2008 — San Francisco Frozen Film Festival (SFFFF)

Congratulations to our 2008 Frozen Filmmaker Winners:

Best Skate/Surf Film: ARCHY, by Bill Ballard
Best Music Documentary: NERDCORE FOR LIFE, by Daniel Lamoureux
Best Filmstock Film: GUSTAV BRAUSTACHE AND THE AUTO-DEBILITATOR, by Rob Cunningham, Tony Mullen
Best Digital Film: EL SENOR PRESIDENTE, by Romulo Guardia Granier
Best Feature Documentary: RFK, by Mark Sobel
Best Short Documentary: THE FROZEN CITY, by Alex Perez
Best Animation: AMMA by, Aparna Kapur
Best First Time Director: THE SEED, by Joe Hahn
Best Student Director: DOXOLOGY, by Michael Langan
Best Music Video: DENARDO (Faction of the Fox), by Mike Alfini
Best International Film: MANHATTAN PICTURES, by Ruben Lopez

San Francisco Frozen Film Festival

LINK to Schedule PDF
2008 Film Screening Schedule

Friday, July 11th, 2008
Roxie Theatre
S.F., CA

5:30pm, Friday July 11th
Archy
Running Time: 1:23:00

ARCHY documents the highs and lows of iconic surfer Matt Archbold over the last 25 years of his career. From advancing the evolution of aerials in surfing to tackling the massive Tubes at Off The Wall on tiny boards, Archy has been instrumental in the evolution of surfing almost every facet in the sport. The childhood prodigy, poster child paid the price for the limelight, dealing with drug and alcohol addictions that rival that of legends for the last 20 years.

7:00pm, Friday July 11th
RFK
Running Time: 1:28:00

This first contemporary theatrical feature film documentary about the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 and an examination of the subsequent trial of Sirhan Sirhan for the murder, is a detailed and controversial account that begins with the RFK assassination starting from the night of June 4, 1968 and follows the developments in the case over the next 4 decades.

8:35pm, Friday July 11th
Four Short Documentaries
Running Time: 1:40:00

(1) The Ghost In The Material
Running Time: 5:00

An outsider's look at the black and white world of pen and ink artist William Noguera.

(2) The Forgotten
Running Time: 12:00

For 5 years now the Ivory Coast has been in the middle of a brutal civil war. The people find themselves caught in the crossfire. Simple wounds become lethal and the people are left with no hope for a brighter future. A group of 40 doctors and nurses travel into the heart of the turmoil, behind rebel lines, to provide medical attention to these forgotten people.

(3) Carissa
Running Time: 23:00

Years ago, Carissa Phelps was abandoned in the lobby of the juvenile hall in Fresno. She ran away from group homes and ended up on the streets. Homeless and alone, she begged and stole to feed herself. With no one to turn to, Carissa was taken to ?Motel Drive,? a street in Fresno known for prostitution, and told what to do. She was twelve years old. Amazingly, Carissa turned her life around. Today she is a graduate student at UCLA, earning a law degree and an MBA at the same time. 'Carissa' recounts Carissa's inspirational story as we travel back with her to the places where it happened.

(4) Nobody
Running Time: 60:00

In the winter of 2001, a drifter walked into the Memphis Coast Guard station seeking a boat to take on the Mississippi River. He spoke about a red-haired vixen named Mitzi, a Midwestern steel shop where he worked 90 hours a week, and an epic journey down four rivers from Marion, Indiana to Memphis, Tennessee. Jerry Bell, the central character of Nobody, neglected to tell the Coast Guard that he made his trip to Memphis in an inflatable canoe – a canoe that he and his friends earned by smoking 20,000 cigarettes. When his canoe snagged a tree branch, Jerry patched it with duct tape to stop it from sinking. Coast guard Lt. Dale Folsom introduced Jerry to filmmakers Lance Murphey and Alan Spearman. A few months later, a tragic phone call sent Jerry hurtling over the edge – and sent us on a five-year journey that would transform all of our lives. The result is a deeply personal portrait of a man running from his demons while finding grace in unlikely places.

