Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee: April 16- 22

The 8th festival will kick off with a real bang with the screening of the first feature film from Kansas City to make it into Sundance: CSA-Confederate States of American. Backed by Spike Lee, picked up by IFC Films; director Kevin Willmott and producer Rick Cowen have a breakthrough opportunity that everyone hopes will propel them to even greater success. They have graciously allowed us to screen CSA as a benefit for the Jubilee.

Official Selections - US/International Short Division
12:34
Experimental 13:09
Bob Hickey - Screenwriter, Director, Producer (United Kingdom)
Interviews with Stuart Murdoch, singer and founder of the Scottish band Belle and Sebastian, filmed entirely during a train ride from Glasgow to London. Passing scenery and in-depth discussion illustrates the journey from fan to artist.

19 At 11
Narrative 14:35
Michael Schwartz - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Greg, a young reporter, gets his first shot at prime time when the co-anchor calls in sick. But Roger, the senior anchor with a mean streak, plans to make Greg’s first break his last. As Roger’s on-air pranks go from cute to cruel, Greg realizes quickly that, by the time the clock reaches 11:30, there will be only one newsman left standing.

30 Miles
Experimental 04:00
Ronnie Cramer - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Two time-lapse accounts of the same 30-mile trip; taken 23 years apart and presented via split-screen.

A Life of Death
Documentary 08:00
Dawn Westlake - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
What price peace? An exploration of the irony of waging war while simultaneously seeking peace.

A Love Supreme
Documentary 09:11
Nilesh Patel - Screenwriter, Director, Producer (United Kingdom)
A record of the filmmaker's mother as she skillfully prepares samosas (Indian dumplings) despite having rheumatoid arthritis.

A Work in Progress
Animation 08:00
Wes Ball, Brandon Carroll - Filmmakers
A shy, lonely girl slowly gathers new friends while writing a story about a lonely bear.

Adventures in Homeschooling
Narrative 26:11
Adam Doole, Tony DeCarlo - Filmmakers
The Hemples, a family that takes homeschooling to an extreme, are threatened to be shut down by a vindictive Board of Education inspector. But the members of this eccentric and highly dysfunctional family somehow find a way to pull together and win the day.

Agora
Narrative 07:30
Chris Newberry - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Separated from her mother at the Minnesota State Fair, a young girl must find the courage to help an Shot on location at the Minnesota State Fair, AGORA tells the simple tale of a young girl lost in a crowd. Separated from her mother, the girl must find the courage to help a stranger despite daunting circumstances and bizarre surroundings.

Apotheosis
Narrative 08:50
Janet Wondra - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
A silent film about unrequited love and human spontaneous combustion. Shot on 8mm.

Baker: War in the Mojave
Narrative 21:34
David Zorn - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Baker, CA has made a name and a profit for itself by being home to the “World’s Tallest Thermometer.” That is, until Neil Feldman, candidate for mayor in the neighboring town of Clark proposed building a thermometer in Clark one foot higher.

Barely Alive
Narrative 16:13
Mark Edward Lewis - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Jerry has lost his wife to another woman, and his business is bankrupt. As he sits in a pub with his divorce and bankruptcy papers in front of him pouring out his woes to a bartender, he thinks he has met the girl of his dreams.

Bessie, Billie & Ruth
Narrative 09:40
Renee Sotile, Mary Jo Godges - Filmmakers
A celebration of the lives of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Ruth Brown.

Birdon
Animation 03:00
Jackie Huang - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
A day in the life of a bird in a simulated birdcage. The birdcage is a metaphor for our own world. Will we ever know what the true world is outside of the birdcage?

Body Politics
Documentary 09:20
Sally Rubin - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
On April 19th, 2003, over two-hundred couples--lesbian, gay, and straight--converged on San Francisco Bay.

