Destroyed in a dramatic and highly-publicized implosion, the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex has become a widespread symbol of failure amongst architects, politicians and policy makers. Explore the social, economic and legislative issues that led to the decline of conventional public housing in America, and the city centers in which they resided, while tracing the personal and poignant narratives of several of the project’s residents.

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As the old adage goes, ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.’ Take a trip into the fascinating, and often surreal life of the celebrity impersonator. When fans cannot get close to the real thing, these professionals step in to fill the void. But what is the life of an impersonator really like? Once a year Elvis, Obama, Bush, Oprah and other look-a-likes gather under one roof for the Sunburst Convention in Orlando, Florida, to laugh, learn, and light up the stage.

Bess, a trailer park teen, steals a car and makes a desperate journey from Kansas to Vegas searching for her father.

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Belo Horizonte city is bombed. On the hill someone observes and thinks. Human Being is an intense visual and subjective experience that comes across in a reflexive, metaphorical, and surreal way. It invites you to raise questions and reflect.

An unknown actress, who just turned forty, seizes the opportunity to sneak into an audition for a film in that is the comeback project of a formerly great film director. The casting director is blown away with her monologue. Things seem hopeful when she receives a message requesting a callback. Only one problem: the meeting is to take place in her hotel room at midnight.

Pioneer – 15mins – USA
Director: David Lowery
A father tells his little boy the most epic bedtime story ever.

Oops – 10mins – USA
Director: Chris Beckman
A lucid, seamless voyage through the Internet’s infinite repository of throwaway social documentation via YouTube’s clumsiest videographers.

Andy and Zach – 10mins – USA
Director: Nick Paley
When Zach decides to move out, his roommate Andy tries to start a new life without his best friend.

The Wind is Blowing On My Street – 15mins – Iran
Director: Saba Riazi
A young girl in Tehran gets left on the street with no head scarf and must interact with a neighbor in an environment where her mishap equals trouble.

The External World – 15mins – Germany/Ireland
Director: David O’Reilly
A boy learns to play the piano.

Bob and The Trees – 28mins – USA
Director: Diego Ongaro
The daily life of Bob, a fifty years old logger, who has a soft spot for golf and hardcore rap.

ABOVE THE KNEE
Greg Atkins

Jack’s restrictive suit-and-tie career has never quite fit. As he summons the courage to dress for the job he wants—not the one he has—he risks forever changing how his co-workers (and his wife) will view him. Director Greg Atkins tackles sexual politics and workplace relationships with a deft comedic touch.

Country: Canada
Year: 2010
Language: English
Runtime: 14 min.

FLAWED
Andrea Dorfman

“Why would you want to see yourself as ordinary when you can be extraordinary?” Personal musings on self-esteem and a long-distance relationship with a plastic surgeon are punctuated by Andrea Dorfman’s animated illustrations. Her colourful drawings keep the tone light and balance her philosophical storytelling about the moral implications of changing one’s physical self to suit others or accepting yourself as you are.

Country: Canada
Year: 2010
Language: English
Runtime: 12 min.

Les fleurs de l’âge (LITTLE FLOWERS)
Vincent Biron

Selling ice cream, smoking pot, falling in love, wrangling with family: it’s just another summer day for a regular group of school kids. Drawing his young characters with heart and humour, Vincent Biron expertly captures the boredom, excitement and transformative moments that define the lazy summer months.

Country: Canada
Year: 2010
Language: French
Runtime: 18 min.

MARIUS BORODINE
Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais

Inventor Marius Borodine is on the brink of completing his masterwork when something goes terribly awry. Interviewing Borodine’s friends, families and fellow scientists, the film speculates as to whether the catastrophe was, in fact, a part of the invention. Was Borodine a mad scientist or a prophetic genius? Hoss-Desmarais’ inventive mockumentary is as fascinating and mercurial as its eccentric subject.

Country: Canada
Year: 2010
Language: French
Runtime: 16 min.