10:25pm, Friday July 11th
Best Animated Shorts & Best Music Video 2008
Total Running Time: 1:24:00

Closing Friday night's activities is the always wild Animation Program:
At 10:25, S.F. will be treated to a collection of crazy, sexy, raunchy, and heartbreaking animated shorts from India, Japan, California, and beyond. These 11 animated films involve stick figure animation, computer generated, stop-motion, bubble wrap (you heard it right), and include the 2008 "Best Music Video" winner. For adults (take the kids out half-way through when you see the naked stop motion). Last year's winner won at Sundance, so the Frozen Film Festival has their finger on the animation pulse (and after all S.F. is Pixar, Lucas, and (now) Zemeckis country).

(1) Amma, by. Aparna Kapur
Running time: 5:21

Amma is a poetic narration of a young girl’s life and her deeply rooted relationship with her grandmother. Rendered in rich monochromatic shades, the animated film is far from singular in the moods and stories that it evokes. One is magically transported into the warmth of the filmmaker’s craft, which is one of simplicity and honesty. The film explores the deep symbiotic relationship shared between the child and her grandmother and how their love for each other surpasses this physical world.

(2) Doxology by. Michael Langan
Running Time: 6:10

An experimental comedy about tennis, dancing cars, and God. Before reaching spiritual enlightenment, one sweater-vested young man must face a dancing Oldsmobile, endure a boozy encounter with God on a frozen tundra, and brush his teeth, comb his hair, floss, Q-Tip, lather and shave simultaneously. 'Doxology' combines groundbreaking stop-motion animation techniques and unusual storytelling with the time-honored quest for spiritual awakening. The result is the experimental piece that Animation World Network calls 'a well-crafted, truly strange and highly atmospheric film that dares to ask the big questions.'

(3) Simulacra
Running Time: 4:06

A futuristic world where natural life is extinct and only machines and robots live.

(4) Fantaisie in Bubblewrap
Running Time: 4:21

An animation/live-action hybrid in which the audience is offered a glimpse into the lives of a society of vocal bubblewrap.

(5) Phobias
Running Time: 4:00

A sixteen year old students stop animation film about life and phobias.

(6) Marcelino and Bartolomeo, Present: “Bye-Bye”
Running Time 1:34

Marcelino and Bartolomeo are playing an old computer video game at their office when they are supposed to be working. Unfortunately, their boss shows up!

(7) Sweet Dreams
Running Time: 9:56

A cupcake obsessed with boats builds one himself and sets sail, leaving behind his world of sugar cube skyscrapers and frosting-covered friends. After a violent shipwreck in a foreign land, the cupcake finds himself adapting to a new way of life alongside fruits and vegetables and discovers love with a native squash...

(8) Walter
Running Time: 3:23
The story of Walter, a fun animated character and his affection for something new.

(9) “Denardo”, by Faction of the Fox (Best Music Video)
Running time: 2:07

2008 SFFFF Best Music Video of the group Faction of the Fox!
A world of hidden identities through paper bag masks full of energy.

(10) Red Princess Blues
Running time: 7:00

An animated short film prequel to Alex Ferrari’s upcoming feature film Red Princess Blues. This tale is about a 12 year old little girl who finds herself in a strange country looking for her father. The film is completely from the perspective of Princess and what she is going through.

(11) Karaoke Show
Running time: 4:30

A mixture between sauna and disco, as a man imagines himself a rock star. Animation filmmakers usually like to stand behind the camera rather than in front of it. At the age of 14, Karl Tebbe badly wanted to be able to dance like Michael Jackson. But you either have rhythm in your blood or you don't. Now, 22 years later, stop-motionanimation has allowed him to finally fulfill his lifelong dream.

(12) Teat Beat of Sex
Running time: 4:00

A movie composed of short explicitly educational lectures on sex from a woman's point of view.

Saturday, July 12th, 2008
Roxie Theatre
S.F., CA

1:15pm, Saturday July 12th
Baseball Documentary and Short Film
Total Running Time: 1:17:00

(1) Gandhi at the Bat (Short Film)
Running Time: 11:00

For decades, historians have searched for evidence of Mohandas K. Gandhi’s top-secret trip to the United States in 1933. At President Roosevelt’s request, all contemporary accounts were suppressed and no records have ever been found – until film historians unearthed this never-before-seen newsreel footage of Gandhi’s legendary (and totally fictional) visit to Yankee Stadium.

