2011, USA, Color, 90 minutes Written/Directed by Matthew Lessner Con­tribut­ing Writer: Adam Morte­more Pro­duced by Matthew Less­ner, Jett Steiger, Max Knies Exec­u­tive Pro­duc­ers: Nick Kad­ner, Mike King, Max Nova, Emily Wiedemann THE WOODS fol­lows a group of young Amer­i­cans who, dis­il­lu­sioned by the world’s many prob­lems, move to the wilds of the Pacific North­west with hopes of cre­at­ing their own utopian soci­ety. Despite their ide­al­is­tic goals of rev­o­lu­tion, the group comes ill pre­pared for their new life, bring­ing a wide assort­ment of con­sumer elec­tron­ics, recre­ational vehi­cles and snack foods. After cat­a­strophic events in the out­side world sever their elec­tric­ity and wifi, and their leader’s once-inspiring rhetoric fails to hold them together, the group is forced to find a way to live in har­mony with the nat­ural world. With sat­u­rated super-16 footage and a sound­track fea­tur­ing Dirty Pro­jec­tors, Sun Araw, and Lucky Drag­ons, and orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions by Lydia Ainsworth, film­maker Matthew Less­ner play­fully sub­verts coun­ter­cul­ture films of the sev­en­ties while ques­tion­ing the short­com­ings of his ... … Read more »

“A beguil­ingly lan­guid col­lec­tion of sense impres­sions… achingly sad and sur­pass­ingly lovely!” — Vil­lage Voice Offi­cial Selec­tion Sun­dance 2011 Berli­nale 2011 2011, USA, Color, 82 minutes Star­ring: Sarah Hagan & Austin Vick­ers Directed by Clay Jeter Writ­ten by Clay Jeter, Debra Jeter, Will Bas­anta, Isaac Hagy Pro­duced by Clay Jeter, Brian Hars­tine, Will Bas­anta, Isaac Hagy Co-Produced by Adam Childress Jess, age 18 (Sarah Hagan) and Moss, age 12 (Austin Vick­ers) are sec­ond cousins in the dark-fire tobacco fields of rural West­ern Ken­tucky. With­out imme­di­ate fam­i­lies that they can relate to, and lack­ing friends their own age, they only have each other. Over the course of a sum­mer they ven­ture on a jour­ney explor­ing deep secrets and hopes of a future while being con­fronted with fears of iso­la­tion, aban­don­ment and an unknown tomorrow. Through a series of mem­o­ries and vignettes, Direc­tor Clay Jeter cre­ates a lyri­cal tale of two soli­tary, play­ful and young souls in JESS + MOSS. Jeter del­i­cately imposes a com­plex assem­blage of ways of look­ing and ... … Read more »

An Evening of Short Films with Don Hertzfeldt Fea­tur­ing the pre­miere of Don’s newest ani­mated film IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY Five Short Films 70 min­utes of films and 30 min of Q&A Cult ani­ma­tor and Acad­emy Award nom­i­nee Don Hertzfeldt is hit­ting the road for a rare series of one-night-only events! A selec­tion of Don’s clas­sic ani­mated shorts will return to the big screen, cul­mi­nat­ing in the exclu­sive regional pre­miere of his newest film, It’s such a beau­ti­ful day: the third and final chap­ter in a tril­ogy about a mys­te­ri­ous man named Bill. Chap­ter One, Every­thing will be OK, won the Sun­dance Film Festival’s Jury Award in Short Film­mak­ing and was named by many crit­ics as one of the “best films of 2007″. Chap­ter Two, I am so proud of you, received twenty-seven awards and was described by the San Fran­cisco Inter­na­tional Film Fes­ti­val as “[his] best yet… even the Hertzfeldt faith­ful may be too stunned to laugh.” Nearly ... … Read more »

Brooklyn/NY the­atri­cal pre­miere at Rerun The­ater start­ing JUNE 8, 2012 2010, USA, 81 min avail­able in dig­i­tal formats Writ­ten and Directed by Calvin Lee Reeder Star­ring Lind­say Pul­sipher, Robert Longstreet, Matt Olsen, Lynne Comp­ton, Bar­low Jacobs, Roger M. Mayer Pro­duced by Steven Schardt, Chris­t­ian Palmer, Roger M. Mayer, Christo Dimas­sis, Wen Mar­coux, Scott Honea, Joey Mar­coux Cin­e­matog­ra­phy by Ryan K. Adams Edited by Buzz Pierce New inter­view with Calvin Lee Reeder here at Ham­mer To Nail Leav­ing behind a desul­tory and poten­tially abu­sive exis­tence, a beau­ti­ful farm girl, known only as The Ore­gon­ian (Lind­say Pul­sipher), rushes head­long into an unknown future. … Read more »

2010, USA, B&W, 95 mins Star­ring Ellen Barkin, Melora Wal­ters, Bob Ein­stein, Luke Grimes, Theresa Randle Writ­ten and Directed by Cam Archer … Read more »

  2010, USA, 85 min in Tibetan with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles avail­able in dig­i­tal formats A film by Lynn True, Nel­son Walker and Tser­ing Perlo Cin­e­matog­ra­pher: Nel­son Walker Edi­tor: Lynn True Sum­mer Pas­ture is a feature-length doc­u­men­tary about a young nomadic cou­ple liv­ing with their infant daugh­ter in the high grass­lands of east­ern Tibet. Filmed dur­ing the sum­mer of 2007 with rare access to an area sel­dom vis­ited by out­siders, Sum­mer Pas­ture offers an unprece­dented win­dow into a highly insu­lar com­mu­nity and a sen­si­tive por­trait of a fam­ily at a time of great transition. … Read more »

