Sunday October 11, 2009, 7:30 pm

At the Echo Park Film Center

Los Angeles Filmforum and Echo Park Film Center present

Best of the Ann Arbor Film Festival Tour, Program I

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is the original and longest running independent film festival in the United States, recognized as a premiere showcase for risk-taking, pioneering and art driven cinema. The AAFF pioneered the touring film festival concept in 1964 and each year brings a selection of favorite and award-winning short films to more than 25 galleries, universities, art house theaters and cinematheques throughout the world. This program explores themes of life and death within the geography of our surroundings, and includes films from Detroit, Montreal, San Francisco, Berlin, Toronto and Tokyo.

This exciting show mixes new experimental, animation, and documentary work – a great way to catch up on what is happening in film & video art!

See the trailer for the show on Vimeo here.

Tonight’s films will include:

Dahlia by Michael Langan (2008, 5 mins)

An animated, fast-motion portrait that explores the bustle and permanence of a city: San Francisco. Set to a driving score of vocal percussion, this film is a high-velocity contrast of stable forms and the dynamic patterns of life.  Read more ...

Studies in Transfalumination by Peter Rose (2008, 5 min)

The visual complexities of the ordinary world – a tunnel, a clump of grass, a discarded table, a piece of rock – are examined with modified flashlights and stripped down video projectors in this otherworldly exploration of place and perception.  Read more ...

Passages by Marie-Josee Saint-Pierre (2008, 24 min)

An exquisitely drawn animation that tells the dramatic story of a mother giving birth to a child. Her enthusiastically awaited delivery day is turned on its head as systems go awry, jeopardizing the lives of both mother and baby.  Read more ...

Reincarnation by Takeshi Kushida (2008, 5 min)

An otherworldly and poetic portrayal of one man’s journey between lives, expressed through movement, flesh and color.  Read more ...

Six Apartments by Reynold Reynolds (2007, 12 mins)

Six isolated occupants of six different apartments live their lives unaware of each other. Without drama they eat food, wander between rooms, bathe, watch television, and sleep. For them, this is life; for the viewer this is a contemplation of worlds in constant activity and decay.  Read more ...

Video Terraform Dance Party by Jeremy Bailey (2008, 12 mins)

Based on his live performances, Bailey shows off his latest software program that allows the user to design a better world. Combining improv monologue, social commentary, and interactive software, Bailey provides a platform to laugh and dance in our seats while contemplating the ways we live together.  Read more ...

A City to Yourself by Nicole Macdonald (24 mins)

In 1950, Detroit’s population reached 1,849,568 people in the city; today there are fewer than half remaining. We hear a lot of negativity about the crumbling infrastructure of a shrinking, post-industrial city like Detroit, but what about the pluses of having a city to yourself?  Read more ...

91 minutes total run-time

This screening series is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles.

Additional support is generously provided by the American Cinematheque.