES FROM HONG KONG

Dan Halsted's monthly Kung Fu Theater series strikes again at the Hollywood Theatre this coming Tuesday night.  As per usual, Dan's got an über-rare 35mm print to share with the martial arts faithful of Portland; this month's selection is Mercenaries from Hong Kong, an early 80s release from the prolific Shaw Brothers Studio.

The film eschews the period-based action of many Shaw Bros. classics, instead focusing on the (then) modern day travails of a Vietnam vet who's moved into killer-for-hire work after the war ends.  Here's what the Kung Fu Theater crew has to say about the film:

A martial arts mercenary-for-hire is recruited for a dangerous mission of tracking down a deadly assassin in Cambodia. He assembles a crack team to assist him: a knife expert, a sniper, a kung fu master, and a bomb specialist. Dressed in synchronized tracksuits, they set out on a nail-biting adventure filled with car chases, motorcycle stunts, shootouts and kung fu fights. It doesn’t take long for the double crosses to set in, and the mercenaries have to question who they can trust as they fight for their lives. This is over-the-top martial arts action insanity!

Mercenaries from Hong Kong plays one-night-only at the Hollywood Theatre on Tuesday, June 12th.  More info available here.


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A SLIGHT CHANGE OF PLANS THIS WEEKEND @ THE NW FILM CENTER

Word came down the pike a few days ago that the scheduled weekend screenings of A Cat in Paris have been canceled at the NW Film Center.  While it's a bit of a bummer that the animated, Academy award-nominated feature won't be lighting up the screen at the Whitsell, one can hardly complain about the films filling in the programming gap.

Here's what the folks at the NWFC have brewed up for the weekend:

My Neighbor Totoro on Fri. June 8th at 7pm, Sat. June 9th at 5pm & 8:45pm and Sun. June 10th at 7pm.  My review from a few weeks back is here.  This will be the English language version, so it's super kid-friendly.  One of the best children's movies out there, really.

The Triplets of Belleville on Fri. June 8th at 8:45pm, Sat. June 9th at 7pm and Sun. June 10th at 5pm.  Nominated for two Oscars.

More info about the screenings available here.


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CINEMA PROJECT & THE CREATIVE MUSIC GUILD present 13 SUMMERS

It's nearly impossible to talk about Timothy Treadwell without acknowledging the impact that Werner Herzog's 2005 documentary Grizzly Man has had on the public's understanding of him and his work.  For most, myself included, Herzog's incredible film was an introduction to the man, one that focused attention primarily on his demise, negating much of what his intent as a naturalist might have been as he spent his summers communing with the natural world.

 Photo © Timothy Treadwell

As Cinema Project's spring season draws to a close, they've put together a rare opportunity for Portland to view Treadwell's work as a filmmaker and photographer, divorced of any commentary associated with his end.  Heather Lane, one of the organizers of the collective, states that, "this is an attempt on our part to change the focus on Timothy Treadwell from who he was (and how he died), to what he accomplished as a filmmaker and photographer."
"The footage does not include him, but focuses on the animals and landscape. It is amazing that we have been given access to this footage and have been allowed to edit it for this show, something that Cinema Project has never done before as an organization."

Photo © Timothy Treadwell 

The result, 13 Summers, draws from the footage that Treadwell shot over the course of his time in the Alaskan wild.  This single-night event, arranged in conjunction with the opening of The Creative Music Guild's Experimental Music and Art Festival, will pair the images with live musical accompaniment, courtesy of an ensemble of local and traveling musicians. 

 Photo © Timothy Treadwell

Here's Cinema Project's press release detailing the presentation:

This program features a multi-screen projection performance of footage from filmmaker and naturalist Timothy Treadwell. With live accompani­ment by an ensemble of local and international musicians, this event opens the Creative Music Guild's Experimental Music and Art Festival. Treadwel spent thirteen summers in Hallo Bay and Kaflia Bay in Alaska, living among and filming grizzly bears. His life and death have been well docu­mented, but his work as a filmmaker and photographer has been some­what overlooked. 

