OCTOBER 11 TH—15 TH, 2017 SANTA CRUZ FILM FESTIVAL 2017 1 Inform. Welcome The Santa Cruz Film Festival celebrates its 15th year this season, and I’m honored for the opportunity to play a small part in this tradition, directing the festival for the 2nd year at the Entertain. Tannery Arts Center. Over the years the festival has seen changes and innovations to the program as well as special traditions maintained throughout it’s history. A tradition I’m proud to honor is the screening of fi lms in our Earth Vision category. Santa Cruz was home to an Earth Vision Film Festival for 10 years before the launch of the Santa Inspire. Cruz Film Festival, and we continue to keep that festival’s vision alive through a segment dedicated to environmental fi lms. Increasingly, independent fi lm is able to raise awareness about the preservation of our natural world through it’s use of engaging visual imagery – seeing the scenic beauty of our earth in fi lm has always had an impact — combined with documentary style story telling about what’s happening to our planet. This year we have several wonderful Earth Vision selections including a special short fi lm program with an ocean theme. So many artists call Santa Cruz home, that it is natural for our festival to attract artistic fi lms. With our new venue at the Tannery Arts Center, we’ve begun a new tradition for bringing more fi lms about the arts. This year we look at the art of fi lm from the insider’s vantage of a travelling fi lm festival in rural India with The Cinema Travellers, our opening fi lm. We’ve brought back a ground breaking fi lm Thelma and Louise, and a documentary fi lm that explores the resonance of that fi lm 25 years later. We have several fi lms exploring the life of the musician, and music takes on a special theme this year. Something you might not see in commercial theaters are fi lms featuring subjects with disabilities. This year’s festival includes several fi lms where we can fi nd inspiration from those who have overcome tremendous obstacles to live rich and rewarding lives. It just so happens our festival runs on Friday the 13th, and this year we’ve decided to give a nod to fi lmmakers who tell their stories through variety of fears and thrills. We hope you enjoy both our time tested traditions and artistic explorations in the 15th year of the Santa Cruz Film Festival. Catherine Segurson Director Santa Cruz Film Festival, 2017 GoodTimes.SC SantaCruz.com delighted sponsor of SANTA CRUZ FILM FESTIVAL 2017 3 Santa Cruz Film Festival The Colligan Theater Oasis Tasting Room Located at 1010 River street, The Colligan Theater has 182 seats and Kitchen with two aisles and more distance between rows for better 415 River St, near the Tannery Arts Center is a leg room. With a higher rise from one row to the next there multifaceted, warehouse-chic bar & kitchen with is a better view of action on the stage. Inside you’ll enjoy the shareable New American bites & local brews. spacious lobby with concessions bar, and outside you’ll find a beautifully landscaped patio and garden, relics of the old Tannery, Oasis will be hosting our opening night party along and also dozens of free adjacent parking spaces exclusively for with Uncommon Brewery and Hallcrest Winery. theater patrons. The Dead Cow Cafe Courtyard and Corridor Theaters at Located on the center courtyard of the Tannery Arts Center, the Tannery World Dance Centers the café offers a variety of creatively inspired appetizers, salads, flatbread pizzas, sandwiches, and deserts. The bar menu includes Tannery World Dance & Cultural Center is a studio, performance, a variety of creative cocktails named after artists, as well as wine, and cultural space housed inside the Tannery Arts Center, right champagne, and craft beers. The Dead Cow is open daily from on the main courtyard. We’re calling it our “Courtyard Theater.” 11:00-9:00pm. This unique hub is surrounded by loft artists, galleries, sculptures, and the Dead Cow Cafe. The Black Box theater, we’ve named our “Corridor Theater” situated in the corridor between the cafe and the art studios is home to professional dance artists from all over the world. We have code-accessed, clean, public restrooms and ample, free parking! Radius Art Gallery Radius Gallery is a professional art venue and gallery at the Tannery Arts Center showcasing the work of local, regional and international artists. Curated exhibitions are year-round and present all art disciplines. Radius Gallery is also available to rent for events, receptions, workshops, and other creative projects. This year we will be hosting educational panels, tech demon- strations, and evening DJ parties during the festival. Our Italian themed closing party and awards ceremony will be in the gallery. 