LIPSETT DIARIES (Les Journaux de Lipsett)
Theodore Ushev

Deconstructing the biographical remnants of an avant-garde visionary, this animated documentary depicts the turbulent life of Arthur Lipsett as a rich palimpsest of text, images, and narration by Xavier Dolan as the voice of the young Lipsett.

Country: Canada
Year: 2010
Language: English available
Runtime: 14 min.

THE LEGEND OF BEAVER DAM
Jerome Sable

Have you heard of Stumpy Sam? If not, you should. And what better way than through song and dance? This musical horror comedy follows an unlikely hero – nerdy Danny Zigwitz – at a summer camp listening to fireside stories. An inspired performance by Sean Cullen as a camp counselor makes this little-known legend one to remember.

Film Credits
Country: Canada
Year: 2010
Language: English
Runtime: 12 min.

The World of Film Festivals

Jim Jacob
Drama/Comedy • 0:04:51 • U.S./Int’l

This film shares interesting facts and ideas about film festivals. Included is the business of film festival prizes and festival sponsors, an exploration of types of films and venues, and suggestions of how modern technology affects the film festival experience.

A man, home alone, is terrorized by girl scouts selling “delicious” cookies.

Follow the wave of emotions that overcome a spoon sitting at a table and watching his fellow utensils being used.

Trapped in a rut, a husband and wife find inspiration to revive their stale marriage in a 1980′s movie, but find that what is glamorous and sexy on film is complicated and maybe a little dangerous in real life. Somewhere between the pratfalls and mess of attempting to recreate scenes from the film, however, they find themselves reconnecting and falling in love again.

Hell for Bread is the winner of the 2011 Heartland Best Animation Short

When an innocent piece of bread is sent down to Hell through a toaster, he must battle his way through the nine bagels of Hell and ultimately the Devil himself (in the form of an oven). Will he escape?

A look at friendships online and what it means to be a friend.

When a guy walks into a bar, the Old West gets a new twist.

A whimsical examination of the ritual of making soup.

A horny pregnant woman tries to get her uninterested husband to have sex.

Single, in her thirties and experiencing an extended romantic drought this lady decides she needs to broaden her ideas of who might make a suitable boyfriend. Once offended by her grandmother’s advice to “overlook a little” – she feels desperate times call for desperate measures. But – just how desperate is she? Bathing and the Single Girl is an irreverent & raw comedic look at some of the pitfalls of dating men you can talk yourself into rather than waiting for one you cannot talk yourself out of.

Last Days of Shaniko

Laura DeBar
Drama/Comedy • 0:30:00 • Heartland

They heyday as World War II ended had all but passed over the small town of Shaniko, Oregon. Range wars, fights over fresh water and a plague has turned this once thriving center of commerce into a ghost town. Haunted by the town’s troubled past and by her own personal demons, a woman finds reason for hope in Wade, a mysterious cowboy drifter. They fall for each other, but one day Wade learns something he was never meant to hear – a secret that could tear their new relationship apart.

A woman recounts her mother’s lessons on crossing the street and the mutability of matter through the example of road kill. Based on a memory of the artist, the animation depicts her mother’s traffic warning and illuminates the nature of death. This warning serves as an education in the physical nature of death, as something both transformative and strangely comforting in is tangibility. Various 2D computer animation techniques are employed.

Mac Robinson is a classic film noir detective. One day he calls in a woman named Sophie Striker for questioning. He realizes that he is in love with this mysterious woman, but the feeling is not mutual. Sophie is perplexed by Mac. He appears to be ignoring her, but Mac and the audience know that he is actually carrying on a conversation. The problem is, this conversation is with himself and in his head. Mac is narrating his own life. In an attempt to get over Sophie’s rejection, Mac goes to a bar. Here he meets his old rival, Frank Jennings. The two have a battle that climaxes with Mac learning a lesson that he can apply to his troubles with Sophie.

An uninspired youth joins a gym to prove his mother wrong, but doubts himself after he realizes who the trainer is. www.haymakerthemovie.com

What’s the worst secret you ever had to tell? A relationship is at the breaking point when both partners have a secret to confess.

