The 29th Annual Big Muddy Film Festival

Jurors

Amy Granat

Amy Granat is a rising young star in avant-garde filmmaking. She grew up in Saint Louis, where her latent interest in filmmaking was nurtured by her step-dad who had a passion for 16mm and ham radios. As an undergraduate at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, she initially majored in studio art, until one day she picked up a movie camera. After making a few films she went to Bard’s resident filmmaker Adolfas Mekas for advice and quickly found her calling. After graduation, she worked at the New York Filmmakers’ Coop, where she had the opportunity to pursue her love of experimental cinema. Today, her abstract films generally dispense with a camera, as she damages the film emulsion in direct manipulation. Her work evokes many associations and succeeds in expanding the medium in new and exciting ways. Since 2003, Granat has been exhibiting her work internationally in art galleries as well as museums, including a solo exhibition of her spray paint films at the Centre d’Art in Neuchâtel, Switzerland (2005), a show of her scratch films at the Künstlerhaus Palais Thurn & Taxis, Bregenz, Austria (2003), and a show of her hole punch films at PS 1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City, New York (2005). In 2006, she exhibited in a group show of splatter paintings (“Lovely Shanghai Music”), curated by Swiss artist John Armleider at the Zendai Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai, China and a group show (“Bunch Alliance and Dissolve”) at the Cincinnati Arts Center. Recently, she has been incorporating performance and curatorial activity into the exhibition of her own work (Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris, 2006). She is a member of “Cinema Zero,” an artists’ group that activates connections between artists of different generations and fosters experimentations across disciplines. The January 2007 issue of Artforum carries an in-depth profile on her work.1 She lives and works in New York City, and this spring, she looks forward to teaching a class on Contemporary Art at NYU.

See <artforum.com>.

Babette Mangolte

Born and raised in France, Babette Mangolte came of age with the French New Wave. In 1964, she became one of the first women accepted by the Ecole Nationale de la Photographie et de la Cinématographie in Paris. This school, known as “Vaugirard,” was founded by Louis Lumière in 1922. In the late 60s Mangolte worked as an assistant camera on several feature films. In 1970, after shooting her first feature as Director of Photography — L’Automne by experimental filmmaker Marcel Hanoun — she became the first female director of photography in France. Her interest in experimental work led her to visit the US and the New York film scene in 1970. There she discovered dance, performance, and theatre and got involved in the Soho art scene of the early 70s. She has lived in New York since 1972.

As a cinematographer, Mangolte is well known for her work with: Chantal Akerman on Jeanne Dielman (1975) and News from Home (1976); Yvonne Rainer on Lives of Performers (1972) and Film about a Woman Who…; Jean-Pierre Gorin on Routine Pleasures (1986) and My Crasy Life (1991); and Sally Potter on The Gold Diggers (1983). She has also worked as a cinematographer for Michael Snow and has made films for Trisha Brown and Robert Rauschenberg.

In 1975 Mangolte finished her first film as director (What Maisie Knew), a film that today is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art. She has since directed several other films, most recently a video documentary (2003) about the making of Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959). Mangolte has an extensive archive of performance and dance photographs that she shot mostly in New York City in the 1970s and 1980s. Lately, she has turned to writing to reflect on her film and photo practice and on the interaction between aesthetics and technologies. She is currently working on an essay on Robert Bresson and finishing a film, Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramovic (2007).

For more information, see her web site: <babettemangolte.com>.

Jonathan Rosenbaum

One of the most prominent film critics in the U.S. today, Jonathan Rosenbaum grew up in the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in Alabama, where his grandfather and father owned a small chain of movie theaters. At Bard College (outside of New York City) in the early 60s, he majored in English, studied with the German teacher Heinrich Blücher (husband of Hannah Arendt), and dreamt of writing the next big American novel. The Sixties were particularly rich for budding cinephiles, and on weekends he went to the new Godard or Resnais release in Manhattan. At Bard, he was also a leading member of the student film club, where he had the honor of introducing Susan Sontag right after she published her celebrated essay, “Notes on Camp” (1964). In the late 60s, Rosenbaum moved to Paris where he worked briefly as an assistant to Jacques Tati, and appeared as an extra in Robert Bresson’s Four Nights of a Dreamer. After five years of living in Paris and two in London, where he worked at the British Film Institute, Rosenbaum returned to the US in the late 70s. He taught for several years at UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara. In 1987, he was hired as the full-time film critic at The Chicago Reader in 1987.