2010, USA, 75 min­utes avail­able in all dig­i­tal media, blu-ray preferred Directed and Ani­mated by Brent Green Star­ring Mike McGin­ley and Donna K. Writ­ten by Green, Kozloskie and McGin­ley Pro­duced by Andrew Edlin and Brent Green Leonard and Mary meet in a car crash. They fall instantly in love, and live hap­pily ever after…until Mary gets sick. Des­per­ate to save her, Leonard decides that if he builds a house for Mary, it will heal her. Inspired by the real actions of the eccen­tric Leonard Wood, film­maker Brent Green brings to life this love story like no other in his first feature-length film. Shot entirely on the full-scale town he built in his back­yard, Green com­bines ani­ma­tion, stop-motion and live-action in an ethe­real opus to lovers and tin­ker­ers everywhere. “A tinkerer’s ode to a tin­kerer, and a romantic’s trib­ute to a roman­tic, Brent Green’s Grav­ity Was Every­where Back Then radi­ates an odd­ball home­made charm.” — Rachel Saltz, The New York Times “Like ... … Read more »

screen­ing MARCH 16: Chicago Film­mak­ers 2010, USA, 84 min­utes avail­able in dig­i­tal formats Directed by Peter Sillen Pro­duced by Alex R. John­son and Peter Sillen Exec­u­tive pro­duc­ers: Lars Knud­sen and Jay Van Hoy A doc­u­men­tary film por­trait of Steven J. Bern­stein (aka Jesse Bern­stein), one of Seattle’s most cel­e­brated voices. His angry, sur­pris­ingly fresh, lyri­cal writ­ings are about sen­si­tive souls, drifters and drug addicts; peo­ple alien­ated by a soci­ety that refuses to under­stand them. He peeled back the ugli­ness and the dark­ness of life on the fringe to expose ten­der and not so ten­der human feel­ing. His unique rhythms, filled with humor and pain, were espe­cially excit­ing when read in his own gravely voice. Peo­ple packed into the­aters, bars and cafes to hear him read and sing. “…Suc­ceeds at a most dif­fi­cult task — not only mak­ing view­ers inter­ested in some­one they may not have heard of, but encour­ag­ing an emo­tional invest­ment in him as well. Sillen does quite ... … Read more »

  2010, USA, 75 min­utes live per­for­mances only Direc­tor, Pro­ducer, Edi­tor: Sam Green Co-Director, Edi­tor, Music: Dave Cerf Pro­duced by Jas­mine Del­lal, Car­rie Lozano Cam­era: Andrew Black Through­out human his­tory, peo­ple have had giddy dreams and fan­tas­tic notions about what the future would bring. Today the future has become more of a threat than a promise—a knot of intractable prob­lems loom­ing men­ac­ingly on the hori­zon. With a pow­er­ful sense of poetry, Utopia in Four Move­ments uses the col­lec­tive expe­ri­ence of cin­ema to explore the bat­tered state of the utopian impulse at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In this “live doc­u­men­tary,” film­maker Sam Green cues images and nar­rates in per­son while musi­cian Dave Cerf per­forms the sound­track. From the estab­lish­ment of a man-made lan­guage designed to end war and cul­tural con­flict and the undy­ing opti­mism of an Amer­i­can exile in Cuba, to the cur­rent eco­nomic boom in China and the desire to give the remains in mass graves ... … Read more »

Directed by Jason Byrne 51 min­utes, 2009 Color/B&W shot on 16mm and video SCRAP VESSEL doc­u­ments the last trip of the Hari Funa­futi (for­merly the Bulk Pro­mo­tor and Hupo­hai – which means ‘Amber Ocean’), a cargo ship on its way to be scrapped. With a lan­guid atmos­phere using the mas­sive ship like a land­scape, the film explores what is found inside from the Hupohai’s com­mu­nist past, onwards through an unseen attack by pirates and onto a dis­tant beach and glow­ing iron­works fac­tory, until the ship becomes a phantom. In 1973 the freighter ship, Bulk Pro­mo­tor, is built by Nor­way to trans­port coal and iron ore through­out North­ern Europe. In 1985 the ship is sold to main­land China. Renamed Hupo­hai, it is used to dis­trib­ute coal along the Yangtze River. Thirty-two years into the ship’s life, now called the Hari Funa­futi, we board the ves­sel in Sin­ga­pore on its final jour­ney to Bangladesh. Film­maker Jason Byrne boarded the ... … Read more »

90 min­utes Directed by Jeff Kru­lik. Pro­duced by Jeff Kru­lik, John Heyn, Billy Gor­don, and Rudy Childs. Edited by Greg DeLiso. Cast: Billy Gor­don, Rudy Childs, Asy­lum (fea­tur­ing Ron­nie Kalimon and Dale Flood), and Tito Can­tero, Ken Guil­lette, and Chris Lucid. And many other inter­est­ing people. Pro­duced and pre­sented by the team behind cult hit “Heavy Metal Park­ing Lot” (Jeff Kru­lik and John Heyn), “Heavy Metal Pic­nic” is a cel­e­bra­tion of mid-80s Mary­land rock and roll and heavy metal, by those who lived — and sur­vived — it. The film focuses on the 1985 “Full Moon Jam­boree”, a week­end field party bac­cha­nal that took place at The Farm, home to a cast of col­or­ful char­ac­ters who lived and par­tied along­side una­mused neigh­bors in the McMan­sions of Potomac. The “Full Moon Jam­boree”, an affair so rau­cous that it made the evening news, was the farm party to end all farm par­ties, and much of it was recorded using a ... … Read more »