JUDGES

Past Judges

LORI PETTY

Lori Petty, a true Renaissance woman, has been an actress, a director, a writer, a painter, and a clothing designer, among other creative endeavours. She has played alongside Madonna and Geena Davis in A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, opposite Keanu Reeves in POINT BREAK, opposite Robin Williams in CADILLAC MAN, and alongside Gina Gershon in PREY FOR ROCK N' ROLL. Petty also played the title character in the post-apocalyptic cult classic TANK GIRL, based on the comic of the same name. Her long list of acting credits includes FREE WILLY, POETIC JUSTICE, THE GLASS SHIELD, BROKEN ARROWS, RICHARD III, and the television shows BOOKER, LUSH LIFE, SUPERMAN, BATMAN, and HEAD OF THE CLASS, as well as guest appearances in shows such as NYPD BLUE, CSI MIAMI, and ER.

Petty has more recently turned to directing her own feature films. HORRIBLE ACCIDENT, which she also wrote and starred in, premiered in 2001. THE POKER HOUSE, a drama set in 1976 and starring Selma Blair, David Alan Grier, and Petty, was recently completed.

Lori Petty is also an accomplished visual artist who has had a number of solo shows in Southern California. Petty's designer clothing line, Lawd Knows, features her original art on t-shirts, hoodies, yoga pants, and other casual wear. In 2004, Petty created custom t-shirts for A Season of Nonviolence, at the United Nations, depicting Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Lori Petty's artwork can be seen at her upcoming exhibit “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon,” a collection of mixed media paintings opening at the Deborah Page Gallery in Santa Monica on March 1.

www.loripetty.com

RY RUSSO-YOUNG

Ry Russo-Young’s first feature film ORPHANS won a special jury prize at the 2007 SXSW film festival. The film continues to screen at numerous festivals in the U.S. and abroad. Russo-Young’s short film MARION won the jury award for best experimental film at the 2006 SXSW film festival and at the 2005 International Chicago film festival. The film has played at many festivals and galleries and is now available through indiepix.net.

Russo-Young appeared as Rocco in Joe Swanberg’s HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS, which is currently being released by IFC First Take. She produced and directed a series of short films about neighborhoods and landmarks in New York City for the Discovery Channel and www.Turnhere.com. In addition, Russo-Young worked on artist Doug Aitken’s large-scale film installation SLEEPWALKERS that appeared on the exterior of the MoMA in New York in January of 2007.

In 2004, Russo-Young was featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in an article about growing up with lesbian mothers. She and her family also appeared in OUR HOUSE, an award-winning PBS documentary about gay families.

She is currently working on her next feature film, YOU WON’T MISS ME.

www.ryrussoyoung.com

JOAQUIN ALVARADO

Joaquin Alvarado is the Founding Director of the Institute for Next Generation Internet at San Francisco State University. The Institute focuses on technology, policy and community development in the Next Generation Internet environment. He also continues a life long commitment to independent media production through his role as President of the Board for the Bay Area Video Coalition and leading role on the City of San Francisco Digital Media Advisory Committee. Mr. Alvarado is also is an award winning Chicano filmmaker and holds a B.A. in Chicano Studies from UC Berkeley and an MFA from the UCLA School of Theatre, Film, and Television. He is the co-author of Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art, Vol. I & II, Bilingual Review Press (2002).

DEBORAH STRATMAN

Filmmaker Deborah Stratman works in a territory between experimental and documentary. In her films and frequent work in other media including photography, sound, drawing and sculpture, Stratman often explores the history, uses, mythologies and control of landscapes of varying types and scales: from Muslim Xinjiang China to gated suburban California. She is presently working on two new films about the milieu of elevated threat, patriotism, disappearance and the possibility of transcendence. She continues to solicit public responses about FEAR (to participate, call toll-free 1-800-585-1078) and teaches at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

