Film Synergy

LONG SHORTS/SHORT SHORTS

An entertaining night of films & videos: Erika Yeomans, Ilya Chaiken, Andrea Staka & Meredith Drum.
GALAPAGOS ART SPACE
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 8 pm Tickets $10.00
Tel: 718.222.8500 |16 main street | brooklyn

Featuring: Juliana Francis-Kelly, Holly Ramos, Kristin DiSpaltro,Casey Spooner, Michael Abbott Jr, Jenny Bass, Cosmo Pfeil, Mot Filipowski, Ben Greenman, Tom Gorman, Julie Strong, Vesna Stanojevic and Nebojsa Glogovac......

Erika Yeomans pairs a night of her films with some of her favorite female directors. The program showcases engaging experimental narratives and compelling, edgy narrative work. The shorts are alternately funny, dark, melodramatic, absurd, poetic and personal.

Program Line up & Running time approx 88 minutes
Erika Yeomans

Chubby Buddy (Home Movie, Super 8, 13 minutes 2003). Meet Francis Howard, who gives up a career and a marriage to act upon some peculiar impulses.

Boo (Horror, HD, 4 minutes 2008). A suspenseful Halloween tale about a young man who gets roped in by a cat lady.

Grand Gorge: No God But Me (Melodrama/Western HD, 12 minutes 2008). A Pastiche of western clichés; where white men seek redemption and revenge in a cyclical fashion.

Fragments of Death Comes for Britney Spears! the Musical (Musical, HD, 8 mins, 2008). Based on McSweeney & New Yorker contributor Ben Greenman's "ripped from the tabloid headline" newsicals.

Bunny Boy (Music Video, Beta, 5 mins, 1995). A woman becomes a glittered man to the tune of 10-CC's I'm not in Love.

Meredith Drum

The Double (DV, 9 minutes 2008) is a quest story. The searcher is traveling through an undefined area, between city and wilderness, the landscape of the outsider.


Andrea Staka

Hotel Belgrade (35mm 13 min,1998) A couple makes love in a hotel. She lives in Switzerland, he in Belgrade. What has been destroyed by war will be resurrected in this hotel room.

Daleko (9 minutes, 2000). A young Yugoslavian woman trying to cope with her new Americanlife as bombs destroy her former homeland.

Ilya Chaiken

The 100 Lovers of Jesus Reynolds, 6 mins, 2004

A glimpse into the sexual misadventures of a woman named Jesus, as she reminisces about her many encounters and the day she almost missed the Coney Island Mermaid Parade.

Blackout, 8 minutes, 2004. Two strangers wake up in bed together on the morning after the Big Blackout of 2003. Through the sporadic flashes of memory that infiltrate their hangovers, they manage to piece together the events of the historic previous day.

FILMMAKERS BIOS

Erika Yeomans,Program Curator/Filmmaker. Over the years, Yeomans has created an extensive body of work in theater, mixed media and film. Formerly the Artistic Director of the experimental group DOORIKA (Chicago and New York), she has focused on video and filmmaking since 1999. Her work has screened at film festivals and art institutions around the world, including: London's ICA, Lincoln Center's New York Video Festival, LA Freewaves, Berlin's Transmediale, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Silver Lake Film Festival, Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum, Cinematek at the Danish Film Institute and New York's Anthology Film Archives. In 2006, she was awarded a New York State Media Arts Grant for her debut feature film POSE DOWN (90 mins, Super 16, 2007). In 2008,Yeomans completed 3 new video projects that continue to explore different film genres: Fragmentsfrom Death Comes for Britney Spears the Musical! (Musical, HD, 8 minutes, 2008), Boo! (Horror, HD 4
minutes, 2008) and Grand Gorge: No God But Me (Western, HD, 12, 2008). She lives in New York City. For info www.therestofyournaturallifeproductions.com

Ilya Chaiken's second feature film LIBERTY KID, received critical raves, has been broadcast on HBO and was released in November 2008 by Kino Films. Chaiken's acclaimed debut feature MARGARITA HAPPY HOUR premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001 and proceeded to many others before receiving distribution from Wellspring. She returned to Sundance in 2004 with the comedic short "The 100 Lovers of Jesus Reynolds." She studied filmmaking at SUNY Purchase and lives in Brooklyn. Chaiken is preparing to direct her third feature, AMERICAN ANGELS and will launch a webisode series in the Spring of 2009: 'The Unloveables'. www.libertykidmovie.com.

Andrea Staka was born in 1973 in Lucerne. She has received numerous awards for "Hotel Belgrad" and "Yugodivas", as well as Swiss Film Prize nominations. 2006 Awarded Golden Leopard in Locarno for her debut feature "Das Fräulein". 2007 Awarded Swiss Film Prize, Best Screenplay for "Fraulein". She lives in Zürich. In 2007, Variety picked Ms. Staka as part of their TEN TO WATCH list for Fraulein.

Meredith Drum creates experimental fiction and nonfiction video as well as journalistic short form. Her experimental work has screened at Anthology Film Archives, Participant Inc., Monkey Town and Ocularis. Her journalistic work has screened at Fales Library and Archive at NYU and has been published on the New York Times Tmagazine Online and Good Magazine Online. She is also a creative writer, with poems and stories published by Ploughshares, Pierogi Press and Insurance Magazine.

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SAVE THE DATE!
Long Shorts/Short Shorts
An evening of films & videos by Erika Yeomans, Ilya Chaiken, Andrea Staka & Meredith Drum
Galapagos Art Space February 4th 2009