Buffoon
Narrative 16:24
Sharon Cingle, Michael Schroeder - Filmmakers
A young father, guilt-stricken about his separation from his son, receives an unexpected visitor, a remorseful old clown, who challenges him to confront his fears or face a life full of regret.

Charlie 2.0
Narrative 13:00
Nick Pustay, Chad Rocco - Filmmakers
Charlie Morgan has been taken advantage of his entire life. Until now. After being pushed around one too many times, Charlie finally gets the nerve to stand up to his new boss. But the new Charlie doesn’t just want his boss to get what he deserves… he wants to get even.

Dad's Dead
Animation 07:00
Chris Shepherd, Maria Manton – Filmmakers (United Kingdom)
Through a series of ghostly reminiscences a young man tries to piece together fragmented moments from the past, memories being triggered by admiration for his best friend Johnno. As the story unfolds, hero worship turns to revulsion.

Day of Independence
Narrative 27:00
Chris Tashima, Tim Toyama, Lisa Onodera - Filmmakers
A young baseball player faces tragic circumstances amidst the Japanese American internment during World War II. This fact-based story chronicles a family torn apart by a forced, unjust incarceration and a father's decision that challenges his son to find his own inner strength.

Day Off The Dead
Animation 06:30
Lee Lanier, Jeffrey Dates - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
What the dead do on their day off. Dead Guy and Dead Gal find themselves in a surreal, animated Dead World, where lost souls try to make their earthly desires come to life.

Dear Sweet Emma
Animation 05:17
John Cernak - Director
Unbeknownst to all, Emma has an uncontrollable dark side.

Dogwalker
Narrative 19:50
Michael Frolichstein - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Dogwalker, a tail-in-cheek homage to Martin Scorsese’s classic film Taxi Driver, follows our hero, Darvis Tinkle (a professional dog walker), as he attempts to rid the streets of all of it’s doggy doo-doo.

Draw The Pirate
Narrative 06:45
Jeff Hopkins - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
A working stiff tries to draw the pirate to get into an art school advertised on a matchbook. After multiple rejections, he heads to the school, planning extreme measures.

Eclipse
Experimental 03:00
Christine M. Toth, Chel White - Filmmakers
Based on a poem written by one of the filmmakers about making the choice to give up a child.

Exit 8A
Narrative 22:30
Margaret Harris, Conway Ziegler - Filmmakers
When Nick finds out his girlfriend is pregnant he spins violently out of control, hunting down his own deadbeat father for answers.

Fan (A Love Story)
Animation 05:00
Lori Samsel - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
A girl and her fan make it through a very hot summer day.

Foxhole
Documentary 11:34
Franko Galoso - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Not all great love stories have been told. This is the story of two men who met in the military.

Free Radicals
Animation 08:24
Mahyar Abousaeedi, Ed Chen - Filmmakers
Dreaming of hot sand, females, and mahi-mahi, three rocky mountain cockroaches enter the extreme ski contest of a lifetime. The only problem is… who has the skills to jump off a 12-foot rooftop. It’s the world’s first home video filmed by and starring cockroaches.

Heaven
Experimental 01:30
Todd McCammon, Linda K. Moroney - Filmmakers
The history of cinema culminating in its earliest form.

Hello Kitty Gets A Mouth
Narrative 10:40
Jaime Scholnick - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Hello Kitty wants a mouth. Unsuccessful in her three attempts to obtain one from Japanese plastic surgeons (they will only give her Western eyelids or bigger breasts) she flies to Beverly Hills, gets a mouth and then back to her Tokyo apartment where she voices her long pent-up emotions.

Hope Abandoned
Narrative 19:06
Stephen Richardson, Lynne Oropeza, Belinda Stanley - Filmmakers
Eight months pregnant, Audra arrives in the city carrying a suitcase full of poems and bursting with dreams of literary success. The urban art scene is brutal but making herself more marketable endangers both her poetry and her newborn child.