BILL BROWN

Bill Brown makes movies about the dusty corners of North America . He has visited a UFO crash site near Roswell, New Mexico ; driven the Trans-Canada Highway; snooped around missile silos in North Dakota ;and gone hunting for ghosts in the hollows of West Virginia . Most recently, he followed the US-Mexico border from end to end. His films hover stylistically somewhere between ethnographic study, idiosyncratic travelogue, and critical essay. Currently, he is struggling to pay the rent in San Francisco.

http://www.geocities.com/dreamwhipzine/

http://www.peripheralproduce.com/artists/bill_brown.php

BILL BASQUIN

Bill Basquin started out in a small railroad town in north central Indiana. He moved to Wisconsin . Grew up. Started to take pictures. Built a lot of theatre sets. Worked for a photographer. Went to college. Drove a cab. Then moved to San Francisco in 1995 where he has since become an award-winning film director and lighting professional. He really likes the smell of vast acres of sheep shit on a damp day. His films are gritty and optimistic. He is searching for the fusion between urban and rural in his own life and he makes work that explores this point of contact.

http://www.billbasquin.com/

MELINDA STONE

She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego. She is the director of film projects for the Center for Land Use Interpretation, an art research organization dedicated to finding the common ground in matters of land use. She is currently finishing her dissertation at the University of California, San Diego. Her research attempts to highlight the importance of amateur film clubs in fostering a community of film makers interested in making cinema out of love, not profit.

Recently she has been directing site-specific outdoor film screenings in which the featured attraction is the confluence of the surrounding landscape as it appears cinematically and in real time.

Melinda's California Tour limited edition DVD is available for purchase through Microcinema International: microcinema.com. Available soon through Microcinema International and Exploratorium is her latest DVD entitled A Trip Down Market 1905/2005. I will be on tour throughout 2006/07 with my films and selections from The California Tour and A Trip Down Market with a show entitled "I'll Show You Mine if You Show Me Yours."

VANESSA RENWICK

A cinematic rabble-rouser. Right now she is working on 2 long docs, Critter and Lovejoy, which both have been in the works for 7 years running, 2 short portrait series films, and a video installation. Oh yeah, and another short as well. Her work roller coasters from pretty silly to super grim, and she finds herself more attracted to the grim stuff, but she is trying to lead a more peaceful life, and the balance will be coming out in her new work, hopefully! She also has two kids and a dog and has just started cooking up a storm for the first time in her life. Bicycles figure prominantly in her life in Portland ,Oregon. Her favorite quote is by Joshua Slocum:

To young men contemplating a journey, I would say GO.

Vanessa Renwick

Oregon Department Of Kick Ass http://www.odoka.org

MATT McCORMICK

An award winning filmmaker and director from Portland, Oregon. He is also the founder of the video label Peripheral Produce and is the director of the Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival. When not completely immersed in cinematic endeavors, Matt may be found making music under the guise of The Coast Starlight and/or Very Stereo.

Matt's films blur the lines between documentary and experimental practices. His films combine found and original sounds and images to fashion abstract and witty observations of contemporary culture and current issues. His work has screened in film festivals, art museums, and micro-cinemas around the globe, aired on MTV and the Sundance Channel, and has received positive reviews from the likes of The New York Times and Film Comment magazine. Matt has worked and collaborated with many artists and musicians, including The Shins, Miranda July, Sleater Kinney, The Postal Service, and Calvin Johnson. Matt has had three films screen at the Sundance Film Festival, and has received awards including Best Short Film from the San Francisco International Film Fest, Best Experimental from the New York Underground Film Fest, and Grand Prize from the Media City Film Fest. His film 'The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal' was also named as one of the 'Top 10 Films of 2002' by both The Village Voice and Art Forum magazine.

In 1996, Matt started Peripheral Produce, a screening series and video-label that produces and distributes compilation tapes and DVDs of short experimental film and videos. The Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival, an off shoot of Peripheral Produce, was started in 2001 as a way to not only showcase Peripheral Produce artists, but to bring new, innovative work to Portland audiences.

http://www.rodeofilmco.com

NAOMI UMAN

Celebrated experimentalist Naomi Uman is an independent filmmaker in the truest sense: she films, processes and edits her own films by hand.

