The 29th Annual Big Muddy Film Festival

“Romanian Refugee in the Vestibule of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome,” 2001. Photograph © Vincenzo Guarnera



Scenes from the 29th Big Muddy

A collection of photographs taken during the 2007 Big Muddy Film Festival by Vincenzo Guarnera.

Director’s Welcome

For the 2007 festival.



Friends of the Big Muddy

Find out how you can lend your support the Big Muddy Film Festival.

Big Muddy Posters

You can also support the Big Muddy by buying a poster created for this year’s festival. There are four to choose from!



Contact Information

Big Muddy Film Festival
Department of Cinema and Photography
Communications Building
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
1100 Lincoln Drive
Carbondale, IL 62901-6610

info@bigmuddyfilm.com
tel 618 453–8301
fax 618 453-2264

Press release detailing the winners.

Cash Awards

The Big Muddy Film Festival’s $ 2,000 award goes to:

The Cats of Mirikitani (Dir Linda Hattendorf. USA. 2006. 74m.), which we regard as the best documentary and the best narrative film.

“Make art not war” is 80-year-old Jimmy Mirikitani’s motto. Born in California and raised in Hiroshima, by 2001 he was living on the streets of New York. How did he end up there? The answer is in his art. In wind, rain and snow Mirikitani could be found on a corner in Soho drawing pictures of bleak internment camps, whimsical cats and the angry flames of the atomic bomb. When a filmmaker stops to ask about Mirikitani’s art, a friendship begins that will change both of their lives. In the landscape of post-9/11 New York, the two embark on a tumultuous journey into the past. The Cats of Mirikitani is an intimate exploration of the lasting trauma of war and the healing power of art.

The film now playing at the Cinema Village in New York City and is held over, and it will open at Facets Multi-media in Chicago on April 6th, 2007.

The Cats Of Mirikitani will be airing nationally on PBS on May 8th. [more info]

 

For the best animation and experimental work, $ 250 each to:

Dinner Table (Dir Song E. Kim. USA. 2006. 3m.) A couple takes a surreal turn as they share a meal.

 

 

Pillow Girl (Dir Ronnie Cramer. 2006. 8m) v A sound-art work originally created for the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver by musician-artist Ronnie Cramer, who scanned the covers and inside pages of a number of lurid, vintage paperbacks, then ran the collected image and text data through a variety of synthesizers. The resulting sound files were then processed and remixed into the soundtrack for the Pillow Girl film; the visual portion of the film makes use of over 200 covers, with one illustrated figure morphing into the next every two seconds.

Out Of (K)Nowhere: A Film by Anne Prat (Dir Christian Lebrat. France. 2006. 24m.). “Very little was left of the film by Anne Prat, a brilliant young woman who studied cinema with me at the University of Paris in the 1970s. She was no ordinary student. Three weeks before summer break in 1976, although she had not participated in any of the practical filmmaking sessions, she presented to the class a short, shot in the Brakhage style, a film which surprised us all by its technical mastery. She informed me that she was going to stop studying and go to Australia, and that her film was just the beginning of a larger, more complicated cinematographic work. She left the material for her film in a big box at the university, and asked me to pick it up. At that time, I had no idea I would never see her again …”  –Christian Lebrat

 

For the urgency of the information that they impart, we would like to award $ 150 each to:

Beyond Closed Doors (Dir Hugh Dorigo. USA. 2006. 56m.) Beyond Closed Doors examines the science, ethics and politics of animal agriculture. Leading world experts take the viewer beyond the rhetoric of important issues in agriculture, rarely covered by the mainstream media, yet have the potential to affect the lives of all Americans.

Like a Ship in the Night (Dir Melissa Thompson. USA. 2006. 30m.) Abortion is illegal in Ireland, punishable by life imprisonment. And yet at least 8,000 women a year travel to England for abortions. They make this journey in secret and return in silence. Like a Sbip in the Night follows Mary, Louise and Siobhan as they plan their journeys across the Irish sea.

Sun and Death: Chernobyl and After… (Dir Bernard Debord. France. 2006. 82m.) On April 26, 1986, a nuclear explosion released a toxic cloud at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine. In the following days, this plume spewed 70% of its radioactive fallout over Belarus, whose border is just seven kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear power station. The world-at-large was unsuspecting, and it quickly forgot that the remainder of the fatal nuclear deposit was released over the northern hemisphere. This film concentrates entirely on Belarus, whose population in the twenty years since the disaster has been condemned by the effects of ingesting small doses of radioactivity. This film gives witness to the process of slow death, reveals the imminent genetic catastrophe, and unties the threads of the international conspiracy of silence, all of which threaten the immediate future of Belarus.

Up the Ridge (Dirs Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirby. USA. 2006. 54m.) A shocking new documentary on the plight of urban prisoners in remote rural prisons. Up the Ridge explores the violation of basic human rights through the story of an Appalachian prison, and the political expediencies that bring communities into racial and cultural conflict with tragic consequences.

And, for the wit and efficiency of its presentation, $ 150 for:

Gimmie Green (Dirs Isaac Brown and Eric Flagg. USA. 2006. 27m.) Lawns are undeniably an American symbol. But what do they really symbolize? Pride and prosperity? Or waste and conformity? Gimme Green is a humorous look at America’s obsession with the residential lawn and the effects it has on our environment, our wallets, and our outlook on life.

The 2007 Jurors: Amy Granat, Babette Mangolte, and Jonathan Rosenbaum

Audience Choice Honors

Sex Slaves (Ric Esther Bienstock)

 

 

 

The Cats of Mirikitani (Linda Hattendorf)

Pillow Girl (Ronnie Cramer)

Alice Sees the Light (Ariana Gerstein)

John Michaels Winner

Sun and Death: Chernobyl and After… (Bernard Debord)

John Michaels Honorable Mention

Hidden Wounds (Iris Adler)

 

 

 

The Cats of Mirikitani (Linda Hattendorf)

Up the Ridge (Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirby)

Best of the Fest Program

Pillow Girl (Ronnie Cramer), 8m.

Dinner Table (Song E. Kim), 3m.

Out of (K)Nowhere: A Film by Anne Prat (Christian Lebrat), 24m.

The Cats of Mirikitani (Linda Hattendorf), 74m.