www.unboundfeet.com

An amusing "Sex in the City" style look at young American Desis who turn their love lives over to parents, professional matchmakers and internet matrimonial ads.

Director

Emily Ting

http://www.4seasonsproductions.com/index_state.htm

"The dynamic cast of speakers takes a critical look at the interplay of money and politics. The film is not an attempt to advocate the views of one party over another. The ideological lines between our two parties have become so blurred, as each tries to claim the center, that ideologue is no longer significant; It is clear that money drives politics and public policy. State of the Union's goal is simply to expose the problem in a medium that has the potential to affect the viewer and move the viewer to ask more questions."

On November 3, 1979, in Greensboro, North Carolina, ten year-old Kwame Cannon attended an anti-Klan rally, "Death to the Klan," with his mother, a political activist. He witnessed the KKK and Nazis drive through the rally, open fire, and kill five protesters. No police were present.
At 17 years of age, Kwame was sentenced to two life terms for six counts of burglary. Now 30, he and his mother, along with supporters from across the state, are seeking his freedom. They claim his extreme sentence was payback for his mother's participation in the Civil Rights trial which found the City of Greensboro guilty of conspiracy with the Klan and Nazis for the five deaths in '79. This is Greensboro's Child.

Best Independent Documentary, Carolina Film Fest 2002

http://www.glaserproductions.com/detdoc.htm#borderlinea

This program captures the spirit and eccentricity of metro Detroit's most provocative thoroughfare.
No other road in Michigan evokes a response like the one you get when you mention 8 Mile. From topless dancers and the neighborhood groups that battle them, to storefront preachers and the homeless people they minister, 8 Mile remains our areas most notorious boundary.

Thoughtful commentary from Jerry Herron, Director of American Studies, and Ronald Stephens; associate Professor of Communication (both from Wayne State University) provide context and analysis. The documentary also features an interview with Mr. Belvedere (his office is on 8 Mile) as well as clips from some of his classic commercials. Part history, part pop culture, this film like a ride down 8 mile, is both thought provoking and entertaining.

1997 Emmy Winner

"What’s great about BORDERLINE is the sheer enjoyability of it visuals...it's a quirky, thoroughly enjoyable, mini-portrait of Detroit... "
(3 Stars!) Detroit MetroTimes

"...ingenious...so much fun..." Detroit Free Press

Director

Gary Glaser

"What if Trains Came Back to Detroit?" This 5-minute short challenges Detroit to envision its own major public transportation initiative on par with other urban centers around the globe. Married to the beats of Toronto band The New Deal, dynamic images of elevated and subway transit use in New York and Chicago are juxtaposed with Detroit's ubiquitous freeway system and forsaken railways.

"What if...Detroit?" is a study for a feature-length film, currently in development, investigating Detroit's future.
 

Winner: First Annual "Festival at the Grand" (Sarajad Films) June, 2002

“Yoshinosuke Matsumoto used to be an energetic businessman in his younger days. The company he made is now on his son’s hand. What he does lately is watch TV and sleep. He is 88 years old and wheel chaired. Yet he still looks forward to going outside once a day. A helper and a man from the company usually take him to the temple by the pond. That became his only hobby, taking a WALK in his neighborhood in the city of TOKYO.”

"What is Iran thinking today? To answer this question, the director Sou Abadi adopted Raymond Depardon’s or Frederick Wiseman’s “cinema-vérité” approach over a period of five months. She filmed in a center “The Help Line,” that offers psychological counseling by phone, in a charitable body “The Imam’s Relief Committee" setup by Ayatollah Khomeini which helps the poor and needy, in compulsory pre-marital sex education classes organized by the Ministry of Health, in Dr. Majd’s group therapy, a psychoanalyst for Tehran’s wealthiest people, and in a marriage bureau for strict Islamists, the Foundation of Marriage.

By putting her camera in places where people talk about their lives, Sou Abadi shows what Iran is like today when you scratch the surface clichés: How people live in the Islamic Republic when they are rich or poor, when they have diplomas or are illiterate, when they are religious ore atheists, when they have been married for twenty years or are just teenagers.

www.livegem.net/unclefester/index.htm

FRICTION is a 3D animated parable about a mad scientist from Green Bay, USA whose books have recently affected the world political order.

