Santa Fe Film Festival 2009

In 2007-08, Eric Maddox spent five months living and working in Dheisheh Refugee Camp and Ramallah in the West Bank while completing his graduate research in International Conflict Resolution. Eric’s travels in Israel and the West Bank coincided with the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the declaration of the State of Israel, an event that has come to be known amongst the world’s Palestinian communities as Al Nakba or “The Catastrophe”. With around $300 in petty cash and no formal film training, Eric borrowed a recreational camcorder from his interning organization, Defense for Children International, and traveled to numerous Kibbutzim and Refugee Camps throughout the region, collecting the family narratives of Jews and Arabs who experienced the events of 1948 first-hand. ’48 Generations represents a street-level effort to document the lived realities and human consequences of the ongoing regional conflict. Eric hopes that this small project will mark the beginning of a career in “Conflict-Documentary Film-Making”, and hopes to hitch-hike across Iran with a camera and a list of questions gathered from ordinary Americans after completing his current project on immigration issues in New Mexico.

In this heartfelt short film, we find 12 year old Emily who after the death of her mother would rather be left alone. Her father enlists Alberto, Emily's old Argentinian grandfather to watch over her. Emily is not shy about her displeasure with the arrangement or her contempt for the man who doesn't speak English. Alone in her parent's bedroom, Emily takes comfort among the smell and feel of her mother's belongings when Alberto interrupts her reverie. Grappling with the language barrier between them, Emily agrees to accompany her grandfather on a journey into their Los Angeles neighborhood that proves both disappointing and delightful. In an unexpected diversion on the way home Emily witnesses the foreign world of cigars, civility, conversation, Tango music and dance. Later on that night in the warm glow of the kitchen, Alberto understands what Emily cannot express in words and Alberto offers his granddaughter her first Tango lesson on the kitchen linoleum. Emily and Alberto dance a simple tango and discover a language they can share.

Perry Lewis has all a middle-class man could wish for: a comfortable home, a loving wife, and an adorable 9-month old son. Having worked his way out from beneath his father-in-law, Perry takes pride in the simple luxuries he’s provided for his family. But when a catastrophic hurricane rips through his Florida town, Perry’s life is upturned overnight. Having stayed to protect his home, Perry finds himself stranded with his family in a dangerous wasteland of matchstick trees, overturned cars, and demolished houses. As thunderstorms approach, Perry’s paranoia becomes a frightening reality when he hears a window shatter next door. Keeping true to his promise to watch his neighbor’s house, Perry grabs a shotgun and risks his life to chase off looters. He returns to find his wife Patrice outraged by his cowboy antics, appalled by his disregard for the family’s safety. As tempers flair, the thunderstorm rages on. The ceiling cracks. The drywall collapses. And the deluge pours into their home, threatening what little Perry and Patrice have left. With no help in site, the couple works through the night to save what they can and finds in one another a love stronger than any force of nature.

The Art of the Steal plays like a thrilling whodunit as it seeks to solve what happened to the world-renowned Barnes art collection, valued in the “billions and billions.” The collection's unrivalled holdings of post-impressionist and early modernist art are staggering in quantity: 181 paintings by Renoir, 69 by Cézanne, 59 by Matisse and 46 by Picasso, including many masterpieces. Dr. Albert Barnes was a self-made man with a well-trained eye who assembled the art in the twenties. He snubbed the provincial elites in his hometown of Philadelphia by housing the collection in the suburb of Merion, Pennsylvania. Rather than grouping canvases by artist or era as in a typical gallery, he displayed work in an idiosyncratic way to express his own aesthetic vision. Barnes was more concerned with educating serious students in his vision than reaching casual tourists, so he restricted attendance and refused to loan paintings to other institutions. His individualism earned him antagonists (notably Walter Annenberg, publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer) but also many loyal supporters. Upon Barnes's death in 1951, his will gave control of the collection to the trustees of Lincoln University, the first black university in the United States. Eventually, lawyers and business people swarmed to exploit its resources. In the nineties, a sampling of the collection travelled the world on a multi-city tour (including Toronto). Then a scheme was hatched to permanently remove the collection from Merion that some would later call the heist of the century. Director Don Argott previously made the endearing documentary Rock School about another iconoclastic educator from Philadelphia. In The Art of the Steal, the filmmaker deftly adopts an investigative approach to unravel the complicated politics and personalities that determined the fate of the Barnes collection. Drawing upon research from John Anderson's book Art Held Hostage, the film tantalizes us with the sumptuous imagery of the paintings, and features interviews full of intense conflicting opinions. The story is full of twists, turns and double-crosses. Along the way, multiple questions are raised: How is art best served? Should it be reserved for true connoisseurs or made available to the most eyeballs possible? And who decides?

