Sunday December 12, 2010, 7:30 pm

At the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, 6712 Hollywood Blvd.

Los Angeles Filmforum presents

The 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival Tour: Video Program One

Filmmaker Lewis Klahr in person!

Here’s your chance to see the latest and greatest in independent short film work from around the world, as we present highlights from the 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival in 2010. Filmforum will host two shows of three, this second night including works on video. This program presents memorable and award-winning short films from artists around the world. Included are stunning new works by established experimental makers Lewis Klahr, Semiconductor and Inger Lise Hansen. Emerging Spanish maker Chema Garcia Ibarra's narrative portrait reveals a story both funny and tragic. Acclaimed animators Joanna Priestley and David O'Reilly's share their latest, dynamic creations. Films by Stephen Wetzel, Duke & Battersby and Kent Lambert offer provocative visions through sampling, song and hybrid styles that defy classification.

View a preview trailer here on Vimeo!

Beginning in July 2010 and continuing through February 2011, the Ann Arbor Film Festival 48th AAFF Tour will visit galleries, art house theaters, universities, media arts centers and cinematheques throughout the world. The tour offers several distinct programs of recent independent and experimental short films from the 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival across all genres: experimental, documentary, animation, narrative and hybrids.

The AAFF is a pioneer of the traveling tour concept, having launched tour shows in Paris, Los Angeles & Berkeley in 1964. Since that time, the tour has presented hundreds of influential works, including films by Barbara Hammer, Gus Van Sant, Sally Cruikshank, Don Hertzfeldt, Bill Brown, Ross McLaren, Paul Winkler, James Duesing, Martha Colburn and Jay Rosenblatt.

Touring program curated by AAFF Program Director, David Dinnell, and AAFF Executive Director, Donald Harrison

Wednesday Morning Two A.M.

Lewis Klahr  |  Los Angeles, CA  |  6 min

“This is the first completed film of a new series entitled ‘Couplets’. These will generally, but not exclusively, organize themselves around the pairing of various pop songs and just as in these songs’ lyrics, the theme of love.” —L.K.

Attack of the Robots from Nebula-5

Chema García Ibarra  |  Elche, Spain  |  7 min

Funniest Film Award 48th AAFF

“Almost everybody is going to die very soon.” —C.G.I.

Missed Aches

Joanna Priestley  |  Portland, OR  |  4 min

“Have you ever worked very horde on a paper for English clash, just to get a very glow raid? Proofreading your peppers is a matter of the the utmost impotence! Missed Aches demonstrates how the shortcomings of spell check can result in unexpected double entendres.” —J.P.

From the Archives of an Inventor

Stephen Wetzel  |  Milwaukee, WI  |  20 min

Jury Award 48th AAFF

Invention and America seem inseparable. The country has a restless image of itself as a work in progress; and the character at its core is the inventor — equal parts entrepreneur and crackpot, path-setter and outsider. This is a found-footage exploration of one such character, a Midwestern inventor whose house has been transformed into a playful model of the future with mechanized armchairs and a domestic robot.

Please Say Something

David O’Reilly  |  Berlin, Germany  |  10 min

Best Animated Film Award 48th AAFF

A troubled relationship between a Cat and Mouse set in the distant Future.

Black Rain

Semiconductor  |  Brighton, England  |  3 min

Sourced from images collected by the twin satellite, solar mission, STEREO, this film shows the HI (Heliospheric Imager) visual data as it tracks interplanetary space for solar wind and CME's (coronal mass ejections) heading towards Earth. Working with STEREO scientists, Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman & Joe Gerhardt) collected all the HI image data to date, revealing the journey of the satellites from their initial orientation, to their current tracing of the Earth's orbit around the Sun.

Travelling Fields

Inger Lise Hansen  |  Oslo, Norway  |  9 min

Most Technically Innovative Film Award 48th AAFF | N. American premiere at 48th AAFF

Moving between different topographies and locations in the Kola Peninsula, Northern Russia, this film explores sections of the landscape by moving the camera upside/down, one frame at the time, along a track. The work focuses on a particular phenomenon occurring through a change of perspective and animated camera movements, as a way of redefining a place and its geography.

Portrait #3: House of Sound

Vanessa Renwick  |  Portland, OR  |  11 min

Feeding the Soul Award 48th AAFF

Radio reminiscences and a photography-driven visit to the neighborhood of record shop "House of Sound" long after the wrecking ball, this film reflects the heart of a pre-digital era of music. Renwick's latest in her ongoing Portrait series of stories in Portland, Oregon.

Fantasy Suite

Kent Lambert  |  Chicago, IL  |  7 min

“A meditation on mainstream American heterosexual romance.” —K.L.

Beauty Plus Pity

Duke & Battersby | Syracuse, NY | 14 min

Best of Festival Award 48th AAFF

“Presented in seven parts, Beauty Plus Pity considers the potential for goodness amidst the troubled relations between God, humanity, animals, parents and children...(it) contemplates the shame and beauty of existence; it is part apologia, part call to arms.” —D&B

91 minutes total.

Advance ticket purchase available through Brown Paper Tickets.  Click here to purchase!

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.