Besides his weekly column for The Reader, Rosenbaum has authored many books on film, including: Film: The Front Line (1983), Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism (1995), Moving Places: A Life at the Movies (1980; reprint 1995), Essential Cinema (2004) and a monograph on Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man. His most popular work is Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Movies We Can See (2002). He regularly contributes to the French film journal Trafic and his much anticipated study of Orson Welles is due out this spring.

Greatly respected by filmmakers around-the-world, Rosenbaum is a major figure in American film journalism because he openly promotes the dissemination and discussion of foreign films. Indeed, he decries the limits that Hollywood and the general media put on foreign films, thus greatly reducing the number of foreign films that the average American has access to.

Sponsors

The Big Muddy Film Festival is sponsored in part by Southern Illinois University Carbondale, the Illinois Arts Council, the Undergraduate Student Government, the Fine Arts Activity Fee, the College of Mass Communications and Media Arts, the Department of Cinema and Photography, the Office of the President at SIUC, the Nevada Film Office, and Silent Partner Films.

Big Muddy Staff

Sally Shafto
Executive Director

Curt Sidorski, M.F.A.
Graduate Assistant

Kwang-Woo Noh, Ph.D.
Graduate Assistant

Lindsay Greer, M.F.A.
Graduate Assistant

Lloyd Dunn
Graphic Designer

Vincenzo Guarnera
Photographer

Big Muddy Organizing Committee

Curt Sidorski (Community Outreach Programmer, Juror Liaison, Venue Coordinator, Pre-Screening Coordinator, Technical Advisor, Programming Committee Member)

Kwang-Woo Noh (Pre-Screening Coordinator, Film Coordinator, Features Coordinator, Programming Committee Member, Program Editor)

Lindsay Greer (Juror Liaison, Pre-Screening Coordinator, Ad Sales Coordinator, Craft Coordinator, Press & P.R. Coordinator, Programming Committee Member, Program Editor)

Eriko Ami (Merchandise Assistant, Film Coordinator, Programming Committee Member)

Kate Balsey (Juror Liaison, Ticket Collector)

Dan Boomgarden (WSIU Ad Designer, Technical Advisor, Programming Committee Member, Community Outreach Coordinator)

Bryan Brown (Merchandise Salesperson, Programming Committee Member, Community Outreach Coordinator)

Trenton Carson (Ad Sales Coordinator, Merchandise Salesperson, Ticket Collector, Programming Committee Member)

Ryan Claypool (Technical Advisor, Programming Committee Member)

Meghan Currey (Ad Sales Coordinator, Technical Advisor, Programming Committee Member)

Billy Floyd (Ticket Collector, Flier Distributor)

Brian Gallagher (Juror Liaison, Technical Advisor)

Aygul Idiyatullina (Graphic Designer, Graphic Design Liaison to the Designer)

Tomoe Ishii (Film Coordinator, Merchandise Salesperson, Programming Committee Member)

Andy Jones (Merchandise Salesperson, Programming Committee Member)

Jared Kennedy (WSIU Ad Designer, Technical Adviser, Programming Committee Member)

Jonathan Logwood (Ticket Collector)

Sean Loftus (Technical Advisor)

Keith McKenna (Merchandise Salesperson, Programming Committee Member)

Suzanne Milano (Merchandise Coordinator, Craft Coordinator, Graphic Designer, Press Coordinator, Programming Committee Member)

Robyn Reeves (Ad Sales Coordinator, Programming Committee Member)

