2022 Films: Undecided

Undecided by Betty Allen & Andy Woodward

Milwaukee, WI (Milwaukee Premiere)

Running Time: 10 minutes
Screening Time: Saturday, Sept 10 at 9:15PM
Drama

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Three women’s different perspectives on motherhood collide in a workplace bathroom while one waits to discover whether she is pregnant.

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Director Bio:

Betty Allen has a degree in film from UW-Milwaukee. Her Premiere projects are more organized than your house. She’s worked on projects for Sara Bareilles and Margaret Cho and doesn’t even brag about it. Betty is a full-time badass mom and fearless filmmaker.

Andy Woodward has a degree in Time-Based Media from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. A passionate editor and avid screenwriter, Andy dabbles in After Effects, woodworking and rebuilding their 1982 Yamaha motorcycle. An infinitely curious human being.

Director Statement

The writer and producer, Rosa SanMarchi, approached us out of the blue (digitally) to direct this film after a recommendation from a friend. Immediately after reading the script we knew it was something we wanted to work on. It was a thrilling experience to collaborate with someone new, who already had a vision for the film but was looking for other voices and opinions to bring it home. The collaborative spirit of our team really reflected what we were trying to convey on screen, that we are all better when we listen to one another.

2022 Films: To Be Fair

To Be Fair by Cynthia Johnson

Madison, WI (Milwaukee Premiere)

Running Time: 9 minutes
Screening Time: Saturday, Sept 10 at 6:30PM
Documentary

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Pegi Christiansen knows exactly how to end the contentious and increasingly dangerous election cycle for president of the U.S. It's called the National Popular Vote Compact, and this passionate performance artist needs just one minute to persuade you to support it.

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2022 Films: Pandemic Survival and Revival

Pandemic Survival and Revival by Catey Ott Thompson

Milwaukee, WI (Milwaukee Premiere)

Running Time: 9 minutes
Screening Time: Saturday, Sept 10 at 6:30PM
Experimental/ Dance

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This 9 minute film was taken and edited by videographer Christal Wagner and choreographed by Catey Ott Thompson in collaboration with the Catey Ott Dance Collective (CODC) dancers. This film is an imagistic and abstract manifestation of the emotional landscape through the Covid-19 pandemic. The underlying tones and movement investigations include managing and eventually overcoming feelings of isolation, separation, anxiety, petrification, being tethered, and monotony. The original sound score was composed specifically for CODC by Tim Nohe. The dynamic and expressive CODC dancers include Sarah Chomeau, Rebecca Johnson, and Natasha Posey. The choreography clearly highlights the dancers' strong modern technique, physical endurance, emotional expression, as well as their unique interpretations of the atmospheric movement scores created for this piece.

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Director Bio:

Catey Ott Thompson (CODC director, choreographer, dancer in MKE) has spent 38 years dancing,15 of which included performing, choreographing, and teaching in NYC. Ott Thompson received a MFA and BFA in Dance from UWM. She studied ballet with Christine Wright in NYC for 10 years. Catey Ott Dance Collective started in Milwaukee in 2005. The collective has performed in NYC at Danspace Project at St, Mark’s Church, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, DNA, Solar One, Dance Conversations at the Flea, White Wave, WAX, Green Space, 92Y, BAX, Hatch at Muller/The Works, UWM, DanceNOW, Panetta Studio, Spoke the Hub, and Gowanus Arts Building. As a professional dancer in NYC (1995-2012,) she performed with Heidi Latsky Dance, Allyson Green Dance, Bill Young and Dancers, Soundance Repertory Company, Gotham Group Dance, Sean Curran Company, Chris Ferris, Molly Rabinowitz, Cora, Holly Twining, Carrie Ahern and a variety of others. She is currently working on her 24th self-production of her own choreography. She has performed with Milwaukee Opera Theater, Danceworks Performance Company, Wild Space, DanceCircus, and Milwaukee Dance Theatre in MKE. She currently teaches at Milwaukee Ballet and Marquette University.