(2) PlayByPlayMen And The Art of the Perfect Call
Running Time: 1:06:00

'The pitch on the way. It's a long drive into center field! It's way back! It could be! It might be! A home run!
Holy cow! They’re the storytellers of those warm summer nights, for kids of all ages who never had the chance to get near a major league ballpark, but instead cradled radios against their ears to hear the calls of America’s favorite pastime – baseball. PlayByPlayMen and the art of the perfect call is a documentary film devoted to those broadcasters who dedicate their lives to making that perfect call. With their hearts in radio, sit beside them in the press box at major league stadiums for an insider’s look at the art and craft of the play-by-play.

2:45pm, Saturday July 12th

Experimental Art House Shorts
Total Running Time 1:23:00

The Frozen Film Festival's experimental Art House shorts dazzle with dance film, poets, a hilarious yoga spoof, interesting art house shorts, a German wild comedy, and an amazing display of over 600 screams from 600 classic films edited together as a Cantata in C minor.

(1) The Travelogues
Explorations into the monotonous non-events that comprise and compose the human condition in respect to language, perception, and projection, while re-appropriating the American ideal in travel and the Other.
Running Time: 5:50

(2) Corridor
Modern dance short film shot locally in San Francisco.
Running Time: 3:45

(3) Portrait Of The Poet As A Young Dog

Running Time: 11:00

(4) OM

During a hot Manhattan day, We explore the inward thoughts of students during a yoga class, and how that chaos intertwines to that of a bike messenger blasting through the city streets..
Running Time: 15:15

(5) Supermover

Running Time: 4:52

(6) Gustav Braustache and the Auto-Debilitator

Shot in beautiful black and white 16mm film and sprinkled with eye-popping stop-motion animation effects, Gustav Braustache and the Auto-Debilitator is a surreal and hilarious look at the trials and tribulations of an oddball inventor and his bizarre inventions.
Running Time: 23:00

(7) Die Flugbegleiterin

Where desire ends and addiction begins. A film about the amount of food in a society which has lost its proportions, about the work of people, who don't know anymore, what their calling is.
Running Time: 11:19

(8) Cantana in C Major

Six-hundred-five film clips are assembled and used to create a piece of electronic music.
Running Time: 7:30

4:15pm, Saturday July 12th
A Collection of Pop Culture Short Documentaries
Total Running Time: 1:49:37

(1) The Frozen City

For eight consecutive years, Winnipeg, Manitoba, the coldest city on earth with a population greater than 600,000, has been crowned “Slurpee Capital of the World” by 7-Eleven for consuming more Slurpees than anywhere else on the globe. Welcome to the Frozen City.
Running Time: 20:37

(2) Nerdcore For Life

Nerdcore For Life profiles the fascinating and tumultuous world of Nerdcore Hip-Hop. Born on the internet, 'geek rap' is breaking out into the real world at a lightning pace. Filmed over the course of two years, the documentary follows the top names in this new genre as they celebrate 'Geek Life' and their love of hip-hop to the fullest, fight anti-nerd stereotypes and attempt to overcome the common obstacles that block musicians of all genres from fulfilling their dreams.
Running Time: 1:24:00

(3)
The Outhouse (Short Film)

The story of a 60-something woman and her backyard outhouse.

6:10pm, Saturday July 12th
Feature Film
El Senor Presidente

A country that falls apart amidst the degradation of a shameful tyranny and the levels of decomposition of a corrupted society, both opposed to a tragic love story that seems doomed from inception, are the key plot lines of 'El Se?or Presidente'. Based on the Latin American classic 'El Se?or Presidente' written by Miguel Angel Asturias, Nobel Laureate 1967, the film is considered a faithful adaptation of what is defined by critics as Asturia's master piece. The story develops in a fictitious country 'anywhere in Latin America', where irrationality rules, degradation is the law, justice is a mockery and the political and military clique enjoy themselves amidst corruption, while abusing their fellow citizens under total impunity.
Running Time: 2:05

8:25pm, Saturday July 12th
Best Dramatic Shorts
Running Time 2:03:00

The 2008 Best Dramatic Shorts selection is exquisite. Featuring films from Spain, France, Hungary, and San Francisco, this amazing collection of 8 short films involves love, death, travel, drugs, kung-fu (yup), and time travel. Featuring the first film from acclaimed commercial director Attila Szasz- no doubt the best Hungarian film you've ever seen (a wild thriller) that ends the program.