Natsumi Shibata (Film Coordinator, Programming Committee Member, Merchandise Salesperson)

Justin Skarrin (Merchandise Salesperson)

Jennifer Van Brooker (Photographer)

Tom Vasilij (Merchandise Salesperson, Programming Committee Member, Technical Advisor)

Brian Wilson (Juror Liaison)

Jason Zenz (Technical Supervisor, Community Outreach Coordinator, Programming Committee Member)

Wei Zhang (Film Coordinator)

Pre-Screening Committees

Najjar Abdul-Musawwir
Dan Boomgarden
Bryan Brown
Ryan Claypool
Meghan Currey
Stuart Fischoff
Rachel Gordon-Fischoff
Lindsay Greer
Tomoe Ishii
Jared Kennedy
Cheonae Kim
Wago Kreider
Rachel Malcolm-Woods
Antonio Martinez
Keith McKenna
Suzanne Milano
Jay Needham
Kwang-Woo Noh
Keun-Pyo Park
Nick Yeck-Stauffer
Sally Shafto
Bob Shapiro
Natsumi Shibata
Curt Sidorski
Dee Tudor
Tom Vasilij
Brian Wilson
Marvin Zeman
Jason Zenz

Projectionists

Adam Alcozer
Andy Bagwell
Ben Mullineaux
Jon Sharwarko
Steve Williams

Special Thanks
Members of SIU-C

Najjar Abdul-Musawwir (Assistant Professor, School of Art & Design), Steve Banker (SIU Office of Research & Development), John Corson (MFA ’07, Department of Cinema & Photography), Mike Covell (Assistant Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography, Community Activist and Organizer), Renee Dillard (Director of Fundraising, WSIU), Stuart Fischoff (Screenwriter and Psychologist), Rachel Gordon Fischoff (Script Consultant), Georgeann Hartzog (R.N., St. Joseph Hospital), Ron D. Graves (Development Officer, MCMA), Candy Isberner (Executive Director, WSIU), Sarah Kanouse (Assistant Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography), Jyotsna Kapur (Associate Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography, Community Activist and Organizer), Cheonae Kim (Artist-in-Residence, School of Art & Design), Wago Kreider (Assistant Professor, Department of Radio & Television), Fern Logan (Associate Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography), Rachel Malcolm-Woods (Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography), Paul Matalonis (Attorney, Land of Lincoln Legal Services), Antonio Martinez (Assistant Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography), Hugh Muldoon (United Campus Ministries/Interfaith Center), Jay Needham (Assistant Professor, Department of Radio & Television), Mary O’Hara (Professor, John Logan College), Dan Overturf (Associate Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography), Dean Manjunath Pendakur (College of Mass Communication & Media Arts), Christy Poggas (Fine Arts Fee Committee), Tommie Rayford (Assistant to the Chair, Department of Cinema & Photography), Rhonda Rothrock (Front Office Manager, Department of Cinema & Photography), Roger Trexler (Printing/Duplicating Service), Dee Tudor (Chair & Associate Professor, Department of Cinema & Photography), Shannon Wimberly (Printing/Duplicating Service), and Marvin Zeman (Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics)

Additional Special Thanks

Dominic Angerame (Canyon Cinema), Eric Di Bernardo (Rialto Pictures), Sarah Finklea (Janus Films), Charlie Geocaris (SIU ’83, Nevada Film Office), George Grigus (SIU ’83, Silent Partner Films), Jonathan Howell (New Yorker Films), Steve James (SIU ’84, Filmmaker and Producer), Todd Klein (Silent Partner Films), Anastasia Kousakis (SenArt Films), Nicole Pudlowski (Swank Motion Pictures), Paul Seiler (Kerasotes Theater), M. M. Serra (New York Filmmakers Coop), Cindy Shuck (Kerasotes Theater), Encarnacion M. Teruel (Illinois Arts Council), Klaus Volkmer (Deutsches Filmmuseum, Munich), and Christine Whitehouse (British Film Institute, London)