DID YOU KNOW? The Utah Arts Festival distributes 8,000 free tickets to agencies serving low-income families and diverse populations.

Among the more than 60 short films to be featured at the eighth annual Fear No Film portion of the Utah Arts Festival are some world-class gems and a bounty of boundary-busting artistic creations. These include films that target immigration, euthanasia, the sense of home and place after a natural disaster, the awkwardness of social interaction and dating, body image, tattoos, the use of pity-based appeals for charities serving the disabled, and the tenuous state of comic books in American pop culture.

And, there are plenty of confections including several award-winning animated films, a hilarious music video about a guy who tries to restore an old Lambretta scooter, a slyly done short about Death who is mistaken as the tardy babysitter (pictured), and the collaboration of Danny Elfman, Aurelio Voltaire, and Rasputina.

Add in a festival jury of film-making and media industry peers along with audience members who will select the festival winner from among eight short productions by Utah filmmakers.

With the assistance of the SLC Film Center, the Fear No Film portion of the Utah Arts Festival, which drew some 7,000 people to various screenings last year in the City Library Auditorium, is once again poised to be among the most discussed aspects of the four-day schedule of events. Working for six months and paring down nearly 300 entries to a manageable list of offerings, Topher Horman once again has put his distinctive curatorial stamp on this year’s schedule.

Two years ago, he built the schedule around elements of a cheer for social justice and advocacy. Last year, he organized it around the six basic questions a journalist uses to deconstruct the news story into a framework that becomes readily comprehensible and identifiable in terms of human interest for the reader or broadcast viewer. This year, Horman has achieved the improbable – orchestrating a schedule based on the Seven Dwarves. And, once again, each category’s screening has been tailored so that the audience is taken on a journey where the artistic intent of the films individually and as a whole become fully evident by the end of the screening.

Sleepy (The Best of Other Fests) – Films targeting basic social issues as a wake-up call.

Sneezy – Films, by virtue of a potentially polarizing approach or aesthetic, causing an uncontrollable reaction.

Dopey – Dude, kinda’ self-explanatory, right? Films are heavily infused with esoteric symbols, metaphors, video art, and experimental approaches. Their quirkiness may only become apparent long after leaving the air-conditioned dark auditorium and re-entering the bright, sun-baked plaza of the Library Square festival grounds.

Bashful – Films traversing many layers and textures that gradually are peeled back so that audience members can truly see their epiphanies.

Docs – Documentaries, informed and reportorial, that comprise different ways of telling a story.

Happy – Films, while not always necessarily focused on topics or stories that are happy on the surface, nonetheless leave the audience hopeful and appreciative for what a particular filmmaker has achieved.

Grumpy – Films that follow a trajectory of sad, sadder, and saddest followed by a slow yet definitive return to a state of full sunshine.

The films represent an extraordinary range of genre and enterprise, with some made on an impulsive whim and others running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some are as brief as two minutes and a few run between 20 and 27 minutes. Ten films come from other countries including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and Russia. Some already have won festival awards and a few represent the work of students in some of the nation’s best film schools. (PICTURED: Ben Garchar’s Somewhere Never Traveled)

Horman has orchestrated the screenings, all of which last just an hour or so, with scrupulous curatorial intent as will be readily acknowledged by filmgoers. A major feature is, as mentioned earlier, the Best of Other Fests (Sleepy) screenings, featuring five films that will be screened on Thursday (June 24) and, again, Friday (June 25) at 6 p.m. These films are featured in a separate post below.

Festival screenings for all seven categories will begin on the first day of the festival (June 24) and continue through the last day on June 27, with showings every two hours. Entries for the Utah Short Film of the Year competition will be screened June 24, 25, and 26 at 8 p.m. These Utah shorts are featured in a separate post below.

For more information about screening times and the schedule of when short films will be aired, go here.

Of particular interest are the following films. Horman advises that many of the screenings will include films with mature content so parental guidance is strongly advised. Each screening will include family-friendly programming during the 20 minutes before each daytime screening, he says, adding festival organizers are mindful that some families will enjoy the opportunity for a brief respite from the typically high temperatures expected during the festival.

SNEEZY

A Harlem Mother, directed by Ivana Todorovic, documents a mother (Jean) who works through the grief about her murdered son (Latraun) by fighting youth gun violence and supporting other parents who lost children through her organization “Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E.”

There are extraordinary moments in the film which includes footage of the mother intercut with footage shot by her son for a documentary that he had created before his untimely death. The mother gave Todorovic tapes of her son’s funeral which the director says represent the culmination of a parent’s pain and underscores the impact of gun violence upon the surviving family members.

Wet Dreams and False Images is a naturally humorous look at idealized representations of sexual beauty in celebrity images. Directed by Jesse Epstein (who also has a film in the Bashful category), this 12-minute short focuses on barbers in a Brooklyn shop who decorate their walls with photos of women celebrities and, in particular, one of the barbers (Dee-Dee) who rhapsodizes about why these women are perfect goddesses.