(1) Diary of a User (Short Film)
A spoken word dramatic short film.
Running Time: 4:16

(2) Louis & Anne (Short Film)

Past and present intertwine in this retro-futuristic love story as Louis returns to Paris on the eve of the end of the world to reconcile with Anne and convince her to come with him.
Running Time: 8:16

(3) Manhattan Pictures (Short Film)

Some years after her father died in New York on 9/11, Andrea (played by KIRA MIRO) visits the city for the first time. Accompanied by her friend Gabriel (played by JORGE MONJE), Andrea tours Manhattan guided by the pictures of a scrapbook her father made.
Running Time: 16:00

(4) Evidence (Short Film)

Evidence, follows the journey of Jordan, of a troubled young woman, whose job processing applications for 'Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance' leads to an obsession with her own mortality. After her life is saved by a mysterious stranger, a man who recounts the story of a local artist's death, Jordan is inspired to create a tribute to the artist's life, and in so doing finds purpose in her own.
Running Time 10:45

(5) Character Driven (Short Film)

A video editor’s world is turned inside-out when he comes into possession of production footage showing that he is actually a
character in an action thriller.
Running Time: 21:01

(6) The Seed (Short Film)

SUNG (Will Yun Lee) is a homeless veteran losing his mind on the banks of the L.A. River. Pursued by unseen forces, fighting unseen foes, Sung is ostensibly 'just another lunatic.' But as his invisible war continues, under bridges and in tunnels, we are taken deeper and deeper into Sung's nightmare mind. Into a nightmare of conspiracy, cloaking and the government's unseen war. Sung struggles to fight through what is visible to him, yet invisible to the world around him. Ordinarily, someone like this is perceived as 'crazy'. Beyond what we can see, beyond what we don't want to, lies...THE SEED
Running Time: 12:06

(7) February Stars (Short Film)

A young deaf man is on his way home to take care of his bed-stricken grandmother when he has a chance encounter with someone who might change his life.
Running Time: 10:59

(8) Now You See Me Now You Don’t (Short Film)

10:40pm, Saturday July 12th
(2nd Showing)
Best Animated Shorts & Best Music Video 2008
Total Running Time: 1:24:00

Sat July 13th
10:00pm
Feature Film
The Fix

Shot in the first person by the actors in the film, Fix is a one day odyssey through the myriad worlds of Los Angeles as documentary filmmakers Bella (Wilde) and Milo (director Tao Ruspoli) race to get Milo's brother Leo (Andrews) from jail to rehab before 8pm, or Leo goes to prison for 3 years. Inspired by true events, we follow the trio as they document their trip from a suburban police station in Calabasas through mansions in Beverly Hills, east LA chop shops, rural wastelands, and housing projects in Watts as they attempt to raise the $5000 deposit required to get Leo into the rehab clinic. Along the way we meet dozens of colorful characters, each with their own unique perspective on Leo's larger than life personality and style, and each with their own excuse for why they cannot help out... In the end, it may take a drug deal to get the necessary funds for rehab.

The Dark Room Theater
2263 Mission St. SF CA 94110

Sunday July 13th
7pm
Feature Documentary
Total Time 1:12:00
More Shoes (Feature Documentary)

Legendary Filmmaker Werner Herzog, once said, “filmmakers should skip film school and instead make a journey alone on foot, let’s say from Madrid to Kiev… this journey would teach one more about what cinema truly means than would five years of sitting in classrooms.” It would take one dedicated, resourceful and crazy filmmaker to attempt such a feat. Meet Lee Kazimir. In More Shoes, Kazmir takes us on an amazing journey through the European countryside…on foot. Covering six months, seven countries and countless wild cats, Kazmir’s film discovers the extent of his own mettle while showing us the universal nature of humanity. Along the way he meets a cast of characters WGA members only dream of creating. From fabulous French café patrons to an elderly woman celebrating her birthday picking Asparagus by the train tracks, More Shoes displays the breath of life one can only experience by living it not just recording it. Life truly becomes art in this more than unique road movie.

LINK to Schedule PDF2008 Film Screening Schedule

LINK to Schedule PDF
2008 Film Screening Schedule