Her work has been shown at festivals around the world and has received many awards, including the Golden Spire Award for New Visions at the 1999 San Francisco Film Festival for her experimental documentary of rural Mexican farm life, LECHE (1998).

Her film REMOVED (1999) (featuring found footage of a 1970s soft porn film from which Uman has physically removed the female actress) premiered at the 1999 New York Film Festival and won both the first prize, fiction category at Videoerotic and second prize, Juror's Citation at Black Maria.

Other notable work includes MALA LECHE, the sequel to LECHE, HAND-EYE COORDINATION (2002), DEVELOPING MEMORY (2002), PRIVATE MOVIE (2000) and GRASS (1998).

She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002. Once a personal chef to the likes of Gloria Vanderbuilt and Calvin Klein, Uman left this esteemed position to forge her well-respected place in independent art cinema. Based in Los Angeles and Mexico City, she has also taught summer sessions at CalArts.

DOUG WOLENS

Doug Wolens has been involved with filmmaking for over 12 years. After earning two BA degrees, a law degree, and spending seven years practicing law in New York and California, Doug became a filmmaker in 1993. He started out working on feature film sets and for commercial production companies, learning the skills necessary to create high quality projects. At the same time, Doug began making his own independent films.

His short films, HAPPY LOVING COUPLES (1993) REVERSAL (1994) and IN FRAME (1995) have screened at film festivals throughout the world including Sundance, Seattle, and Mill Valley.

Doug successfully self-distributed his feature documentaries WEED (1996) and BUTTERFLY (2000) with theatrical screenings in over 80 cities. BUTTERFLY was broadcast nationally on P.O.V. (PBS's award winning non-fiction showcase).

Currently, he is working on two new documentaries.

Wolens teaches film classes at San Francisco State University's Multimedia Studies Program and taught at the Academy of Art College of San Francisco. He has also been a guest lecturer at Parson's School of Design, Loyola Marymount, and University of Alaska. Wolens also acts as a consultant to other filmmakers.

Link: www.i-maginemedia.com

CRAIG BALDWIN

Craig Baldwin was born in Oakland and lives in San Francisco. While studying in the Department of Cinema at San Francisco State University, he became increasingly drawn to creating films from already existing footage.

Baldwin's films represent a political engagement with film, both the physical medium and the cultural manifestation. His practice challenges notions of the individual as a singular source of 'creative genius' - suggesting on the contrary that creativity is open to everybody - and they also raise important questions concerning the 'authenticity' of the document, and the meaning of copyright and so-called "piracy."

Baldwin teaches at San Francisco State University and organizes film screenings at A.T.A. (Artists' Television Access) Gallery, an oppositional, underground screening space in San Francisco's Mission District.

Filmography:

• STOLEN MOVIE(1976): recordings on Super 8 of films playing in movie theaters
• WILD GUNMAN(1978): a diatribe against the Marlboro Man and the idea of the cowboy
• ROKETKITKONGOKIT (1986): the history of the Congo, Mobutu, the CIA, and German rockets
• TRIBULATION 99 (1991): UFO's, dinosaurs, plagues, mind control, CIA and American imperialism
• O NO CORONADO! (1992): the genocidal march of the Conquistadors through the Americas
• SONIC OUTLAWS (1995): the cultural homogeny of the entertainment industry & its subversion by media pranksters
• SPECTRES OF THE SPECTRUM (1999): a telepathic father-daughter team lead media outlaws in resistance against a corporate-governmental New Electromagnetic Order

Link: www.othercinema.com

CHEL WHITE

Chel White has been working as an independent filmmaker for 20 years. With a background in animation and experimental film, his short films consistently defy categorization.

