VISITING ARTIST—This revealing cinematic essay in three parts is a poetic glance into filmmaker Scott Ray Becker’s (GRIDLOCKER’S PARADOX) recovery from clinical depression (“the Black Dog”) through his relationship with his ailing father, an old dog, and a San Francisco artist with developmental disabilities. Conceived, written, and principally shot by Becker over seven years, the films follow his recovery after undergoing electro-convulsive shock therapy. The recovery process found Becker entering his first 100-mile ultra-marathon in 2005, and though he didn’t finish the grueling feat of endurance, he credits long-distance running with leading him back toward a balanced, peaceful self. BLACK DOG TRILOGY shines an authentic light into an interior state of mind that affects millions of Americans. The trilogy includes: LIFE IS REAL (12 mins.), ONE RAN OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (20 mins.), and BLACK DOG RUNNING (34 mins.). (66 mins.)

With director Scott Ray Becker in attendance.

PRECEDED BY

OLD TOWN DIARY
DIRECTOR: BRIAN LINDSTROM / PORTLAND
US, 2010

VISITING ARTIST—“OLD TOWN DIARY is Lindstrom’s stately, hope-filled short about Portlanders struggling with mental illness and addiction. A true collaboration with its subjects, DIARY intersperses real-life testimonials with a dramatic narrative of a composite character (played with authenticity by Everclear’s Art Alexakis, a recovering addict) created by participants in a local community engagement program.”—Stan Hall, The Oregonian. (15 mins.)

With director Brian Lindstrom in attendance.

VISITING ARTIST—EMPTY QUARTER is a film about the region of Southeastern Oregon, an area populated by ranching and farming communities in Lake, Harney, and Malheur Counties. The region is roughly one-third of Oregon’s landmass, yet holds less than two percent of the state’s population. Through a series of stationary shots, recording open landscapes and the activities of local residents, Portland filmmakers LeTourneau and Minty reflect on the character of the region as viewed through its natural areas, industry, various labor processes, resource management, and recreation. The voices of local residents describe the history of pioneer settlement, social life of rural communities, and the struggles of small town economies. (70 mins.)

With directors Alain LeTourneau and Pam Minty in attendance.

Co-presented with Cinema Project.

VISITING ARTIST—Shot on the streets of Portland, this gripping thriller follows failed novelist Dennis Twist’s day in the city where a random occurrence leads to a terrifying game of cat-and-mouse with a mysterious motorcyclist. With his lovely wife back in the suburbs, Dennis begins to feel karma breathing down his neck at each turn as he re-evaluates his infidelities and the violence escalates. With nods to Steven Spielberg’s early cult favorite DUEL, RAGE’s smoldering tension builds into a chainsaw-violent, edge-of-the-seat rampage. (85 mins.)

With director Christopher Witherspoon in attendance.

RAGE after-party at The Nines starting at 9 p.m.

The Film Center turns over the screen in the Whitsell Auditorium to you. If you have a new short you would like to share, sign up by contacting Thomas Phillipson by March 1 at thomas@nwfilm.org. First come, first screened as time allows, with preference given to films under ten minutes.

We all have treasured objects in our lives. Whether a humble memento from childhood or a unique work of art, the objects we hold as precious are powerful expressions of our beliefs, values, and our place in the community. This afternoon, in partnership with Miracle Theatre Group, we premiere and celebrate OBJECT STORIES, a series of short films created by eight Latino artists: CarlosAlexis Cruz, Nathan Alvarez, Marisa Bevington, Mateo Bevington, Gerardo Calderon, Alfredo Feliciano, Lise Flores, and Ivonne Saed. Working with Film Center faculty Sue Arbuthnot and Maya Munoz-Tobon, the artists spent the fall learning hands-on filmmaking at the School of Film, then recorded and edited stories about objects from their own personal experiences, as well as stories by their friends and family members. Profiles include vignettes about a tango dancer’s shoes, a homemaker’s el molcajete, a performer’s mask, and a gallery owner’s collection of exvoros. The program also features literary readings about the personal objects held by participants in Write Around Portland, which reaches out to the under-served with creative writing workshops. We invite the public to visit the new Object Stories video capture booth located inside the Portland Art Museum to listen to other Object Stories and/or record their own. (90 mins.)

The project is generously supported by the MetLife Foundation, Ziba Design, and Fashion Buddha.

FREE ADMISSION

VISITING ARTIST—Twenty years after Woodstock, Seattle filmmaker Kevin Tomlinson interviewed a group of back-to-the-land hippies at a backcountry healing gathering. He found that small embers of ’60s dropouts were still intact and thriving, raising families while refining their hippie idealism. Doubtful about how seriously this would be viewed in 1988, the footage sat untouched for almost 20 years. In 2010, Tomlinson took another look. What these off-grid hippies were talking about then—sustainability, living more simply, sustainable lives, love for the earth, questioning authority, self-reliance, and community responsibility—now seems to be blossoming with incredible force and coming full circle, as climate change, war, consumerism, and the green movement take center stage in mainstream discussion. Tomlinson again set out to find his original subjects, this time with new questions. Had their radical off-grid lifestyles and ideals survived? Had anyone gone mainstream? What about their children—did they rebel against the rebel generation? (70 mins.)

With director Kevin Tomlinson in attendance.

VISITING ARTIST—When college graduate Peter Landsman moves to the city to pursue a career in professional accounting, he begins by cold-calling banks in search of a good job but soon finds himself living in a seedy apartment and working at the local skating rink. When a battered young woman stumbles into his apartment, Landsman is unwittingly lured into a seedy underworld of black market traders and killers. Shot in evocative, stark black and white, Eugene filmmaker Henry Weintraub’s (THE SAWYER FAMILY MOVIE, MELVIN) first foray outside the horror genre “is a confident, noir-ish piece that establishes him as a versatile filmmaker.”—Eugene Weekly. (71 mins.)

With director Henry Weintraub in attendance.