I Used To Be A Filmmaker
Documentary 10:00
Jay Rosenblatt - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
A film about the bond between a father and his infant daughter. The filmmaker documents the first eighteen months of the child’s life, showing the progression from newborn to toddler.

I'm Thursdays
Narrative 07:00
Helena Smith, Sophie Goodhart - Filmmakers
Albert has been seeing his mistress, Doris for over thirty years. He finally realizes his true feelings for her. But it's too late.

Iota
Narrative 10:30
Simon Dennis - Screenwriter, Director, Producer (United Kingdom)
Story of loss and rediscovered communication within a remote and voiceless family.

Jeff Farnsworth
Narrative 14:59
Bruce Terris, Marie Frick – Filmmakers (United Kingdom)
They say nothing in this world takes the place of persistence. Ross is in the wrong job. He's a middle class kid trying to be a bouncer at a nightclub. The harder he tries to succeed, the harder his struggle becomes. Can persistence succeed where aptitude fails?

Knock, Knock...Who's There?
Narrative 09:10
Joe Knee, Annette Chasen Lee, Wm Hanford Lee - Filmmakers
A hilarious look at how a professional, single woman gets ready for a blind date and the panic it creates.

La Promesa/The Vow
Documentary 26:15
Cheryl Hess - Screenwriter, Director, Producer (USA/Cuba)
Set against the backdrop of St. Lazarus Day (December 17th), La Promesa was filmed in Cuba over three consecutive years and tells the story of Fidel who is in the process of fulfilling a five-year vow that he has made to St. Lazarus for the health of his young son.

Late Again
Narrative 07:25
Johnny Lopez, Pauline Nguyen – Filmmakers (Australia)
Running late and out of gas, Ted is stranded. One disaster follows another resulting in an explosive climax.

Lemmings
Animation 05:00
Craig Van Dyke, R. Brent Adams - Filmmakers
Cliff, a lemming, tries to stop his friends from jumping off a cliff to their doom.

Lint Trapped
Narrative 05:32
Caleb Johnson - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
One man’s brave pursuit of socks through the uncharted dimensions of his dryer. Let this be a lesson to you.

Lost in Found
Animation 06:38
Matthew Dills, Hillary Dills - Filmmakers
A skeleton takes a surreal journey through the afterlife. This stop-motion animated film takes a look at love, grief, and what might be.

Maree
Narrative 14:30
James Pellerito, David Barba - Filmmakers
An Albanian father and son flee war-torn Macedonia in search of a better future in Italy. Once in Venice, the father makes the most painful decision of his life.

Matsutake
Documentary 22:00
Todd Dayton - Director, Producer
The industry and art of searchingr for the highly prized Matsutake mushroom for the Japanese market.

My Josephine
Narrative 08:00
Barry Jenkins, Jasmin Tiggett - Filmmakers
A love story about an immigrant's romantic yearning for his co-worker set in a Laundromat.

Nostrum
Narrative 12:30
Danielle Lurie, Russell Allen - Filmmakers
A woman's happy reunion with her boyfriend back from war is at once quelled when the soldier reveals stories of death and betrayal.

October
Narrative 30:00
Thad Lee, Micah Ginn - Filmmakers
Failed artist Ashley Applebee has just moved home to Mississippi from California hoping his luck will turn, but he cannot seem to win over the town. After a miserable Halloween party he meets a woman who changes his perspective.

Papa Blue
Experimental 12:31
Charlene Shih - Screenwriter, Director, Producer (Taiwan)
A young woman's father's words keep ringing in her ears. She tries to look for him, but in her memories, he was always surrounded by dark haze. That haze gets darker and darker, until she finally can not even see his face.

Perils of Nude Modeling
Narrative 09:45
Scott Rice – Sreenwriter, Director, Producer
A hapless student finds himself between a rock and a hard place. Trying desperately to avoid expulsion from a prestigious art school for notoriously bad work, he focuses on the nude model in earnest. But when she asks him to kiss her in the middle of class – is this the end or the beginning.