Chel's work explores such psychological territories as obsession, alienation, fetishism, transcendence, death, and childhood memories. Dreams are an important resource for him, bringing mystery and metaphor into his work. White also draws on the tension between modern industrial culture and the human condition, creating a haunting search for meaning in the age of science. Yet many of his films are darkly humorous, with a whimsical and Dada-like spirit.

From Sundance to Berlin, Chel White's short films have been exhibited in film festivals all over the world, and recognized with many awards. His film, Dirt, shown in 50 film festivals, received the prize for Best Short Film at the 1998 Stockholm International Film Festival, and was a jury selection in the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. Soulmate, completed in 2000, won a Best Film Award from the 2000 Northwest Film Festival, and Best Narrative Film from the 2001 Big Muddy and Humboldt film festivals. Both films are based on stories by National Public Radio personality Joe Frank.

Chel White is a graduate of Antioch University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Visual Arts. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

KEVIN PEER

Kevin Peer is a teller of tales who has been sharing stories through the making of documentary films for 20 years. His work has been seen by audiences around the world and has garnered over 40 national and international film festival awards. His experience includes five years as a filmmaker for the National Park Service and four years as a staff producer/ director/cameraman for National Geographic EXPLORER.

The subjects explored in his films have ranged from Zen archery to the nuclear testing program in the Bikini Atoll and from the wilderness of Alaska to the Wodaabe tribe of Niger, West Africa. The goal of Kevin's work has always been to reveal the underlying essence of whatever subject he is dealing with, whether it be grizzly bears or Zen, and to portray this essence in a compelling, original, and inspiring manner.

In addition to his work in creating films and videos, Kevin writes, teaches, and leads workshops on nonfiction filmmaking as a path of embracing and celebrating the sacredness of life. These workshops help to prepare participants for exploring this "sacred cinema" as a powerful and far-reaching form of personal and cultural expression.

Kevin also gives film/lecture presentations of his work, with a focus on the spiritual and creative dimensions of the film storytelling process. His presentations offer a combination of humor, warmth, and vivid stories of adventure and have endeared him to audiences around the country.

GB HAJIM

GB Hajim was raised in Cos Cob, Connecticut. He attended the University of California at San Diego where he eventually taught classes in Ethnographic Filmmaking, Polynesian Art, and African Film. While doing field studies in the Kingdom of Tonga and Western Samoa, he shot two documentaries faitoka and kava tonga. The latter received much financial support from various entities including the Russell Foundation and CIEE Scholarship Fund. In 1989, he received his BA in Visual Arts with a focus on animation, video and filmmaking. Before he graduated, he interned at the San Diego Supercomputing Center, testing and helping develop the first ALIAS/Wavefront 3D animation system.

After some practical experience in Mexico and Canada, GB enrolled in the M.A. Filmmaking program at California State University in Humboldt. At graduate school, he focused on directing narrative and experimental films. His thesis film about impending fatherhood ...first days on earth... won the Rosebud Award for Best Experimental Film at the California State Film and Video festival.

BARBARA KLUTINIS

Guest filmmaker Barbara Klutinis graduated with masters in film production from San Francisco State University (SFSU) in 1986. Since then she has created a body of experimental work using a process that she describes as, "A blend of optical printing, hand coloring and hand processing." Her films, including, Wind/Water/Wings (1995), and Journey, Swiftly Passing (2000), have been screened at a wide selection of film festivals, and have won such awards as Best Experimental Film (Philadelphia Film Festival), and Best in Festival (California Independent Film and Video Festival) respectively. Barbara Klutinis now teaches at Skyline College and SFSU while currently living with her husband and sons in San Francisco.