Work, family, relationships, deadlines, terrorism, information overload... When Modern Life is getting crazier and crazier, day by day, who wouldn't think about getting out? Leaving it all behind? Wouldn't that be the only sane response to this mad world? 'Asylum Seekers' is about escapism, about feeling the pressure and deciding on a radical solution. Our six characters can't take their various stresses any more and are heading for the door marked EXIT. It leads to a deluxe, exclusive, luxuriously-appointed mental asylum, an adult funfair where they can let it all go and be waited on hand and foot for the rest of their carefree lives. Or so it seems... The first twist is that there are limited places. Only one free bed remains. The competition is on. And there are many other surprises lying in wait for the unwary, would-be-insane patient... The ride out of the world they know has only just begun!

What if you could morph you car into a mobile work of art, and drive it down the road for all to see? What would it look like? What would the world think of you? How would you be changed? AUTOMORPHOSIS looks into the minds and hearts of a delightful collection of eccentricities, visionaries, and just plain folks who have transformed their autos into artworks. On a humorous and touching journey, we discover what drives the creative process for these unconventional characters. And in the end, we find that an art car has the power to change us – alter our view of our increasingly homogenous world.

Where have all the flowers gone?In 1988—twenty years after Woodstock—Seattle filmmaker Kevin Tomlinson asked himself that question. What he discovered back then, through in-depth interviews at a 4 day 'healing gathering' which drew 500 back to the land hippies, was that small counterculture communities of sixties dropouts were intact and surviving in the back country. In fact, they were thriving in the eighties, living off the rich, rural land of Washington state and refining sixties “hippie” concepts—completely independent of a culture that had all but forgotten and marginalized them.His footage sat untouched for 20 years.In 2008, in the tradition of 'Seven Up,' Tomlinson revived these old tapes and was deeply moved. What these outsiders were talking about in the eighties: sustainability, simplicity, family, love for the earth, self-reliance, and community responsibility—seemed to be blossoming with incredible force, 20 years later, into the mainstream.He decided to seek out his subjects again. The intimate and personal journey that followed offers profound, moving insights into one of the most iconic social movements of our time—and speaks to all of us. The pioneering lifestyles of these aging hippies and their now-thriving families, firmly insulated from global economic shocks, today looks wiser than ever.

An enchanted comedy about romantic evenings gone wrong, true love and magical bathtubs. Sounds familiar? You’ve planned this one special date to perfection, considered every single detail… and then everything just goes totally wrong. So wrong that you end up sitting in a bathtub, naked and in the company of a complete stranger.That is exactly what happens to Marie…Marie Patacheky (she hates her last name like hell and is constantly making herculean efforts to avoid mentioning it) has prepared this evening for quite some time now: it is gonna be a very romantic and sexy surprise – that includes a redecorated bathroom and herself waiting for him in the bathtub.But things turn very different, and several very chaotic coincidences later the one who ends up naked next to her in the bathtub is not Marie’s boyfriend, but one Victor von Draaken. Victor is the black sheep of his very aristocratic family, constantly broke and the lover of Marie’s boyfriend’s wife. Yes… better read that one again, it’s all true!Things could not possibly become any worse? Just wait until the bathtub that Marie and Victor are sitting in starts glowing and humming and…Let’s not give that away here, but we promise: this bathtub is not your regular bathtub. It is magical and will reveal more about Marie and Victor than what the eye can see: it is the bathtub to happiness.