Pink Balloons
Animation 02:07
Kataneh Vahdani - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Three imaginary characters are born atop a tall tree, but they have no wings so they look for another way to be free.

Ponteuse
Narrative 09:15
Buck Griffiths, Matthew Krentz - Filmmakers
An expose of the lusty, erotically-charged world of short order cooks.

Pornographic Apathetic
Experimental 05:30
T. Arthur Cottam, Jim Eshom - Filmmakers
Two girls, two guys and sex like you've never seen. A satirical look at the desensitization of sex through pornography from the creator of Beer Goggles.

Princess Castle
Narrative 07:30
Boris Ivanov - Screenwriter, Director, Producer (Canada)
"Solitude is my castle. That’s where I have my chair, my table, my bed, my breeze and my sun.”

Red Wagon
Narrative 13:20
Alison Marek, Frederikke Aspock - Filmmakers
Tamara finds the love of her life sleeping naked on a beach... but will her sister let her keep him?

Reveille
Narrative 11:38
Adam Montierth - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
A Navy Veteran and an Army Veteran compete in a game of one-upmanship over a flagpole in a retirement community.

Simone's Labyrinth
Narrative 15:02
Iván Sáinz-Pardo, Christoph Menardi, Philipp Schall – Filmmakers (Germany/Spain)
Simone’s mother lives a life of alcohol and prescription drugs. Simone develops a dream world to pull down the walls of her mother’s labyrinth.

Siyamo, The Black Haired Girl
Documentary 27:01
Mahmoud Reza Sani, Arvandan, Hozeh Honari, Helen Dobrensky – Filmmakers (Iran/France)
A whimsical and poetic quest for romantic love in Afghanistan.

Spidermen
Narrative 08:00
Harry Kellerman - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
In the middle of the night, a little boy sneaks out to reclaim the Halloween candy his mother confiscated. An 8-minute superhero story.

Squitch
Narrative 16:30
Mike Pace, Nick Panagopulos - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
A teenage girl living with her white trash mother is assaulted by the mother's boyfriend and thrown into a closet for punishment. There, she enters a fantasy world where she learns to stop being a victim. Armed with a magic concoction, she returns to the real world, shrinks her problems and escapes to freedom.

Staring At The Sun
Narrative 13:21
Eric Haywood, Alicia Haywood - Filmmakers
Grace, 81, a reluctant resident of Pine View Nursing Home, is desperate to escape and live on her own. The only thing standing between her and freedom is Dr. Schecter, the nursing home's chief administrator, who rules with and iron fist.

String of the Kite
Narrative 23:40
Michael Fallavollita - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
It’s a small kite with a very tall tale…

Sweetheart
Narrative 12:53
Matthew Saville, Trevor Blainey – Filmmakers (Australia)
A mother and her estranged son rekindle old ties during an unexpected phone call.

Tea Time
Narrative 05:21
Jay Bogdanowitsch - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
A starving soldier's mission is clear: to acquire a pastry he spies on the battlefield. But he's in for a big surprise once he captures the delicious morsel. Even in war, you are what you eat.

The 72oz Steak
Documentary 07:00
Mike Woolf - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Can he eat the four and a half pound steak and all the sides in 60 minutes at the Big Texas Ranch in Amarillo? You'll never look at a steak the same way again. Original music by Dale Watson.

The Adventures of Mad Matt
Documentary 26:40
Scott Rice - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
At the dawn of home video, a Midwestern boy determined to become a Hollywood director by age eighteen turns his family into an ensemble cast. This fifty-episode action series was shot over ten years and stars a loveable but reluctant boy.

The Aura
Narrative 18:20
Armen Ohannesian, Razmig Hovaghimian - Filmmakers
In three minutes he'll be fired. In seven minutes he'll have a seizure. In 10 minutes he’ll have to make the biggest decision of his life. Experience an epileptic boy’s alternate reality as he decides.

