VISIONFEST 12: The Other Film Festival
USA- New York, NY | Jun 21 2012 | (01:08:11 - EDT)
VISIONFEST: The Other Festival promotes domestic filmmaking. All of the works showcased at VISIONFEST are created by U.S. filmmakers and by production entities that are based solely in the United States. The projects may be shot on international locations and have globally relevant storylines, but their origin must be rooted in the U.S.
VISIONFEST exists to provide an exhibition forum for the American auteur; one that is specialized and focused; one that does not dilute the presence of U.S. films within a sea of international product. View the 2012 film lineup here.
The Festival and Its Roots
Formerly known as the Guerrilla Film & Video Festival, VISIONFEST was started in 2001 by Guerrilla Filmmaker Magazine co-founders, Bruno Derlin and Mark Doyle. The humbly organized event kept true to its niche-plated moniker with its very conservative budget and grass roots approach. The film festival was predominantly programmed with independent works covered earlier that year on the pages of Guerrilla Filmmaker.
On the evening of August 9, 2001, the lights dimmed inside New York City's Tribeca Film Center and actor-director Burt Young took to the stage to kick off the film festival he personally described as "one from the heart."
The somber 'state of mind' and financial instability that were a prominent thorn of the aftermath of 9/11 also directly affected and caused a premature demise for Guerrilla Filmmaker Magazine. But the guerrilla boys, thanks to the generous support of that year's presenting sponsor, Panasonic, held on tight to their film festival and Tribeca-based screening facility, even adding a second venue, the Tribeca Grand Hotel screening room, to help them unveil their 2002 program, which included the New York premiere of Fits & Starts, a comedic short subject film that would go on to win a Special Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.
By 2003, the Guerrilla Film & Video Festival, in a very ambitious effort to reinvent itself by offering a more mainstream and not necessarily 'very guerrilla' programming structure, adopted its new name, VISIONFEST: The Other Festival, and boarded the legendary Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum for a five-day run in the aircraft carrier's state-of-the-art theater. That year's line-up included a Brian DePalma retrospective that featured New York City's first official 20th anniversary screening of Scarface, several months before Universal reissued the gangster epic in a national theatrical run and prior to the Special Edition DVD release that ensued.
VISIONFEST 03, as it was quickly commonly referred to, also has the distinction of being the maiden platform that launched the highly successful initiative, the FiveXFive 'New York State of Mind' DV Project.
Five up and coming filmmakers were selected by a special festival committee to individually create five, five-minute, digital shorts that were to be produced and completed within a period of five days. The filmmakers were asked to literally draw their film's location setting out of a hat: each would be assigned to shoot in one of the five boroughs of New York. And finally, the completed projects would be screened in a "world premiere" forum, preceding the film festival's awards ceremony, on the fifth and final day of the event. The positive response and coverage achieved by the FiveXFive would ensure that the 'project' would be repeated the following year, again with some very specific guidelines that would promise a challenging task for each of the five filmmakers involved.
VISIONFEST 04 introduced another new addition to the film festival's competitive forums: a feature screenwriting competition. With entries surpassing the 500+ mark, VF04 organizers created an exciting line-up consisting of 52 films that would unspool over a five-day run at New York University's Cantor Film Center. And again, on the fifth and final day of the event, that year's FiveXFive project would have its world premiere.
VF05 brought 'the other festival' back to its downtown home roots: the Tribeca Cinemas, where it would continue to run and where the festival will celebrate its tenth anniversary with a special edition called VISIONFEST X.
The awards will be presented on Sunday, June 24, 2012, at 7:45 p.m., in Tribeca Cinemas’ Theater 2.