Baby is the winner of the 2011 U.S./Int’l Best Narrative Short and Best of Fest Short awards

A young woman intervenes when she witnesses men mugging a girl. Now one of them won’t leave her alone.

This David vs. Goliath story tracks the struggle of 560 miners in a Mojave desert town, who fought back successfully against the giant Rio Tinto Group, a multinational global mining corporation that drastically cut the workers’ benefits when the union contract expired.

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RICKETS explores accidental landscapes. The footage was taken on a boat trip along the Hudson River in the fall. By overexposing the image and shooting into the sun through a fence, the water became its own gaseous and biological landscape. RICKETS strips down the narrative of aesthetic into the simplest terms. The film travels from point A to point B–white to black.

Louis Smart, a sculptor born in the Ozarks, continues in the human figure tradition of Michelangelo and Rodin. Using the “lost wax method,” we see him creating a walking woman, from the modeling session, through the bronze pour, to the patina. Few people get to experience the wonders of a sculptor pouring molten bronze and the finishing of a beautiful and sensuous work of art. This film lets everyone in on the rare process. The labor involved to create a graceful figure is full of hammers and tongs, but the result is breathtaking.

The filmmaker will be in attendance along with Louis Smart. Mr. Smart’s artwork will also be on display.

To view more of Mr. Smart’s work, visit: http://www.louissmartsculpture.com/.

Sponsored by:

AFTRA-Kansas City

Flags, Feathers, and Lies is a provocative look at the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans, in all their rich, resplendent, and rhythmic glory, and how they and the community have survived the twin disasters of Hurricane Katrina and government neglect. The culture of the lower 9th ward comes from a heritage that merges African and Native American traditions and has combined celebration with solidarity.

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Hand-drawn animation of life forms spin, dance and gather to a driving rhythmic jazz drumming.

This… is the Orange Line is the winner of the 2011 Heartland Best Experimental Short

A short documentary film about the shapes and movements of the Chicago Orange Line L train from day to night. Featuring a cello concerto by Edward William Elgar.

Stuffer

Nathan Crooker
Narrative • 0:19:45 • U.S./Int’l

A female sergeant returns to her husband and daughter from the front lines of Afghanistan for fear that they will foreclose on their home. But she is coming home with a secret.

This story depicts an inner-city girl’s journey through a harsh landscape, on a mysterious and ultimately inspiring mission. Shot entirely in the West Bottoms, Kansas City, Missouri.

An undercover officer becomes the person he is pretending to be.

This MFA thesis film is set in late 1940′s San Francisco and was shot by student filmmakers from the Academy of Art University. A traveling salesman mixes business with pleasure. Hung over and confused after a period of celebration and debauchery, he is barely able to peel his face off the pillow to answer the phone. A mysterious woman entices him to come out into the night, and he agrees to a rendezvous at an all-night club. Descending back into the world of delights, he is soon caught off guard, and rather than being met with a beautiful woman, he encounters two goons with their own agenda. His mind racing to determine who has set him up, Don now has an even more pressing matter at hand, how to escape the determined thugs who have kidnapped him and taken him for a ride on this dark desert highway.

A man arrives at a discotheque confused and without purpose. After he spots Irene, he realizes that while he watches her, he experiences unique and indescribable feelings. The young man will predict a succession of events that gradually become true.

After returning to the New Jersey projects on night with a crew of his friends, Markees, an African-American twenty-something, finds a drunken African man passed out in his building hallway. After ridiculing the man, the young men realize that the he is actually Kofo, Markees’ Nigerian-immigrant stepfather. Motivated by shame and the restraining order his mother has placed on his stepfather, Markees drags the unconscious man into his car to find him a more suitable place to sleep. But as the night wears on, tensions build and frustrations mount, forcing the situation toward a violent end. Can Markees reject the pressures of urban machismo and his own youthful pride before someone actually gets hurt?