Shadowbox Cinema
Price: $7 non-members, Aurora Picture Show members free (RSVP)
*MATURE CONTENT*
Shadowbox Cinema spans the wide-eyed world of indie and underground cinema with animated doses of disillusionment, experimental uppercuts of individualism, surreal excursions, and pulsating stories that may detonate upon contact. The Ann Arbor Film Festival (AAFF) and Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) co-curated this handpicked program with recent films never-before-screened by the Ann Arbor Film Festival. All of the films will be strong contenders, but there will be only one champion. The audience decides which film wins a cash prize!
The Ann Arbor Film Festival is internationally recognized as a premiere showcase for creative, inspiring, and influential films of all types: avant-garde and experimental, story-based narratives, documentaries, and animation. As the original North American independent film festival, the AAFF is steeped in a rich tradition of groundbreaking cinema.
Check out the films that are screening as part of the program:
The Adventures of Ledo & Ix ~ Emily Carmichael ~ New York, NY ~ 5 minutes ~ 2008 ~ Machinima/Animation
In many ways, Ledo and Ix are just like us. Sleeping under the stars makes them philosophical. Sometimes they wonder if they should have chosen different careers. They avoid dens of monsters when possible. But in one crucial way, they're different--they're fantasy adventurers in an extremely small-scale video game epic.
Heart Squared ~ Mizuho Endo ~ New York, NY ~ 9 minutes ~ 2007 ~ Experimental/Animation
A live-action cartoon and an experimental dance comedy. In a square world where everyone must know their angle; a copy shop worker named '4' finds that her shadow is dancing to the beat of a different drum.
Southern Exposure ~ Susan Chien ~ Boston, MA ~ 5 minutes ~ 2008 ~ Documentary/Animation
A young Chinese-American woman is forced by her family to go to pharmacy school, despite her lack of interest in pursuing medicine or science. To pay off her student loans she moves to a small rural town in the South and misunderstandings, both humorous and painful, unfold.
The Funk ~ Melanie Coombs ~ Fitzroy, Australia ~ 7 minutes ~ 2008 ~ Experimental/Narrative
Jack woke up in a Funk one day. No one really knows how it started.
PAL/SECAM ~ Dmitry Povolotsky ~ New York, NY ~ 15 minutes ~ 2008 ~ Narrative
At the dawn of Perestroika, little Boris, ravaged by hormones, seduces the neighborhood with his mother's VCR.
Terminus ~ Trevor Cawood ~ Vancouver, Canada ~ 9 minutes ~ 2007 ~ Experimental/Narrative
After inadvertently offending a strange entity that accosts him on his way to work, a 1970s businessman quickly finds himself in the midst of a bizarre predicament.
Hydro-Levesque ~ Matthew Rankin ~ Montreal, Canada ~ 16 minutes ~ 2008 ~ Experimental/Narrative
On the night of Rene Levesque’s sovereign victory in 1976, a deaf mute Catholic nun is drawn away from the jubilation by a paranormal cry for help from the faraway city of Winnipeg. Leaving her happy nation behind, she ventures forth to discover a crazed and inconsolable Winnpeg, festering on the brink of mass suicide.
Shor (Noise) ~ Krishna DK ~ India & USA ~ 14 minutes ~ 2008 ~ Narrative
On a train in India two boys steal the backpack of a sleeping man, and what they find inside the bag kindles a reckless attempt to dispose of the contents.
The Story of Sputnik ~ John Harden ~ Santa Rosa, CA ~ 7 minutes ~ 2008 ~ Performance/Narrative
Ostensibly an educational film about the first artificial satellite, the film quickly derails into a stream-of-consciousness ramble on Russians, the cold war and Charlton Heston. May actually contain facts. Definitely contains some little cartoons.
Boob ~ Honest ~ New York, NY ~ 3 minutes ~ 2008 ~ Narrative
A doctor performs an experimental procedure designed to remotely enhance a woman’s breast size… when an unfortunate surge of electricity brings her boob to life! Run, Boob, run!