Epstein inflects the film with counterpoint by computer airbrush and touch-up artists who demonstrates precisely the dramatic change before the before and after photos of these celebrities. As one of them so aptly describes, “Dee-Dee’s been having wet dreams to false images.” Epstein, whose work has won honors at Sundance, was recently selected for “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker magazine.

The Journey Home, directed by James Gambone from Minnesota, is a provocative look at the future of elder care in the United States, set in 2030. For The Unashamed is a hilarious take on how individuals act awkwardly in the most challenging social situations. Directed by Jared Barnett, a film studies major at The University of Utah, the film tracks odd and embarrassing stories being publicly shared about a man at his funeral.

Other films scheduled include They Can’t Deport Us All, a hip-hop music video about immigration shot in southern California by Rocky Curby; Hey Rachel… by Sylvia Liken of Brooklyn, and juncture by Brendan Wardlaw of Melbourne, Australia.

Screenings will take place Thursday, June 24, at 2 p.m., and Saturday, June 26, at 10 p.m.

DOPEY

Destination Day, directed by Chris Lassig of Clifton Hill, Australia, is perhaps best described in the director’s own words: “my short film about a man who travels back in time to change his past, only to run into the woman who made him want to change his past in the first place.” Based on a whole lot of conflicting opinions offered by film reviewers and aficionados at other festivals, audience members likely will have a wide range of reactions for the film, which does have quite a engaging opening hook and a cool twist at the end.

Coming from a group at Harvard, Yen-Ting Cho’s Kapsis is a animation piece for flute, electro-acoustic music, and video art which portrays an elegantly descriptive Nahua myth of a young girl who becomes a starfish. The animation is intended to be part of a contemporary opera – a collaboration between composer Edgar Barroso, designer Yen-Ting Cho, and filmmaker Aryo Danusiri.

Set to the tantalizing sounds of taiko, koto, and throat singing from the band On Ensemble, Yamasong, directed by Sam Hale of California, chronicles the fantastic journey of a patchwork girl and tortoise warrior. The film uses American-style Bunraku rod puppets and incorporates stop-motion animation with one of the film’s character’s – Cloudy, a Miyakazi-inspired floating cloud that accompanies the protagonists on their travels.

Other films scheduled include Evolution of an Idea by Grey Adkins of Maryland; Delusion by Alexander Markov of St. Petersburg, Russia; Mouse’s Birthday by Barry Morse of California, and Eyes, nose, mouth by Noemie Lafrance of New York.

Screenings will take place Friday, June 25, at 10 p.m. and Sunday, June 27, at 1 p.m.

BASHFUL

DemiUrge Esmesis, directed by Aurelio Voltaire and narrated by Danny Elfman, represents the painstakingly agonizing process of the artist at work – in the form of a mummified cat with an upset stomach. Part of Voltaire’s Chimerascope series, this whimsical slice of Goth animation features music by cello-rock trio Rasputina. This is Voltaire’s third offering at Fear No Film. Previous shorts featured the narration by Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs and Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance.

However, the real bonus in the newest film comes in Elfman’s narration. Those familiar know him as a composer, the lead singer of Oingo Boingo and for his Jack Skellington role. As Voltaire described in a FEARnet interview: “When you hear his narration in the film I think you’ll agree with me that he has a tremendously rich and colorful and charismatic voice. I’m just absolutely thrilled with the final product. And needless to say, just being in the same room with such an amazing talent was a dream all in itself.”

34x25x36 by Jesse Epstein of New York continues the exploration of the body image debate featured in another Fear No Film entry – Wet Dreams and False Images. Here, she visits a mannequin factory and interviews the workers who decide exactly how they should appear.

As she explained in a published interview, “The idea of perfection is very interesting. No one can be completely perfect, so why are we always surrounded by images of perfection? And I guess on some level, these things are unattainable but they keep us going. Ultimately we get something out of it, but I think it’s still a problem when people think there’s something wrong with them and there isn’t.”

Sacred Transformations, directed by Justine Nagan of Illinois, is a nine-minute film that was shot in one night on Chicago’s South Side. It follows Erik Spruth who helps, as he describes in his service information, “people who are tattooed, scarred, branded and or burnt from negative experiences to transform those marks into art pieces that celebrate one’s individuality.”

Other films scheduled include All systems go, Neil Armstrong by Robert Dohrmann of Oklahoma; Ghost Conversations by Jeremy Bessoff of Illinois; The Ladies: An Attempt to Communicate by Bryce Riley of Salt Lake City’s SpyHop Productions; Equanimity by Barrett DeLong of North Carolina; Love Draws Blood by Kate Raney of Illinois; Discernment Askew by Scott Halford of Ogden, Utah’s Foursight Festival, and Dinosaur! by Stephen Spector, Sindy Wilson, and Courtney Smith of New York.

Screenings will take place at Friday, June 25, at 2 p.m. and Saturday, June 26, at 6 p.m.

