Maverick Competition
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Cinequest Offers You the World
?Riveting?? ?Inspiring?? ?Amazing??if only we could count the number of times we have heard those exact words when audiences have described the films they have seen at Cinequest. For the past 15 years, Cinequest has been committed to screening some of the best cinema from around the world and from right in our own backyard. This year, we are especially proud of the programs we have put together?because the films and filmmakers are, quite frankly, exceptional.
Cinequest 15 offers over 200 films from around the world, placed into different sections that have been organized to reflect the festival?s overall spirit, its desire to bring the world to your doorstep, its objective to discover new voices in cinema and its Maverick sensibilities. It is the Maverick spirit and the eclecticness of the program that is Cinequest?s hallmark and has made the festival so interesting for film lovers and professionals.
Maverick Competition
Cinequest?s 2005 Maverick Competition represents over 30 countries and, with 16 narrative feature films, 12 feature documentaries and 82 short films, is a perfect, dynamic blend of genres, cultures and visions.
Awards in this section will be given for Best First Feature Narrative, Best Feature Documentary, Best Short Documentary, Best Short Narrative, Best Short Animated, Best Student and our top prize, the Maverick Spirit Award?awarded to the feature narrative that the jury feels is the most bold, the most personal and the most maverick.
Villa Paranoia
Narrative Features
Narrative Feature Competition
Set Point (Täna öösel me ei maga)
The Civilization of Maxwell Bright
The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess
From the Land of Silence (Sakenine Sarzamine Sokoot)
Mysterium Occupation (Okkopazija misterii)
The jury for the Narrative Features competition is:
André Marcel Bennett: André Bennett?s professional career began as a university professor teachingsocial & political philosophy at the University of Toronto and McMasterUniversity (Hamilton, Ontario). In 1983, Bennett founded and ran CinéphileLimited (a theatrical production, theatrical distribution & international salescompany). And, in 1992, he started, and is sole owner, of Cinéma Espenança International Inc.. André Bennett Productions has been active since 1985. Overthe years, André Bennett has made seminal contributions to the Canadian & International Film Industry as a producer, distributor, international sales agent, commentator, panelist, and international film festival jurist. Over the years, André Bennett has developed a unique niche in the marketplace developing, producing, distributing and marketing internationally low budget independent features and documentaries. He continues to establish and nourish close relationships with directors, producers, government granting agencies, distributors, exhibitors, importers/exporters, broadcasters, and internationalfilm festival directors. Bennett custom tailors his initiatives and activities to meet the challenges and opportunities of the new millennium.
Diane Gaidry: Diane Gaidry is co-founder and Executive Director of Filmmakers Alliance (FA), a non-profit filmmaking collective based in Los Angeles. At FA, Diane oversees all of the organization?s education and support programs, including the monthly seminars and discussion forums. She also edits the bi-annual FA Magazine and is responsible for programming all FA public events and screenings. Through FA, she co-produced and starred in THE DOGWALKER directed by her husband Jacques Thelemaque, which won Best First Feature at Cinequest Film Festvial. She has also produced numerous short films including EGG and INFIDELITY IN EQUAL PARTS, both directed by Thelemaque, and SHIVA?S TEARDROP, directed by Sean Hood. She also produced and directed her own short, THANKSGIVING. Diane is currently developing a feature length omnibus film, RED WHITE and BLUE, inspired by Kieslowski?s DECALOGUE and the Bill of Rights. She sits on the board of both the Silver Lake Film Festival and the Santa Monica Film Festival.
Paul Walsh: Paul Walsh is in his ninth season as dramaturg and director of humanities at San Francisco?s American Conservatory Theater, where he has served as production dramaturg on dozens of shows, including his own translation of Ibsen?s A Doll?s House, directed by Carey Perloff; his adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II with director Mark Lamos; and Carey Perloff?s productions of Tom Stoppard?s The Real Thing, Night and Day and the U.S. premieres of Stoppard?s Indian Ink and The Invention of Love. In addition Walsh has worked as production dramaturg on such A.C.T. productions as Samuel Beckett?s Waiting for Godot, Chekhov?s The Three Sisters, Sam Shepard?s Buried Child,Michel Tremblay?s For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, Harold Pinter?s Celebration and The Room, Pirandello?s Enrico IV, Schiller?s Mary Stuart and Brecht/Weill?s The Threepenny Opera; the premiere production of Marc Blitzstein?s 1941 workers? opera No For An Answer; and Giles Havergal?s adaptations of Edith Wharton?s The House of Mirth, Sean O?Casey?s Juno and the Paycock and Laclos?s Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
Documentaries and Short Films
Feature Documentary Competition
Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary
Young Rebels (Jovenes Rebeldes)
Short Film Competition
Short Program 1: Comedy?The Final Frontier
Short Program 5: Show and Tell
Shorts Program 2: The View from Higher Up
Shorts Program 6: Dark, Dangerous and Delightful
Shorts Program 7: Student Shorts
Shorts Program 4: Animated World
Shorts Program 8: Reflections from the East and Back
The jury for the Documentaries and Short Films competition is:
Lawrence Andrews: Lawrence Andrews is a Artist and Filmmaker who graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1987. He is currently an Associate Professor of Film and Digital Media at the University of California Santa Cruz. His work has shown extensively throughout the U.S. and internationally on cable television, in museums and galleries and major festivals including the Whitney Biennial, The New York Museum of Modern Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Pacific Film Archive, and The American Film Institute. He has received various grants awards and fellowships in support of his work including a Rockefeller Inter cultural Documentary Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowship.
Alison McKee: Alison McKee (Ph.D., Department of Film, Television and Digital Media, UCLA) teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the Department of Television-Radio-Film-Theatre at San Jose State University. A film historian, her publications have appeared in FILM/LITERATURE QUARTERLY, THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO, and THE VELVET LIGHT TRAP, and she is the co-editor of RECLAIMING THE ARCHIVE, a forthcoming anthology on feminism and film history. Alison has an ongoing personal and political commitment to feminist film criticism and practice and to alternative modes of media production, and she is delighted to be part of Cinequest 2005.
Gwen Templeton: Gwen Templeton is a professional actress who has performed in regional theater such as: The Dallas Theater Center, The Alley Theater, Dallas Shakespeare Festival, Theater Three, The Kitchen Dog Theater, Pegasus Theater, Texas Shakespeare Festival, New Theater Company, Cutting Ball Theater, and San Francisco Fringe Festival. Ms. Templeton was named ?Best Actress? in 1995 and 1996 by the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Observer. Gwen received the Critic?s Forum Award for Best Actress in 1997 for her role as Louisa in the world premiere of Straight Ahead. Ms. Templeton received the Greer Garson Award for Excellence in Acting in 1994 and 1995. Gwen has taught acting courses with San Jose State University, Foothill College, Southern Methodist University, University of Texas, North Texas University, Texas Women?s University, The Dallas Theater Center, and The Berkeley Reparatory Theater. Ms. Templeton?s television and film credits include: Walker Texas Ranger, Nash Bridges, Wishbone, It?s in the Water and Social Ladder, as well as several national commercials. Ms. Templeton has directed shows for Firsthand Theater, Youth Could Know Theater, The Musical Theater Experience, and San Jose State University. Gwen is a member of Actor?s Equity Association, Screen Actor?s Guild, and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists and is represented by John Erlendson Talent. Ms. Templeton Holds a B.F.A in acting from Southern Methodist University and a Masters in Theater from San Jose State University.