Following is the complete list of IVA nominees for this year’s edition of VF:
Domani Vision Award for Emerging Talent
Sheena McCann (The Darkness is Close Behind)
Richard Bosner (Falling Uphill)
Ali Scher (The Maiden and the Princess)
Ryan Prows (Narcocorrido)
Kathryn Gould & Nelson Goforth (Web of Lies)
Outstanding Achievement in Production
Broadway's Finest (Jack Adalist, Doug LeClaire)
The Carrier (Anna Ramey, Chris Wilson, Mark Hartzell)
Falling Uphill (Barrett Hacia)
The Maiden and the Princess (Becca Luisel & Ian Ward)
In Montauk (Kim Cummings, Jeremiah Kipp)
Directing
Stephen Marro (Broadway’s Finest)
Scott Schaeffer (The Carrier)
Sheena McCann (The Darkness is Close Behind)
Richard Bosner (Falling Uphill)
Ali Scher (The Maiden and the Princess)
Writing
Stephen Marro (Broadway's Finest)
Sheena McCann (The Darkness is Close Behind)
Richard Bosner (Falling Uphill)
Ali Scher & Joe Swanson (The Maiden and the Princess)
Kathryn Gould (Web of Lies)
Short Subject Narrative
The Carrier
The Darkness is Close Behind
Elko
Narcocorrido
The Maiden and the Princess
The Jack Nance Breakthrough Performance Award
Adam Storke (Broadway's Finest)
Jessiqa Pace (Falling Uphill)
Sean McGee (Falling Uphill)
Annalee Scott (Elko)
Conor Casey (Mouthful)
Acting (Male Lead)
Caleb Hunt (The Darkness is Close Behind)
Michael Desjardin (Elko)
Ari Kanamori (Falling Uphill)
Alex Roesch (Human Geography)
David Anders (The Maiden and the Princess)
Acting (Female Lead)
Rita Wilson (The Carrier)
Jessiqa Pace (Falling Uphill)
Jena Hunt (Falling Uphill)
T. Sahara Meer (The Kook)
Nicki Micheaux (Narcocorrido)
The Abe Schrager Award for Cinematography
Adrian Correia (Broadway's Finest)
John Barr (The Carrier)
Michael David Lynch (Perceptio)
Doug Carr (The Stronger)
Nelson Goforth (Web of Lies)
Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Filmmaking
Camp Casserole
Carbon for Water
Dislecksia: The Movie
Running Through: The Jordan Culbreath Story
Time Zero: The Last Year of Polaroid
Editing
Mark Hartzell & Aaron Butler (The Carrier)
Steve Balderson (Culture Shock)
Joops Fragale (Date Night)
Eleanor Burke & Kim Cummings (In Montauk)
Per-Hampus Stalhandske (Time Zero: The Last Year of Polaroid)
Original Score
Ben Goldberg & Marshall Grantham (Broadway's Finest)
Rob Kleiner (Culture Shock)
Alex Fleshman (Falling Uphill)
Corey Wallace (The Maiden and the Princess)
Bryan Dennis (Web of Lies)
Production Design
Kevin Margo (Grounded)
Ian Strandberg (Last Seen on Dolores Street)
Tricia Roberts (The Maiden and the Princess)
Teo Guardino (Perceptio)
Visual Comforts (RE:LEASE)
The DVFS Visionary 2012 Award
Alexander Yan (Elko)
Dee Robertson (I Kill Flowers To Save The World)
Avital Epstein (Peace at Home)
Michael McKowan (1609)
Carlos Florez (Sekso, Kickit, Nasa)
Short Form Screenwriting
Sheena McCann (The Darkness is Close Behind)
Neil LaBute (Double or Nothing)
Erik Pagan (Faith)
Ali Scher & Joe Swanson (The Maiden and the Princess)
Kathryn Gould (Web of Lies)
Sound Design
Paul Goodrich (Broadway's Finest)
Chris Bylsma & Michael Page (Culture Shock)
Chris Johnston (The Darkness is Close Behind)
Brett Hinton (Narcocorrido)
Brian Bender (The Hungry Boy)
Information and image courtesy: VISIONFEST
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Falling Uphill is the Official Closing Night selection for VisionFest 12. The film's screening is set for Sunday, June 24th, 5pm.
Trailer available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55QCPfwHP5Q&feature=youtu.be