DOCS

No Pity, directed by Drew Goldsmith of Wisconsin, is an excellent and thoroughly engrossing short documentary about disability fundraising which has long assumed – and destructively so – that the best way to get people to part with their money was to play upon their feelings of pity. While Goldsmith acknowledges that other countries have moved toward campaigns that elicit respect and dignified support, he is intent on raising awareness of persistent campaigns in American-based charities that deal with autism.

As he notes in his statement of purpose: “These pity-based representations of autism by U.S.-based charities not only contrast with the more respectful fundraising techniques currently used for other disabilities, they also contrast with the more respectful fundraising techniques used by autism charities outside the United States. In response to the pity-based tactics used in U.S. autism fundraising, autistic self-advocates and their allies have begun speaking out, just as their predecessors in disability rights spoke out over 20 years ago.”

Other films include Colin Sullivan by Brandon Ryan of Florida, which tells the story of a competitive darts player who fell from grace because of scandal and The Gospel According to Matthew by Sofian Khan of New York, a remarkably candid look at infomercial personality Matthew Lesko. The Fall of The Cougar by Sam Derby of California is framed as a classic British safari show but it follows elusive lives and mating habits of Homo Sapien Cougarilia and the men who hunt them in bars and pubs.

Others include Dessicator by Wijnand Geraerts and Monique Stoop of The Netherlands, and Spare Change, a PLEX music video, by Jennifer Podemki of Toronto.

Screenings will take place at Thursday, June 24, at 4 p.m. and Sunday, June 27, at 3 p.m.

HAPPY

Dig Comics, directed by Miguel Cima and Ertug Tufekcioglu of California, explores attempts to resuscitate popular interest in American comic books. The filmmakers take to the streets in the hopes of winning converts and meanwhile interview comics creators, retailers and pop culture historians to make sense of why licensed comic book properties – The Dark Knight, Spiderman, X-Men, etc. – are breaking box office records even while the source material struggles to find an audience. The film won honors at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival.

I Can’t Strip My Lambretta Down In The Kitchen Ska Blues, directed by Britain’s Sharron Harris, is The Animal Jack Band’s first-ever music video. The three-piece group, led by Oli Brindley, 26, on vocals and double bass, describe the sound and style of the music as a unique mix of ska, skiffle, rockabilly and jump blues. Filmed in the family’s Pembroke Dock summer home over the course of two days, the video follows the lyrics telling the story of a man (Animal Jack) who buys an old Lambretta scooter and begins the ambitious task of taking it apart and hoping to restore it fully. The trouble is that his sweetheart is annoyed to find engine parts strewn across the kitchen where Animal Jack moved after rain interfered with his work. Pay close attention to the home’s retro furnishings – a shrine to 1950s décor.

Somewhere Never Traveled by Ben Garchar of New York represents his second Utah Arts Festival appearance. Described by Garchar as a personal “bookmark” film, it simply features two characters standing in a field – or, as he suggests, are they just actors? The camera rolls, unfolding the backdrop of debilitated icons of once-impressive industry, chronicling suspense, a kiss, and then the abrupt bark of “cut” from the director. Tearing down the fourth wall for his audience, Garchar leaves the film open ended where the questions of when does a scene really end and what does it mean challenge viewers to contemplate that blur between cinematic fantasy and reality. The film has had quite a successful run on the festival circuit.

Other films scheduled include The Empress by Lyle Pisio of Calgary; Road Side Insistence by Brantley Aufill of New York; Fledgling by Tony Gault and Elizabeth Henry of Colorado, and Brilliant by Marilyn Bright of Calgary. Screenings will take place at Friday, June 25, at 4 p.m., and Sunday, June 27, at 5 p.m.

GRUMPY

Eye to Eye, directed by the Irvine, California team of Andrea Capranico, Nicholas Wiesnet, Breanna Wing, and Hannah Taylor, chronicles the fight in Cameroon’s rainforest to reverse the course of extinction for chimpanzees and gorillas who are being threatened and killed by bushmeat hunters.

Death in Charge, directed by Indiana’s Devi Snively, is a subtly devilish 15-minute short shot in the true spirit of the old E.C. Horror Comics series. Death, traditionally outfitted with the cloak and the scythe, is mistaken by the mother for the babysitter, who will never arrive because of a freak fatal accident. Death is left to tend to Whitney, a precocious nine-year-old child with her own underlying sinister dimensions, who teaches her new caretaker the simple joys violent video games, macaroni and cheese and Sea Monkeys. Oddly charming and quite funny, the film nevertheless packs quite a punch at the end but … well … viewers will have to discover it for themselves. The film already has won four awards including two at 2009 Shriek Fest and the Dragon*Con Short Film Festival.

Other films include Frames by Jaime Chapin of Texas; Howl by Eric Hickey of California, and Slide by Kathy Nation of Utah.

Screenings will take place at Thursday, June 24, at 10 p.m. and Saturday, June 26, at 2 p.m.

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