The Bug Man
Narrative 22:19
Mike Miley, Cynthia Hargraves - Filmmakers
The story of a mild-mannered exterminator and his interaction with his clients.

The Company Man
Narrative 27:00
Regan Redding, Brent Jones, Donna Jones - Filmmakers
An assassin who in the midst of a hit is thrust into a nightmare of unknown dimensions.

The Dog Who Was A Cat Inside
Animation ????
Siri Melchior, Andrew Ruhemann, Sian Rees – Filmmakers (United Kingdom/Denmark)
A dog and cat live together in the same body. This unusual animal obviously has a lot of inner conflict and feels lonely and rejected by other animals.

The Last Days of Don Byrne
Documentary 19:00
Mike Spitz – Screenwriter, Director, Producer
A short documentary about an old man's last week in his apartment before he is evicted.

The Male Nude
Documentary 28:10
David Leddick, Andrew Delaplaine - Filmmakers
The depiction of the male nude from the beginning of photography in the 1830s to the present day.

The Man Who Killed and Ate the Thing He Loved
Narrative 15:00
Michael Stone, Mario Grasso - Filmmakers
The power of a woman can make a man do crazy things.

The Monkey's Paw
Narrative 14:00
James Henschen, Jeremy Habig, Nick Circelli - Filmmakers
An adaptation of the classic 1902 tale "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs.

The Morning Guy
Narrative 05:15
Mark W. Gray - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
He’s a morning person, she isn’t. A comedy about just how long a wife can put up with her husband’s unique way of expressing himself in the morning.

The Nine Mile Walk
Narrative 19:45
Alvaro Brechner - Screenwriter, Director, Producer (Spain)
Two friends lost in a strange land begin a game of words with consequences of life and death.

The Watchers
Narrative 12:30
Kevin Shortt, Kelly-Ruth Mercier - Filmmakers
A satire about individual privacy versus public security. In a picture-perfect world steeped in paranoia and suspicion, two women maintain a façade of charm and grace while struggling for the upper hand.

This is Our Slaughterhouse
Documentary 23:00
Matthew Broerman - Filmmaker
For the ten workers of Broerman Poultry Processing, every weekend of the past twelve years has been spent slaughtering chickens. This short documentary follows these ten workers, revealing their surprisingly close relationships, despite the gruesome nature of their job.

Thousand Dollar Shoes
Narrative 17:50
Evan Camfield, Salvatore Savo - Filmmakers
Two roommates find the most beautiful shoes in the whole world, and their lives are never the same again. A screwball fairy tale of sex, ambition, accessories, raspberry frosting, Lizzie Borden, and other luscious things.

W. S. Merwin - The Poet's View
Documentary 18:00
Mel Stuart - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
A portrait of one of America's major poets.

When the Storm Came
Documentary 23:50
Shilpi Gupta – Filmmaker (Pakistan/USA)
A profile of a village in Kashmir that was allegedly the site of a mass rape by Indian security forces. A look at the impact the global weapon of conflict continues to have on a community even a decade later.

Why the Anderson Children Didn't Come to Dinner
Narrative 16:30
Jamie Travis, A.J. Bond, Amy Belling, Jamie Travis – Filmmakers (Canada)
Three seven-year-olds endure the culinary abuses of their mother.

Willis Sillim's Tall Tale
Animation 06:46
Steffen Vala - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Tormented since birth by his extreme height, Willis Sillim joins the circus sideshow. From a distance, he falls in love with Irene, the big top belly dancer, but his height thwarts him from meeting her. A train accident could finally be the chance for Willis to reach his true love.

Woman in the Attic
Animation 04:53
Chansoo Kim- Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Saddened by the reality of her old age, a woman confronts her younger self in the attic.

Yin Yang
Narrative 08:30
Adele Uddo - Screenwriter, Director, Producer
In this humorous look at gender stereotypes, boys and girls change roles in the world of dating.