Ann Arbor Film Festival 2009

An attempt at finding solace.

A film following one of the invisible bloodlines of the city of Boston- the culverted Stonybrook River.

A found footage film that taps into the poetic tradition of the language cut-up, while taking filmic advantage of the 26 frame displacement between sound and image inherent to 16mm. film’s optical soundtrack system. Cut into tiny fragments of as little as 4-frame utterances, the language track reshuffles the narration and is off beat with its imagery, moving the mind to scramble and play, or give up making sense. The magenta-shifted fragments of an educational film on ‘Reaching Your Reader’ reveal their chemistry where the splicing tape pulled away a ‘ruby’ skin of the emulsion, leaving a green tear at the edit points. ‘Ruby Skin’ is a material homage to the disappearing medium of 16mm. film and some of it idiosyncrasies.

A single mother's personal ritual combines her history, poetry and a volleyball-inspired aerobic workout. The piece uses animated and live-action footage to create a kind of temporal collage - where past and present emotional truths coexist and play. Camera: Mark Foster. Music: Yo La Tengo. Cast: Miriam Shor and Max Rosenthal

Music by Patrick Gleeson.

One reason the festival gave for rejecting the film was it "went too fast." It travels the right speed: 24 frames per second. 240. Count 'em.

In her feature film debut, writer/director/animator Emily Hubley brings her distinctive hand-drawn style and an entire artistic community to this mischievous and melancholy cinematic meditation on themes of time, memory, loss and yearning. Starring Lily Rabe, Kevin Corrigan, Daniel London, Sakina Jaffrey, Jane Lynch and Novella Nelson, with the voices of Don Byron, David Cross, Andrea Martin, Marian Seldes and Eli Wallach. Original score by Yo La Tengo.