2001 Highlights

Artists and Orphans: A True Drama 
Writer/Producer/Director: Lianne Klapper McNally

The script never said they’d be saving lives. When a troupe of New York City actors went to the Republic of Georgia (formerly part of the USSR) to perform in a state-run theater festival, they become true players in an unscripted drama. This film is a defiant answer to those times we’ve thrown up our hands and said “It’s too awful. What can I do?” A joyful, resounding “Lots!” proves that anybody, anywhere can help change our world—even in the face of war, corruption and seemingly impossible obstacles. (44 minutes)

Bombay Eunuch 
Producer/Director: Alexandra Shiva
Long revered as divinity, the eunuchs of India are now little more than relics in a rapidly modernizing world. Ostracized from family and community, they are forced to live apart from the traditional caste system and often form surrogate families of their own. This deeply involving film is a fascinating look into a hidden world of people living and surviving on the edge. (72 minutes, subtitled)

Coming To Light: Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians
Writer/Producer/Director: Anne Makepeace
You’ve seen his work…the somber, seemingly stoic faces in a history book here, a Western museum there. His opus, a twenty-volume text covering eighty tribes and 40,000 photographs, stands today as often the only record of many tribal forebears. Edward Curtis saw extraordinary humanity threatened with extinction and worked to capture the people he called “the beautiful.” Anne Makepeace, in a visual feast, captures the driven, obsessive, charismatic artist who rose from obscurity to become the most famous photographer of his time and who died poor and forgotten. (86 minutes)

Dedos 
Director: Beatriz Anton
This creative short gives new meaning to the phrase “let your fingers do the walking”…and dancing…and skating…(9 minutes)

Dwarfs: Not a Fairy Tale 
Producer/Director: Lisa Abelow Hedley

Throughout history, dwarfs have been objects of curiosity, amusement and derision. Popular culture often perpetuates the myth that they are strange creatures who live in a nether world of circus sideshows and fantasy stories. This frank and compassionate film introduces four people, uniquely different from each other, even as a common bond ties them. It explores the realities of parents’ expectations, society’s misconceptions and celebrates the dignity and perseverance of four remarkable individuals. (53 minutes)

I Remember Me 
Producer/Director: Kim A. Snyder
Between May 1984 and late 1986 over 300 people in Lake Tahoe, Nevada became acutely ill with a flu-like sickness. Over fifteen years later, many of them have not fully recovered, others across the country have become sick, and the cause remains a medical mystery. Herein begins the bizarre tale of an elusive malady that the United States Center for Disease Control named Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). 

Filmmaker and CFS survivor Kim Snyder set off on a four-year journey to investigate the heart of medical darkness. Unfolding like a good whodunit, the film unearths clusters dating back to 1936 as Snyder searches for answers to questions that were never asked. (74 minutes)

If I Could 
Writer/Producer/Director: Patti Obrow White

In 1979 filmmaker Patti Obrow White produced the “Wagon Train Trail” documenting the story of four so-called juvenile delinquents assigned to a character-building wagon train journey. Among them was angry, defiant, 14 year old Tracy. Fast-forward twenty years… Tracy is now a divorced mother of four living in Denver. Her twelve-year-old son is angry and defiant. Determined to stop the cycle of despair, Tracy fights to heal her family and herself. Sally Field narrates this compelling story of triumph and perseverance. (119 minutes)

Jack and Jill 
Producer/Director: Sheri Hellard
Jack and Jill…Jill and Jack…two people alone in despair. Who fell down and broke and who came tumbling after? (15 minutes)

La Candelaria 
Producer/Director: Kate Dawson
Where would you go if you could run away from home? Lorena, a middle-aged hippy from Portland, decided it was time for a lifestyle change and moved to La Candelaria, a very small, rural village in Mexico because she “liked the look of the place.” A joyful film about knowing who you are and having the courage to honor that person. (23 minutes)

Life’s Evening Hour 
Producer/Director: Karen Murray
“We grow accustomed to the dark – When light is put away.” Emily Dickinson.