Director Statement

CATEY OTT DANCE COLLECTIVE (CODC) is a MKE based professional company that embodies modern/contemporary technique, intriguing qualitative movement, and vulnerable yet fierce emotions. The choreography features realness in relationships and clear intention, all inside of an imaginative dimension. The company dancers often collaborate in the investigation of movement. CODC also embraces interactive relationships with composers and visual artists/set designers.

2022 Films: All Eyes On

All Eyes On by Mackenzie Walla

Milwaukee, WI (Milwaukee Premiere)

Running Time: 2 minutes
Screening Time: Saturday, Sept 10 at 6:30PM
Experimental/ Animation

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Everywhere you go you are always being watched, even in the comfort and intimacy of your own home. You don’t know who exactly is watching. The whole world maybe? Some higher being? You can’t escape the watchful eye of nature. Are your eyes even your own?

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Director Bio:

Mackenzie Walla is an animator, digital illustrator, filmmaker and visual effects artist. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her work takes everyday moments in human life and twists them into new perspectives and layers for her viewers to interpret and enjoy. Walla’s style typically involves saturated colored line work to compliment dark simplistic backgrounds. Her inspirations come from personal feelings and experiences and other art forms that deal with post-apocalyptic-like societies.

Director Statement

Walla's most recent piece, All Eyes On, is a 2D animation environment that brings forth the idea of some greater, unknown entity is always watching people partake in society, even in the private and intimate moments of their own home. These “entities” could be some unseen god, someone you walk past down the street, or even you, as the viewer.

2022 Films: The Coronation

The Coronation by Emily Penick
Melbourne Beach, FL (Milwaukee Premiere)

Running Time: 12 minutes
Screening Time: Saturday, Sept 10 at 6:30PM
Experimental/ Dance

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In this wordless, experimental film, a powerful goddess meets her match.

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Director Bio:

Emily is a writer / director with a background in directing and choreographing stage plays.

In NYC, she has worked at Playwrights Horizons, 2nd Stage, New Dramatists, The Tank, and elsewhere, developing new works for both stage and film. Before Covid, Emily was also a member of Frost Productions, responsible for producing large-scale events like the MET Gala, Tonys red carpet, and film premieres.

In addition to her own projects, Emily assists Tony-award-winning director and MacAurthur Fellow, David Cromer.

Emily is passionate about creating community, fostering positive change, and sharing career-development resources with young artists. During her time as Literary & Artistic Manager at ACT – A Contemporary Theatre, Emily lead the charge to make the institution a Deaf-friendly space, managing artistic programming, inclusive casting, meaningful community partnerships, and capital improvements which included the implementation of closed captioning in both main stage spaces. Also at ACT, Emily founded and managed the Kenan Directing Fellowship, which generously supported emerging directors with mentorship and financial resources.

Through her efforts with RED STAGE, which she founded, Emily has produced the world premiere Worse Than Tigers, and commissioned emerging female playwrights. RED STAGE also shares funding and career development opportunities with artists across disciplines, through their resource library at redstage.org.

With over a decade of experience in clown, nouveau vaudeville, and physical theatre, Emily is passionate about stories which showcase either subtlety or overtly, the modern clown. Two of her upcoming short film projects, The Coronation and Cuffing Season, showcase such work.

As an educator, Emily has adjudicated new play festivals at universities, taught play submission workshops, taught graduate courses in directing, acting, and movement technique, and guest-directed and choreographed university productions.

