Ozark Foothills FilmFest presents “Foreground Music: Stage Center Music in Independent Film” at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 17 at the Searcy Cinema 8. The program is a collection of six new short independent films distinguished by their innovative use of music.
Filmmakers/composers Dominic Traverzo (LAST GUN STORY and FOUR) and Hans Stiritz (BEFORE) and filmmaker Nathan King Miller (EUROAMERICAN) will be present to discuss their work.
The line-up includes:
EUROAMERICAN. By Nathan King Miller. (19 min). A mosaic of fiction, documentary, literature, memoir, philosophy, animation, and European Cinema – EUROAMERICAN is a short meditation on perceiving and cultivating a rich human life.
BEFORE. By Hans Stiritz; music by Hans Stiritz. (5 min.). Late in 2003, the filmmaker rediscovered some 8mm film that his German grandmother had shot during several trips traveling to see his family in America in the late 60’s/early 70’s. “Sifting through all the film,” he explains, “I noticed that she always included several shots of airports and airplanes for each visit. Flying on the big jets was still something special in that day.” Using this archival film, the filmmaker takes a nostalgic look at his family’s vision of the golden age of the “Jet Set” and the magic of flight, and finds himself considering how world events can cast new light (or shadow) on cherished memories.
STREET FARE. By Megan Steinbeck; music by Bill Douglas; lyrics by William Blake. (4 min.). A Hispanic street festival is transformed by the introduction of seemingly incongruous music.
LAST GUN STORY. By Dominic Traverzo; music by Closure and Blukid. (6 min.) LAST GUN STORY is Dominic Traverzo’s haunting film essay about violence and lost hope. The film recounts the world of a young man whose fatally shot body is found in the bathroom of a Florida rest stop. Using images of streets, open fields, and seemingly endless roads spliced with re-enactments of scenes from the dead man’s life, this short film offers a sorrowful mix of a wasted life marred by several incidents of gun-related violence and a sense of having accomplished nothing before death came unexpectedly.
FOUR. By Dominic Traverzo; music by Blukid. (12 min.) Dominic Traverzo’s FOUR focuses on a quartet of seemingly unrelated people (a middle aged woman, a young professional, and a man and woman who seem to be in their late teens) who are brought together in a somewhat undefined union. With its creepy black-and-white cinematography and vaguely menacing score humming lightly across the soundtrack, it is obvious there is going to be some sort of a twist ending.
THE LOST SENSE. By Beatrice Dina. (9 min.) At the school of Pune in Koregaon Park, India, teachers use ancient yoga techniques to help children understand that being blind is not a punishment or a chastisement. One hundred fifty children from age six to eighteen learn to master their own senses through movements like crossing their arms over their chests, a gesture of self-collection which brings one to his own center, finding the self-balance that permits each child not to stagger in the darkness.
For more info, visit the Ozark Foothills FilmFest website>>>