"Crazy. Just crazy. Robert Ellman's Tennis Match screened at Hi/Lo '99 and at least that had some semblance of a narrative, even if it was surreal about a dead puppy winning Wimbledon. But this one? Beats us. It's just too too weird. But even if we don't understand it, Mr. Ellman has something to say and a dazzling, mind-fucking way of saying it." - Hi/Lo Film Festival

 

2002 International Film Festival of Fine Arts in Hungary  - Gold Medal Experimental
 

2002 Dahlonega International Film Festival - Grand Prize and Special Jury Prize

2002 Education Channel's Ninth Annual Independents' Film & Video Festival - Gold Medal, Experimental Films Category

San Francisco Documentary Festival - Gold Medal

Daddy & Papa

http://daddyandpapa.com/

Daddy & Papa explores the personal, cultural, and political impact of gay men who are making a decision that is at once traditional and revolutionary: to raise children themselves. Taking us inside four gay male families, Daddy & Papa traces the day-to-day challenges and the larger, critical issues that inevitably intersect their private lives—the ambiguous place of interracial families in America, the wonder and precariousness of surrogacy and adoption, the complexities of marriage and divorce within the gay community, and the legality of their own parenthood.

Best Documentary, Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, 2002

Golden Gate Award, Best First Person Documentary, San Francisco International Film Festival, 2002

Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2002

Best Documentary, Connecticut Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, 2002

Audience Award For Best Film,
Audience Award For Best Documentary, Orinda Film Festival, 2002

Audience Award For Best Documentary, Florida Film Festival, 2002

Audience Award For Best Documentary, 1st Runner Up, Seattle Int'l Film Festival, 2002

Runner Up, Best Film, Cleveland International Film Festival 2002

Emerging Film Award For Best Documentary, North Carolina Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2002

Breaking the Mold Award, Newport Film Festival 2002

www.wedding-advice.com

“A series of interviews with the friends and family of 19-year couple Karen Sosnoski and Fred Zeytoonjian, who made the film to seek counsel on whether they should finally get married. With the addition of commentary from various experts, this project turns out to be an intelligent and fair questioning of this culturally enmeshed tradition that still turns so many stomachs.” -- Rosebud Film & Video Festival

Best of the Fest, Dahlonega Film Festival

Denis A. Charles: An Interrupted Conversation

http://ndolofilms.com/denis/denis_charles.htm

"Denis A. Charles: An interrupted conversation" is the story of one man's struggle to follow his dream and the obstacles he encounters in his professional as well as his personal life.

Unknown to the mainstream, Denis A. Charles became a legend on the Avant-Garde Jazz scene when his drumming caught the attention of many innovative musicians like Thelonious Monk, Steve Lacy, Archie Shepp, Don Cherry, Sonny Rollins and many others.

Best Film/Video Documentary Production at the
XVII Black International Cinema, Berlin 2002

This film takes on an arts and humanities context by portraying the life and times of this 82-year-old musician. Uncle Jessie White has been playing at the Attic bar in Hamtramck for 15 years. Prior to that Jessie raised his family in a house on 29th street in Detroit’s southwest side near old Tiger Stadium. In this house throughout the 60’s and 70’s, jam sessions were held throughout the weekends from Friday evening after work, until Monday morning – only stopping because everyone had to get back to their jobs. Blues musicians, students of blues and curious neighbors came from miles around to witness and dance at the weekend long house parties. Many of these blues musicians moved from the south to find work in the burgeoning automotive industry of Detroit, growing up as sharecroppers like Uncle Jessie and his family. These musicians would continue to gather in the house on 29th street to continue their craft at these historical weekend jam sessions.

These jam sessions helped to create some of Detroit’s local favorite blues artists: Johnny Bassett, Butler Twins, Bobby East, Jeff Grand, among others. Other local favorites joined him during these jam sessions: the famous Johnnie Lee Hooker, Johnnie Yarddog Jones, Eddie Burns, Mississippi Al Newton, Angelo Willis, and many others.