This screening is an attempt at un-tethering the footage from narration and from media-driven perspective, in order to highlight the beautiful and majestic images as they are. With the addition of a live musical soundtrack, the audience's experience of the natural world and theanimalsweshareitwith becomes more immediate, and more personal Timothy Treadwell's footage was generously made available to us through Grizzly People, a grassroots organization devoted to preserving bears and their wilderness habitat in the hopes that humans will learn to live in peace with the bear, wilderness, and fellow humans. 

UPDATE: The Creative Music Guild's Facebook page reports that the ensemble for the event will include:

Tim DuRoche- percussion
Reed Wallsmith - saxophone
Jon Shaw - bass
Doug Theriault - guitar, noise
Dan Duval - guitar
Joe Cunningham- saxophone
Maybe more too.
 

Cinema Project & The Creative Music Guild present 13 Summers at the Bamboo Grove Salon on Friday, June 8th.  More info on the program available here.


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B-MOVIE BINGO presents HARD TO KILL

B-Movie Bingo is bringing everybody's favorite ponytail to the big screen at the Hollywood Theatre this Tuesday.  Yup, before he played Steven Seagal: Lawman on television, Steven Seagal fully inhabited the role of Mason Storm in Bruce Malmuth's Hard to Kill, surely the 5th or 6th best film of all-time to include an action scene set beside a billiards table.

Just in case anyone needs to catch up with what exactly B-Movie Bingo constitutes, here's the skinny, straight from the horse's mouth:

B-MOVIE BINGO is a game that is exactly like it sounds — OR MORE. It’s simple–we play bingo to the most awesome movie cliches ever committed to celluloid, like: “LONG BORING SCENE OR MALE PONY TALE”, “TEAMED UP WITH ROOKIE OR ANIMAL”, and “WHITE SUIT OR TROPICAL ENDING”. For maybe the first time in a theater, see the relatives and employees of A-list actors you know and love like Sylvester Stallone, whose brother bears a remarkable resemblance to him. Compete for prizes! Yell at your fellow movie nerds over the elusive and mysterious “BLANK SQUARE”! Relax: it’s B-MOVIE BINGO.

Wanna know more about the film?  Here's the B-Movie Bingo synopsis:
You can take THIS to the bank! In HARD TO KILL Steven Seagal is Mason Storm (best movie hero name ever), an L.A. detective who spends the first twenty minutes of the movie in a seven year coma. (RIP Mason Storm’s coma, 1983-1990). 
When he wakes up from the coma, he has a huge goatee, which is a sure sign your nurse has the hots for you. Within seconds of becoming aware of his surroundings, he flashes back to the atrocities that befell his family at the hands of a dirty politician… while a hit man roams the halls hunting him down as he wheels around on his gurney. 
After a narrow escape, his nurse takes him to an Eastern-tinged country estate where he recuperates, enduring various training montages and meditation zones. Once he regains his strength and hones his lone wolf attitude, total violence ensues as he exacts revenge on those who wronged him. Then he goes on a vacation.

The B-Movie Bingo presentation of Hard to Kill happens on Tuesday, June 5th at the Hollywood Theatre.  More info available here.

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FAMILY PICTURES presents THE BLACK STALLION

This is definitely a last-minute posting on my part, since the film being highlighted plays today at 2pm.  But, as I mentioned a while back, Carroll Ballard's 1979 adaptation of The Black Stallion was one of my favorite films as a kid.  And it's a movie that still stands up when viewing it with adult eyes; the storm sequence at the beginning is thrilling and more than a little bit frightening (but in a good, not gonna make anyone under the age of five begin weeping, kinda way).

Very highly recommended.

The Black Stallion plays today (6/2) at the Hollywood Theatre at 2pm.  More info available here.


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