Films and Awards:

• Pools, 1981 (Co-produced with Barbara Hammer)
• Trumpet Garden, 1983
• Still Life with Barbie, 1986
• Wind/Water/Wings, 1995
• Journey, Swiftly Passing, 2000
• Ashes to Ashes: The Work of Rebecca Haseltine, 2001

ANDREW GARRISON

Award winning independent filmmaker Andrew Garrison began his career co-founding a political media production and distribution group. Later he moved on to Eastern Kentucky to work with the internationally renowned media arts organization Appalshop. There he was Director of Photography on 39 of the 93 films in Appalshop's catalog. His own work has earned him fellowships from The American Film Institute, The National Endowment for the Arts and the J. Simon Guggenheim Foundation. For his fiction film, The Wilgus Stories, The Council on Foundations presented him the Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Film and Digital Media. Currently Andrew Garrison is teaching film and video production at the University of Texas at Austin where he is also the Film and Audio Production Head.

Films and Awards

• The Wilgus Stories
• One Ring Circus
• Heroes and Strangers
• Portraits & Dreams
• Paul Laurence Dunbar
• Atomic America
• We Will Not Be Moved
• Why Aren't You Smiling

ROGER BLONDER

While suffering from the study of quantitative economics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), Roger Blonder became interested in the art of independent animation and poetry. After completing an undergraduate degree in Management Science from UCSD and a Masters in Fine Arts from the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television, Animation Workshop, Blonder went on to develop and interactive museum installation for the Skirball Cultural Center. He also worked in the start-up art department of DreamWorks Interactive. Roger Blonder then focused his full time efforts on his short animated film The Common Sense of the Wisdom Tree, which has screened in over 25 festivals and won six major awards. He is currently teaching the animation and new media courses at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Films and Awards

• The Common Sense of the Wisdom Tree, 1998
• Best Experimental Animated Film. California Sun International Animation Festival May 1998
• Best of the Fest-Animation. Rhode Island International Film Festival - August 1998
• GAIA film Prize. Wine Country Film Festival, Napa, California, July 1998
• Audience Favorite. Chicago International Children's Film Festival - October 1999
• TreeMan, 1994
• Student Academy Awards Regional Finalist
• Sow N' Till, 1994
• Train of Thought, 1992
• Patchen Award for Best Animated Film. Cine-Poetry Festival, San Francisco 1996
• Stress Dream, 1990

FRANAOIS MIRON

Working since 1982, Franaois Miron has mastered the film image manipulation technique known as optical printing (the re-photographing of film to achieve various special effects). In addition to his highly awarded and highly acclaimed body of short experimental films, Mr. Miron has produced music videos, done feature film title sequence designs, experimented with still photography and worked on short narrative films. He has also taught optical printing and various technical aspects of filmmaking since 1993 at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema in Montreal. Mr. Miron's films have gained recognition and acclaim throughout his career. In 2001 Resolving Power, a surrealist cinematic oddity exploring the subconscious, the metaphorical, the absurd and the insane, was awarded Best Cinematography at the MicroCineFest in Baltimore. The Evil Surprise, a psychedelic found footage optical printing collage manifesto about social conditioning, won Best Experimental at the 1994 Ann Arbor Film Festival; What Ignites Me, Extinguishes Me, an industrial self portrait about mindscape and architecture, won Best Experimental at the Illinois Film and Video Artist Film Festival in 1990. His student film, 4x Horizontal, 4x Vertical, won Best Experimental at the Montreal World Film Festival. He has also had five of his films screened at the Humboldt Film Festival over the years.

TAMI GOLD

Tami Gold is a documentary video and filmmaker who has produced and directed more than 20 films on: AIDS, gender, feminist and labor issues, drug addiction and Vietnam veterans. Ms. Gold has been haled as a passionate filmmaker seeking to broaden and deepen discussion and awareness about critical issues affecting diverse communities throughout the world. Audiences and students won't want to miss the work of this woman who is "committed to the creation and dissemination of fiction and nonfiction films and videos about the complex lives of working people." Throughout her career Ms. Gold's films have been recognized and awarded for their excellence. Her HBO special Out At Work: America Undercover won the 2000 GLAAD Media Award for Best Documentary. Another Brother, a documentary about an African American Vietnam Veteran won a Gold Hugo Award from the Chicago International Film Festival in 1998. Her groundbreaking documentary about working-class gay men and women on the job Out At Work: Lesbian and Gay Men on the Job, premiered at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival and was then broadcast in Poland, Germany, France and Italy.