4 SANTA CRUZ FILM FESTIVAL 2017 SANTA CRUZ FILM FESTIVAL 2017 5 4 Wheel Bob A Life In Waves DOCUMENTARY FEATURE DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Colligan Plaza Theater 4:45 pm, 1 hr 12 mins Courtyard Theater 4:45 pm Saturday, October 14 Thursday, October 12 Scheduled to attend: Tal Skloot (director), Synopsis: A Life in Bob Coomber (subject) Waves explores the life and innovations of Synopsis: 4 Wheel Bob tells the story of Bob composer and electronic Coomber, an intrepid adventurer who sets music pioneer, Suzanne out to be the first wheelchair hiker to cross Ciani. the 11,845 foot Kearsarge Pass in the Sierra Nevada. Director: Brett Whit- comb is an award-win- For Bob in his wheelchair, this adventuring is ning filmmaker from fraught with danger. He must deal continu- Houston, TX. His credits include, “The Rock-afire Explosion,” “GLOW: The Story of the Gor- ally with altitude sickness and the threat of geous Ladies of Wrestling,” and “County Fair, Texas.” Most recently, Brett served as producer on diabetic coma, not to mention possible fatal Peter Berg’s 10-part docu-series, QB1: Beyond the Lights. or crippling falls in the steep terrain. This story of overcoming immense obstacles will inspire us to look at our own self-imposed limitations and perhaps reach beyond what we think is possible. A Moving Image SCREENING WITH: NARRATIVE FEATURE Pittari Colligan Plaza Theater 4:45 pm, ANIMATION Thursday, October 12 4 mins Synopsis: A Moving Image is an award winning Synopsis: A horned creature’s destructive rampage is halted by a stubborn adversary. Loosely multimedia feature film about gentrification in based on Tom Robbin’s depiction of Tanuki, a Japanese mythical creature known for his mischief, Brixton, incorporating fiction, documentary and “Pittari” is scored to an old phonographic gospel recording to help illustrate a relentless resistan- performance art. We follow Nina, a young stifled ce to the creature’s gritty penetration. artist, as she returns to her community after a long absence - she is soon painted as a symbol of Director: Animator Patrick Smith is known for his bizarre hand-drawn interpretations of human gentrification. As she struggles with her own emotions and identity. His formative years were spent as a storyboard artist for Walt Disney, and complicity, we follow her mission to create a piece other major studios in New York and Los Angeles. “Pittari” is his seventh independent short. of art that can bring her community together. On her journey we speak to real people affected by gentrification in Brixton, blurring the line between reality and fiction. Director: Shola Amoo is a graduate of the National Film and Television School. His graduate film Touch won Shooting People’s Film of The Month competition, chosen by Oscar nominated cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto. Touch also toured the UK as part of The BFI’s Sci-Fi season. Shola’s debut Feature is the multimedia Film A Moving Image. SCREENING WITH: The Curious End to the War Against Ourselves LOCAL SHORT California premiere 6 mins 6 SANTA CRUZ FILM FESTIVAL 2017 SANTA CRUZ FILM FESTIVAL 2017 7 Scheduled to attend: Andrew Purchin (director), Michael Reinhold (co director/editor), Stu television series, movies for television, and cable television features in association with CBS Wilson (sound design) Entertainment Productions. Currently, NuHouse develops projects independently. He is the Co-Producer/Director of the documentary film, Agents of Change. Synopsis: How do we not hate the hater? Armed with art supplies and a 170 foot linen scroll, an artist and psychotherapist and his team provided relief from the frenzy at the 2016 Republican and Democratic National Conventions. About 150 people listened to a guided art making me- ditation while marking and dancing on the canvas. Just about everybody reported feeling more calm. And a number of people noticed how they became less judgmental towards those whom Rain the Color of Blue with A Little Red In It they disagreed with. (Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai) Director: Andrew Purchin is an interdisciplinary artist, psychotherapist and filmmaker whose NARRATIVE FEATURE practice brings him on art making pilgrimages to places and events such as the Apple Store, Corridor Theater 7 pm, 1 hr 15 mins presidential inaugurations, political conventions and funerals. Saturday, October 14 Synopsis: A revolutio- nary story of guitars, motorcycles, cell phones, Agents of Change and the music of a new DOCUMENTARY FEATURE generation in Nigeria. Courtyard Theater 4:45 pm, 1 hr 5 mins The film is called Saturday, October 14 Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai—a Tuareg Scheduled to attend: Frank R. Dawson (co-director) phrase that literally Synopsis: Agents of translates to “rain the Changes examines the color of blue with a little untold story of racial red in it” (the Tuareg are conditions on college a semi-nomadic Berber campuses that led to group in North Africa, protests across the and their language, also country at over 1000 known as Tamashek, has no word for the color purple).