Founded
in 1999, the Wisconsin Film Festival is the state’s premier film festival,
in the heart of Madison, our capital city.
This four-day annual festival takes place each spring in
ten downtown Madison theaters, all within walking distance.
The Festival presents new American independent and world cinema (narrative,
documentary, shorts, experimental), restored classics, and the work of
Wisconsin filmmakers. Over 150 films and an attendance
getting close to 30,000 make this a lively event that’s become a major
part of our state’s
cultural calendar.
The Festival is a program of the UW
Arts Institute, a nonprofit educational unit of the University of
Wisconsin–Madison. Governed by arts faculty and staff, the Arts Institute
represents the collective voice and strength of the arts at the University, and
works to make the campus arts more visible and effective. The Arts Institute
funds and supports projects with university- and community-wide impact, including
artist residencies, awards and fellowships, public programs, and arts marketing
and outreach.
The Festival is made possible through the financial, technical,
and artistic contributions of many Festival sponsors and partners. We hope you
join us in thanking the businesses and organizations that support the Festival.
In particular, the dozens of volunteers who have given their
time and skills over the years deserve a special round of applause!
The ninth annual Wisconsin Film Festival presented 183 feature-length
and short films from 32 countries. Ten theaters in downtown Madison, combining
campus, municipal, and private owners, hosted the screening on April 12 through
April 15, 2007. Attendance again increased over last year, with a total of 28,700
tickets taken.
»
full
list of 2007 films
The opening night film was Chalk by
Mike Akel. Akel, co-writer/actor Chris Mass, and producer Mike McAlister introduced
their film to a sold-out crowd of over 1200 at the lovely Wisconsin Union Theater.
Other new American independent films in the 2007 program included All the Days Before Tomorrow by
first-time director François Dompierre, Diggers by
Katherine Dieckmann (Magnolia Pictures), and Hal Hartley’s Fay Grim (Magnolia
Pictures), a follow-up to his acclaimed Henry Fool,
which was also in the program.
Documentaries from the United States and abroad have long
been popular at this festival. In 2007 some of the highlights were Ghosts of Cité Soleil by
Asgar Leth (Thinkfilm); Into Great Silence by
Philip Gröning (Zeitgeist Films); Gypsy Caravan by
Jasmine Dellal (Shadow Distribution); Punk’s Not Dead by
Susan Dynner; The Hip Hop Project by
Scott K. Rosenburg and Matt Ruskin (ThinkFilm); King Corn by
Aaron Woolf; The Life of Reilly by Frank
Anderson and Barry Poltermann;
Manhattan, Kansas by
Tara Wray; Manufactured Landscapes by Jennifer Baichwal (Zeitgeist Films); Radiant City by
Jim Brown and Gary Burns (National Film Board of Canada); Zidane: A
21st Century Portrait by Douglas Gordon and Philippe
Parreno (Katapult).
International cinema included Red Road by
Andrea Arnold (Tartan USA); The Boss of It All by
Lars von Trier (IFC First Take); Ten Canoes
by Rolf De Heer (Palm Pictures); Exiled by Johnny To
(Magnolia Pictures); Poison Friends by Emmanuel
Bourdieu (Strand Releasing); Climates by
Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Zeitgeist Films); Rang de Basanti by
Rakeysh Omprakash (Yash Raj Films); Severance by Christopher Smith (Magnolia
Pictures);
Lights in the Dusk by Aki Kaurismäki
(Strand Releasing); 12:08 East of Bucharest by
Corneliu Porumboiu (Tartan USA); Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams by
Jasmila Žbaniç (Strand
Releasing);
Linda Linda Linda by Nobuhiro Yamashita (Viz
Pictures); Everything’s Gone Green by Paul
Fox (First Independent Pictures); Vanaja by
Rajnesh Domalpalli;
The District! by Áron
Gauder (SzimplaFilm); and The Bird House by Eng
Yow Khoo (Red Films).
Restorations and revival films included a group of three
films drawing on the Frankenstein story, shown in new prints: Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein
(20th Century Fox); Gods and Monsters by
Bill Condon (Regent Releasing); and The Spirit of the Beehive by
Victor Erice (Janus Films). The Festival also showed Charles Burnett's classic
Killer of Sheep (Milestone Films); two films
by Alejandro Jodorowski: The Holy Mountain
and El Topo (Abkco); The Lion in Winter by
Anthony Harvey (The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences); and Radio On
by Chris Pettit (British Film Archive).
The Steep & Brew Audience Award winners were Wristcutters:
A Love Story by Goran Dukic (Best Narrative Feature) and War/Dance by
Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine (Best Documentary Feature).
Major series, presented in conjunction with UW–Madison
programs, were:
- Diaspora Melancholy: Asian American Films
co-presented by the Asian American Studies Program
Air Guitar Nation by Alexandra Lipsitz
Americanese by Eric Byler
The Cats of Mirikitani by Linda Hattendorf
Finishing the Game by Justin Lin
Man Push Cart by Ramin Bahrani
Punching at the Sun by Tanuj Chopra
Sentenced Home by David Grabias and Nicole Newnham
The Slanted Screen by Jeff Adachi.
- African Action Figures
co-presented by the African Studies Program
Bamako by Abderrahmane Sissako
Son of Man by Mark Dornford-May
U-Carmen eKhayelitsha by Mark Dornford-May
Wrestling Grounds by Cheikh NDiaye.
- Film·Able: Disabilities on Screen
co-presented with the Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education
Black Sun by Gary Tarn
Braindamadj’d...Take II by Paul Nadler
The Collector of Bedford Street by Alice Elliott
The Cost of Living by Lloyd Newson
Escape Velocity by Scott Ligon
Heart of an Empire by Jay Thompson
Kiss My Wheels by Miguel Grunstein and Dale Kruzic
When Pigs Fly by Eric Breitenbach and Phyllis Redman.
