2020 United States Super 8mm Film & Digital Video Festival

2020 United States Super 8mm Film & Digital Video Festival
Now in its 32nd year, the United States Super 8mm Film & Digital Video Festival is the largest and longest running juried festival of its kind in North America. The festival encourages any genre (including animation, documentary, personal, narrative, and experimental) made on Super 8mm/8mm film, Hi 8mm/8mm, or digital video. We invite you to discover cutting-edge works created by passionate filmmakers with these small-gauge media formats. The 32nd annual United States Super 8mm Film & Digital Video Festival will be held on February 22+23, 2020 at Voorhees Hall #105, beginning each evening at 7 PM, In Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey. The Festival will include a different program each evening. For more information go to www.njfilmfest.com/super8.html or call 848-932-8482. Here is the Schedule:

2020 United States Super 8mm Film & Digital Video Festival Schedule Day 1

Saturday, February 22, 2020

Haen – Emil Sallinen (Helsinki, Finland)

A short film carrying two narratives at the same time. One tells the story about a desperate man in the future. He makes his way through a dilapidated world and eventually finds his place in it. The other narrative runs us through the history of humanity. It tells the story of the organism that started off by crawling up on land from the sea and ended up being the master of all living things. 2019; 3 min.

Trailer Traders – Karmen Kreti (Forks, Washington)

Two lovers with one camera explore the poetics of the body in this film combining a voiceover written by the filmmaker, with images edited using Eisenstein's montage theory. 2019; 3 min.

In Our Nature – Sara Leavitt (Brooklyn, New York)

Moving from the country to the city, In Our Nature is about the disconnection from the environment one experiences while in urban areas. Inspired by D.A. Pennebaker's Daybreak Express, the film takes the viewer on a road trip that encompasses quiet, rural back roads and swimming holes to the kaleidoscope center of New York City. 2019; 3 min.

No Personal Checks – Gwendolyn Audrey Foster (Lincoln, Nebraska)

An experimental documentary of memory, made from Super 8mm diary film that I shot long ago and recently found in the basement. I hand-baked, re-photographed, hand-processed, re-edited, and otherwise distorted my footage. I shot this footage many years ago, when we moved from the West Village in New York City to the Midwestern part of the USA, which was very much like moving to the 1950s. "I live here, but this is not my home." 2019; 5 min.

House of Joy – Robert Uehlin (Portland, Oregon)

House of Joy was produced as a part of the 2018 Oregon Dance Film Commission. It was made in collaboration with dancer and choreographer Raven Jones of Wolfbird Dance in Portland, Oregon. Shot entirely on Kodak Super 8mm film, the piece chronicles one person's struggle to let go of what they thought life would be like. 2019; 9 min.

The Last Resort – Lance Lucero (Denver, Colorado)

A ghost story set in the old west. In a lawless land, Colorado territory 1873, justice will prevail. Sometimes the spirit of a Bounty Killer never dies. Shot on film! A Super-8 spectacle! Entirely shot in beautiful Colorado! 2019; 10 min.

Love, By Nature – Jason Sklaver (Los Angeles, California)

Filmed on Super 8 with an original Rock ‘N’ Roll score, Love, By Nature takes place in 1971, a time when race and identity issues were not dissimilar to our own. Deep in the desert, void of resources and far from social judgment, a woman reevaluates her relationship with the man by her side, and wonders if he may be ideal for someone else. In the end, it doesn’t matter how we look on the outside, it only matters how we feel on the inside. 2019; 13 min.

XX Virus – Kimyan Flückiger (Romanel-sur-Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland)

A group of young adventurers led by a brutal, charismatic and with a morality disorder leader are looking for their missing teammate. They roam post-apocalyptic campaigns infested with zombie women to reach their goal. The journey of these warriors will subvert their beliefs, strengthen their bonds for the better and the worse. Some will have to show courage and face their fears, others will have to be firm and determined. 2019; 13 min.

The Heist – Emil Minasyan (Amarillo, Texas)

A couple of small time crooks decide to rob a small jewelry store in the quiet town they live in. Things go sour and not as planned after they realize they have very little talent or experience in the field of robbery.

The cop that patrols the area has his own dark plan and will stop at nothing to execute it. They all have one thing in common, STUPIDITY. The situation gets really complicated for them all when their paths cross on what becomes the worse day of their lives. 2019; 22 min.

2020 United States Super 8mm Film & Digital Video Festival Schedule Day 2

Sunday, February 23, 2020

corruption – Jason Ewert (Bemidji, Minnesota)

With a new apartment, a writer descends into creativity and madness. One super 8 cartridge, no postproduction, filmed in sequence, original audio track composed without seeing the film. 2019; 3 min.

The Garden – Patrick Müller (Frankenberg, Saxony, Germany)

Strange blossoms, sunken pathways, Déjà Vus: A hike through H.P Lovecraft's most personal garden. 2019; 5 min.

Keg Warmer – Timothy Amatulli and Joe Saulenas (Glen Rock, New Jersey)

A 1920's style silent comedy shot on 8mm film about a man trying to warm beer despite better judgment and common sense. 2019; 5 min.

Miles to go before Austin and me...sleep – Jim Hall (Pocatello, Idaho)

The film took 42 years to finish. Austin trusted his story to a teenager with his first film camera (Chinon Super 8) and project. I promised to tell his story. To finish what I started. I never did. The film sat on a shelf for decades. It was my first attempt at filmmaking. My first documentary. It has haunted me all these years. The promise is now fulfilled as an experimental Film Poem, an Ode to all those who march to a different drummer…the distant beat and measure only heard in the human heart. 2019; 5 min.

Metamorphosis – Fernanda Parrado (Brooklyn, New York)

Metamorphosis is a personal experimental film about the filmmaker’s own experiences as an immigrant in New York City. A tribute to all immigrants and their necessity of constant movement as a form of rebirth. 2019; 6 min.

Richard Nixon: Getaway Driver – Kevin Lonano (Atlanta, Georgia)

Drunk on power and high on LSD, President Richard Nixon recounts his role as the getaway driver for JFK's second shooter. Is he confessing to save his soul, or is it all just a bad trip? 2019; 6 min.

Spring II – Ed Carter (Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts)

Two women encounter one another across dimensions, each perceiving the other as if a ghost. As they make contact, the structures of their dimensional cells begin to flicker and wane, and a possible transcendence presents itself. 2019; 9 min.

Scenes from a Transient Home – Roger Horn (Germany)

Filmed on Super 8mm, Scenes from a Transient Home presents a fractured portrait of life for Zimbabwean migrants when they travel back home to visit. Christmas dancing, New Years Eve celebrations, house floods, and illegal gold panning are just a few of the events filmed by Roger Horn who bookends the film with a major life event for his family. 2019; 13 min.

A Collection of Eccentricities – David Finkelstein (Brooklyn, New York)

A poetic examination of the collector’s impulse, the need to map out the world by identifying the objects, people, and works of art which define one’s sensibility. Choices made in childhood have a definitive effect on the lens through which you view the world. Dissolving all sensory impressions into a saturated solution allows the touchstones of one’s sensibility to appear spontaneously, like crystals. A Collection of Eccentricities unfolds in the form of a poetic dialog, taking place within a landscape of swirling, flaring skirts, maps covered with red pins, millstones which grind fruit into books, and many other signs of the building of one’s personal topography. 2019; 18 min.

For more information go to www.njfilmfest.com/super8.html or call 848-932-8482.