How can a photographer, nearly blind from AIDS-related retinitis, inspire envy in the viewer? Perhaps because we feel the presence of grace, perhaps it’s his physical beauty and the awesome talent his art reveals. But more than that, Jack Dugdale seems to have left this plane and is on a journey with the consummate curiosity of the good traveler. A beautiful film that speaks to the very best of the human spirit. (48 minutes)

Listen… 
Director: Katerina Filiotou
Sofia and her husband have been married for twenty years and enjoy an affectionate and uneventful life together. Then one day the water heater in their Athenian flat goes on the blink. A delightful and refreshing spin on being human, foibles and all. (26 minutes, subtitled)

Offside 
Writer/Director: Leanna Creel
Christmas Eve 1914, no man’s land on the Western Front. Cold, scared boys wait for the quiet to be shattered…and then a leather ball drops silently into the trenches. (13 minutes)

One Man, Six Wives and Twenty-Nine Children 
Producer/Director: Jane Treays
Tom Green was in the news last summer, on talk shows and standing outside of courtrooms with one or more of his sad-eyed wives before his sentencing. One Man, Six Wives brings revealing insight into the practice of polygamy as filmmaker Jane Treays draws an extraordinary portrait of the outlawed Mormon lifestyle. 

Seen through the eyes of Tom, Linda, Shirley, June, Lee Ann, Cari and Hannah, this film takes us inside their Utah desert compound and details the everyday reality of their lives. While their choices are alien to most of us, there is an undeniable fascination with how it all works. (50 minutes)

Promises 
Producer/Director: Justine Shapiro and BZ Goldberg
Rather than focusing on political events, the seven children featured in Promises offer a compelling human portrait of the Israeli & Palestinian conflict. Over the course of 4 years, filmmakers B.Z. Goldberg and Justine Shapiro were welcomed into the daily lives of these children—both Palestinian and Israeli. Though they live only 20 minutes apart, the seven children exist in completely separate worlds; the physical, historical and emotional obstacles between them run deep. The film draws viewers into the hearts and minds of Jerusalem’s children by giving voice to these victims of systemic regional hatreds which are being played out all over the world. (106 minutes, subtitled)

Sweet 
Writer/Director: Elyse Couvillion
A brief, sensual tale of the hidden longings behind urban alienation. (4 minutes)

The Disenchanted Forest 
Writer/Producer/Director: Sarita Siegel
Hidden in the forests of Borneo is an orphanage where little ones learn the vital skills they need to survive. Without mothers or more knowledgeable elders, strange “Lord of the Flies” communities have evolved. But these are not human children. 

They are orangutans. Endangered, preyed upon by the more evolved species, they are being rescued by a team of dedicated doctors. A visually stunning film about how intertwined our destiny is with the creatures we should cherish. (52 minutes)

The Lunch Lady: A Documentary 
Producer/Director: Leslie Mello
The National Geological Institute is located outside of Washington, D.C. in Reston, Virginia. Like many government buildings they have a cafeteria. If you want to know what’s on the menu today you can call and find out. This cafeteria is for people working in the building. So why are people up and down the East Coast so curious about what’s for lunch? (27 minutes)

The Shaman’s Apprentice 
Director: Miranda Smith
Producer: Abigail Wright

Deep in the rainforest of Suriname, Dr. Mark Plotkin is racing against time. New and remarkably effective medicines could be found in the diverse Amazon plant life but the jungle is rapidly disappearing. Even worse, the elderly tribal shamans—healers and human encyclopedias of rain forest botany—are perhaps the Amazon’s most endangered species. 

Narrated by Susan Sarandon, this is the story of one scientist’s quest to document this treasure trove of diversity and culture. (53 minutes)

Throwing Curves/ Eva Zeisel 
Producer/Director: Jyll Johnstone
Eva Zeisel’s gentle and playful creativity plays out amidst the catastrophic events of the twentieth century. At 93, she is still producing the flowing ceramic designs that have made her one of the great designers of her era. The beauty of this film derives not only from the body of her work, but also from her strength of personality and her passion. Eva is an inspirational role model. (56 minutes)

Tickler 
Writer/Producer/Director: Chris Bartlett and Clayton Jacobson
A hilarious, short take on a couple trying to explore new frontiers. (7 minutes)