- The World of Jewish Film
co-presented by the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies
Close to Home by Vidi Bilu and Dalia Hager
Family Law by Daniel Burman
Paper Dolls by Tomer Heymann
The Rape of Europa by Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen,
Nicole Newnham
Toots by Kristi Jacobson
Volevo Solo Vivere by Mimmo Calopresti.
The Festival presents two juried competitions, the Wisconsin’s
Own for filmmakers with Wisconsin ties, and Wisconsin Student
Shorts for films under 60 minutes made by Wisconsin college and university
students [see the submission guidelines for more
information about these categories]. Both competitions were sponsored by TravelWisconsin.com, Eastman Kodak,
and the Criterion Collection.
- 2007 Competition Winners: Wisconsin’s Own
Best Wisconsin Documentary Feature Film
The Untyings by
Romi Chiorean and Katherine Leggett
Best Wisconsin Documentary Short Film
Bone Mixers by Doug
Gritzmacher and Mike Dechant
Best Wisconsin Narrative Short Film
The Professor’s Daughter
by Luke R. Pebler
Best Wisconsin Experimental Short Film
Walk Into Hell/Purgatorio
by Dal Lazlo and Charles Johannsen
Kodak Opportunity Film Stock Grant
Tops by Brian D.
Nelson
Special Jury Prize
Little Spirits by
Cecilia Condit.
- 2007 Competition Winners: Wisconsin
Student Shorts
Best Wisconsin Student Narrative Short Film
Pinmonkey by Tim
Ziegler
Best Wisconsin Student Experimental Short Film
The Bird of Night
by Alan Schoenburg
Best Wisconsin Student Animated Short Film
The Long Shadow
by Chele Isaac
Kodak Opportunity Student Film Stock Grant
Black Box by Joe
Sacco
Student Special Jury Prize
Me and Jean Pierre
by Anna Krutzik.
2007 Wisconsin’s Own Competition Jurors
Jay Antani : Jay
is a freelance film writer in Los Angeles, contributing reviews and features
for various online and print outlets, including
Boxoffice Magazine and Filmcritic.com. He
also works as a re-writer on several manga serials
for TokyoPop, the comic-book publisher for whom he’s written an original sci-fi/adventure
graphic novel (due out in 2008!). After graduating from UW-Madison in 1994 with
degrees in Comm. Arts and English, Jay re-located to L.A. and took up storyboard
illustration for commercials and independent films. For many years, he
also assisted in the film archives of the Motion Picture Academy, where his involvement
in the restoration of several Satyajit Ray films was a personal highlight. Jay’s
currently earning his MFA in Professional Writing at USC, and is hard at work
on his thesis — a novel set in India and America in the late 1980s. He
also publishes Perihelion Journal,
his online film & literary hot spot that
he encourages all and sundry to check out.
Susan Antani : Susan is currently in feature film development
at the Walt Disney Studios where she’s had the good fortune to have worked on
two of the Studio’s major franchises, the Pirates
of the Caribbean and Chronicles
of Narnia films and sequels. After graduating with a Comm Arts degree from Wisconsin
in 1994, she moved to Los Angeles and began her career in television, working
on an NBC Studios drama. Before moving into feature development at Disney,
she put in time as a marketing manager with the company, learning the nuts and
bolts of that side of the business. When she isn’t running, Susan spends much
of her spare time seeking out great stories and writers, with an eye towards
producing her own future projects.
Juliana Parroni :
Parroni was a 1983 graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She left
Madison for New York with her skills learned in the Communication Arts Department
and at WHA-Television where she worked as a sound recordist. After a brief stint
recording sound on independent features and documentaries, she found a home in
the editing room. Working first in features, then moving into documentaries,
she has maintained a 25-year-career as a free lance editor and producer working
with directors Erroll Morris, Bill Moyers, Ric Burns, and Francis Coppola. She
was a visiting lecturer teaching documentary
production and fiction film editing at the University of Wisconsin–Madison for
the 2006–07 academic year.
2007 Wisconsin Student Shorts
Competition Jurors
e.E. Charlton-Trujillo :
Growing up in small-town South Texas, e.E. Charlton-Trujillo’s career has spun
her from Ohio to New York City, Belgium and the dairy state of Wisconsin. She
has worked professionally with directors Douglas McGrath (Infamous),
Betty Thomas (John Tucker Must Die),
and Lucy Walker (The Devil’s Playground). An
award-winning filmmaker and novelist, Charlton-Trujillo’s second book Feels
Like Home was released
April 10, 2007.
Matt Sloan : Born
and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Sloan is best known as the co-creator
of the viral internet series Chad
Vader, which has received over 10 million views worldwide, and has
been featured on Good Morning America. As half of Blame Society Productions
he has been creating videos in Madison for the past six years. He was the
co-founder and co-director of local filmmaking collaborative Wis-kino from 2002-2006. He
was the co-recipient of a Kodak Opportunity grant in 2004, and his film Death
is My Copilot (created with Aaron Yonda and Erik Gunneson) was an official
selection of the Wisconsin Film Festival in 2005.
Tona Williams : Williams
is a freelance filmmaker, visual artist, and web designer based in Madison, Wisconsin.
She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has
worked as an organizer of arts groups, production companies, and academic research
projects. Through Bigbite Productions, Williams creates documentaries that explore
community building, environmental sustainability and physical space. She is also
the primary Director of Photography for Blame Society Productions, and former
Co-Director (2002–2006) of the Wis-Kino Filmmaking Collaborative. Her films have
appeared in a broad range of festivals and her documentary, Earth
Walls, is aired on Wisconsin Public Television in 2007.
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