Local Short Film Spotlight

Running time: N/A

Daniel Mellitz' La Femme Pickle (winner of The San Jose Visual Arts Film and Video Festival Award) is a mock-documentary about the ups and downs of a student film shoot. In the wake of Living in Oblivion, this film casts a refreshing and witty light on the process of shooting a low-budget film. Cat Calls, Wolf Whistles and Other Ordinary Dangers by Gail Huddleson consists in a series of lively and quick interviews of women and their feelings about being whistled at in the street. With intelligent humor, this story explores the response and reaction to street harassment. Charlotte Lagarde's Swell is a documentary about four women surfers in Santa Cruz who lead us on a journey through the world of surfing seen from their eyes. As you penetrate the core of their lives, one realizes their "perfect" world, but through a dramatic event, one sees that "perfection" can often be wrought with pain. Jan Krawitz' In Harm's Way juxtaposes the filmmaker's own childhood in the late 50's with family values of that era and her actual adult encounter's with anonymous violence. This poignant document expresses her own unheard cries but also echoes those cries of victims everywhere. In Kinetic Life, San Jose native Reginald A.Hudson tells the story of two good friends whose personalities are so opposite that they get on each other's nerves. One day, however, their differences reach critical mass. Zahor (Remember) is a collage of photographs chosen by Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir in memory of her parents and of all the Jewish people who lived a normal and happy life before being snatched by the delirious madness of WWII. The film is a vibrant testimony of a by-gone era when people were happy, Jewish or not. - Hayet Ennabli