Recent directing credits include AN ILIAD (Brick Monkey Theater Company), THE WOLVES (Bucknell University), CORIOLANUS: Fight Like a Bitch (Rebel Kat Productions), A Christmas Carol (ACT- A Contemporary Theatre), the world premiere of Worse Than Tigers (RED STAGE), Gregory Award-winning Romeo & Juliet (Seattle Immersive Theatre), Pilgrims (Forward Flux), Snowglobed (Playing in Progress) and Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s The Other Woman, Wandering and their world premiere of the devised play Pot of Gold. Emily has choreographed at Book-It Repertory Theatre (Slaughterhouse Five), Café Nordo (Don Nordo Del Midwest), ACT Theatre (A Christmas Carol), and for the UMO Ensemble's Resistance Cabaret - Resistance is Fertile!

Emily was born in California, raised in New Jersey, attended Bucknell University, and earned her MFA in Directing from Ohio University.

2022 Films: Mold of Malachi

Mold of Malachi by Mtume Gant

New York, NY (Milwaukee Premiere)

Running Time: 9 minutes
Screening Time: Saturday, Sept 10 at 6:30PM
Drama 

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In the suburbs of America, a Black man’s morning jog nightmare exists as a game for others.

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Director Bio:

Mtume Gant is a Director, Performer & Educator hailing from NYC. His career started on stage, screen & TV, most notably as a cast member of the HBO show Oz and one of the leads in the film CARLITOS WAY: RISE TO POWER, where he was featured in the role of "Reggie" next to Mario Van Peebles and Luis Guzman. He made his screen debut as Louis in the Sundance Award Winning Film HURRICANE STREETS. He then moved behind the camera with his film SPIT which went on to win over half a dozen awards (Best Short film at the Coney Island Film Festival) and screened at nearly two dozen festivals across the United States such as Aspen Shortsfest, Woodstock Film Festival and Cucalorus.

His second film WHITE FACE caused an uproar, a film that predicted Trumps America was seen ahead of its time and was one of the more controversial shorts out in the circuit of 2017. It went on to be programmed at few dozen film festivals as well.

Mold of Malachi is Mtume's latest work and he is poised to make his feature film Directing debut in 2022. Mtume is also an Assistant Professor of Film at Purchase College.

Director Statement

Mold of Malachi is my statement on a conversation that I am tired of having, the conversation around Black trauma. What I aim to relay to those viewing is to question who are these explorations Black trauma for? Are they for Black people at large? Or others? And who is benefitting from all this excessive displays of pain and suffering around Black bodies? Mold of Malachi is my most focused work to date and one I feel I am the clearest with in terms of intention. I hope it causes you to question this very industry we have and whats really behind this current interest in Black stories.

Hope the film speaks you all.

And one last thing, make sure to keeping watching until AFTER the credits.

2022 Films: Eureka

Eureka by Miida Chu

Toluca Lake, California (Milwaukee Premiere)

Running Time: 15 minutes
Screening Time: Saturday, Sept 10 at 9:15PM
Drama/ Western

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A young indentured Chinese prostitute must overcome her toxic dependency on the brothel madam on the eve of the 1885 anti-Chinese riot in Eureka, California.

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Director Bio:

Assigned male at birth in Suzhou, China, a culturally underrated city, Miida spent the last ten years in the States, attempting to destroy the identities she has inherited from the Chinese and the American influences. She studied philosophy at NYU and was accepted as a PhD student at UCLA. Her Dionysian side brought her to the MFA program at the American Film Institute.

She was one of the seven finalists of the 2014 National YoungArts Competition. Her shorts have been official selections at film festivals including the Los Angeles Film Festival, HollyShorts, Nashville Film Festival, Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, EnergaCamerimage, etc. Her most recent short, Eureka, won Best Director at SENE Film Festival, and Outstanding Woman Filmmaker at Tallgrass Film Festival. She served on the program committee of Miami Film Festival in 2020 and 2021.
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Miida is also an avid collaborator of theater. She did media design for Round Room Image’s experimental play “Surrounded”, which toured in Longmont, Chicago, and Winnipeg. She co-founded Lamplighter Productions with Jordan Sucher and developed an original play “How to Be a GoodPerson™”, which opened in New York City and toured in Pittsburgh.