SHELLIE FLEMING

Shellie Fleming has offered her insight and expertise to the independent film world for the last twenty years. Focusing on short format personal experimental films, she has addressed and explored a wide range of topics: from AIDS to the destructive aspects of human behavior. With her devotion to the single author approach to filmmaking, students and audiences are sure to gain some fascinating insight and information from this excellent experimental filmmaker. Ms. Fleming, an Associate Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has been the recipient of a variety of awards and grants throughout her career. In 2000 her film Life/ Expectancy, a meditation on a woman's mid-life search for meaning, was awarded Director's Choice Award and National Tour at the Black Maria Film and Video Festival. In 2001 Ms. Fleming was awarded Teacher of the Year at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Ornithology, a visual poem with an implicit criticism of the murderous charge within academic life, won the Peter Wilde Award for most Technically Innovative in 1996 at the Ann Arbor Film Festival.

DANNY PLOTNICK

Danny Plotnick earns a living as the Director of Seminars for the Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco. The rest of his time is spent maintaining his reputation as the King of Super-8 in the underground film community.

Over the past fifteen years, Danny has completed 17 films on the much-maligned super-8 film format and is often called upon for his expertise in the area. Back in the days when Super-8 film was still available with magnetic sound, Plotnick was shooting featurette length movies in a week, editing them by hand in his kitchen, and exhibiting them himself at places like The House of Low Self-Esteem, Bloodshot Caf, The Knitting Factory and the Howling Frog Cafe.

When Danny isnt making movies of his own, he can be found teaching teenagers how to shoot and edit their own Super-8 films at Bay Area high schools and the California State Summer School for the Arts. He also travels several times a year to exhibit his films in a variety of underground film festivals. He has just recently completed his second tour of Holland and Germany covering nine cities in ten days.

His delightfully demented Pipsqueak Pfollies won the Banana Slug Award for Surrealism at the 29th HIFF. Danny recently switched to 16mm film, which he jokingly refers to as the next dying format. Swingers Serenade (1999) is a tawdry interpretation of an amateur movie script, found in a 1950s home-movie magazine and was awarded the Jurors Choice Award by Alexander Payne at the 33rd HIFF.

The Humboldt International Film Festival has always been a receptive venue for Danny's films. We were excited to have him here as a Juror for the 34th HIFF.

WALTER UNGERER

Walter Ungerer is one of the original talents from 1960s underground film movement. He has been creating experimental films for over three decades and continues to explore new techniques in filmmaking.

Mr. Ungerer first established himself as a filmmaker in the 1960's with several short films consisting of abstract patterns, shapes and colors hand-painted directly onto the surface of the film and intercut with photographed images and sound collages. "Meet me, Jesus" (1966) gained national attention at the Ann Arbor Film Festival and was enthusiastically included in its national tour. In 1969, Walter created "Introduction to Oobieland" and "Ubi Est Terram Oobiae?", the first two parts of a four part series utilizing the same experimental techniques.

In 1976, Walter established Dark Horse Films, an independent production company based in his adopted home of Montpelier, Vermont. At this time Walter began to experiment with narrative structures, movement and cinematography. He produced four feature films: "The Animal" (1976), "The House Without Steps" (1979), "The Winter There Was Very Little Snow" (1982), and "Leaving the Harbor" (1991), each of which have been recognized at international film festivals. "The Animal" was screened at the Florence Film Festival and was described as pure cinema, a masterpiece of existentialism.

These days Walter is experimenting with the possibilities of digital editing and graphic design programs such as Media 100, After Effects, Photoshop and Peak. He says that working with computers has opened up whole new areas of exploration which take him back to his earlier days of drawing and painting. We were glad to have him as a juror for the 34th HIFF

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