“Romanian Refugee in the Vestibule of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome,” 2001. Photograph © Vincenzo Guarnera
2007 Winners
Complete list of awards 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
Director’s Welcome
One of the oldest film festivals in the U.S. affiliated with a university, the Big Muddy is proud to present a particularly diverse and rich program of in-competition and non-competition films for its 29th season.
Founded in 1979 by faculty member Mike Covell, the festival quickly made a name for itself thanks to Mike’s oversight and the dedication of many students. The Big Muddy Film Festival continues to operate out of the Department of Cinema and Photography at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Featuring the four main categories of filmmaking (animation, documentary, experimental, and narrative), the festival emphasizes documentary filmmaking, as a way of investigating the current state of the world.
Of critical concern today is the aftermath of the war in Iraq and issues of immigration, as people from poorer countries attempt to emigrate to countries of greater wealth. The Big Muddy is proud to present “The War Tapes,” produced by SIU alum Steve James, who will be on hand to introduce the film. Several films in this year's program draw attention to the topic of immigration. The Big Muddy has consistently drawn attention to such issues, much like the Magnum photographers, who in the wake of WW2, went around the world photographing war zones and trouble spots, in the hope of changing the world.1 In its visuals, the Big Muddy is thus pleased to include the work of Italian photographer Vincenzo Guarnera, himself a former student of the civil rights’ photographer (and Magnum member) Leonard Freed (1929-2006). To paraphrase Godard, editing images is also a way of changing the world. Most of these documentaries are integrated into our in-competition showcases and into our special all-day John Michaels Showcase.
The Big Muddy is focused not only on the global but also on the local, and this fact is reflected immediately in its memorable name, a tributary of the Mississippi River that meanders throughout scenic southern Illinois. It is also reflected in its annual invitation to an Illinois-based artist (this year the Chicago critic of international renown, Jonathan Rosenbaum) as well as in its ongoing commitment to the local area. The Big Muddy continues to present its showcases in the surrounding communities of Southern Illinois, and this year Curt Sidorski, one of the Big Muddy’s graduate assistants, initiated and coordinated bringing the Big Muddy into several new communities, including a nursing home and the IMC’s Technology-Learning Center in Cobden. In its visuals, the Big Muddy is also pleased to include the distinguished work of SIU faculty members Dan Overturf and Fern Logan, and SIU MFA student John Corson.
The heart of the festival is of course its in-competition showcases. Out of over 240 entries from around the world, we have selected about 60 films; the films themselves suggested certain topics and we present them here in 20 programs. Besides Jonathan Rosenbaum, the Big Muddy welcomes this year two other distinguished jurors — French-born director of photography and filmmaker Babette Mangolte and filmmaker Amy Granat. The 29th edition of the Big Muddy offers a wealth of experimental and/or avant-garde films, and in addition to its two in-competition experimental showcases, there are special screenings of both Mangolte and Granat’s work as well as highlights from the Canyon Cinema collection.
2006 has left us bereft of a number of important filmmaking personalities, and the Big Muddy honors this year the following directors with one (or in the case of Huillet, two) screenings: Gillo Pontecorvo (b. 1919), Danièle Huillet (b. 1936), Robert Altman (b. 1925), and Shohei Imamura (b. 1926). Thanks to the generous support of Kerasotes Theatres, we are showing more films on 35mm than ever before. In our non-competition showcases, we are exhibiting some of the best of contemporary world cinema, inaugurating the festival on Thursday, February 22, with the glorious Chinese film The World by Jia Zhang ke and closing it on Sunday, March 4 with Waiting for Happiness by one of the new talents of African cinema, Abderrahmane Sissako. Is there a theme in this year’s narrative films? Certainly one trend is in the growing tendency towards mutism in today’s global village, with characters barely verbally communicating (The World, Waiting for Happiness, 3-Iron, The Child), or if they do it is by text messaging.2 Redemption also comes into play in a number of these films (Pickpocket, The Eel, and The Child).
It is a privilege for me to join the Big Muddy Film Festival. I warmly thank the students of the Big Muddy’s Organizing Committee and Film Alternatives for their help in putting on this year’s festival. If you are a regular, I hope you will spread the word. And if this is your first Big Muddy, I hope you will take the time to explore its diversity, make some new friends, and spread the word.
Vive le Big Muddy!
Sally Shafto, Ph.D.
Executive Director
P.S.: Plans are already under way for our 30th anniversary celebration in 2008 (February 15–February 24). The Call for Entries will go out in May and the deadlines will be: September 1 (early), October 1 (regular), and November 1, 2008 (late).
Please consider becoming a Friend of the Big Muddy and making a donation.
1. 2007 is also the 60th anniversary of the Magnum cooperative. For more on the agency, see: <magnumphotos.com>.
2. For more on this tendency, see Emmanuel Burdeau, “News of the World,” Cahiers du cinéma, no. 602 (June 2005); Emmanuel Burdeau, “Reading, Writing & Arithmetic,” Cahiers du cinéma, no. 606 (November 2005), both available at <cahiersducinema.com>.
