Film Descriptions   *   Festival Schedule

2004 Golden Film Festival

Something Better

USA
Lucky Dog Films And Theatre Productions
Written & Produced By Laurel Hunter (Colorado Filmmaker)
Time: 1 Hour 50 Minutes
Feature Film

Synopsis: 

'SOMETHING BETTER' is a 16mm independent film, shot in San Francisco and produced under a Screen Actors Guild Experimental Film Agreement. With cutting edge comedic style and content reminiscent of 'Leaving Las Vegas' and 'Trainspotting', 'SOMETHING BETTER' is a hilarious dark comedy and a touching drama with a philosophical twist. A dark comedy that begs the question - is the glass half full or half empty?
Awards: Best of Festival award with Berkeley Film & Video Festival.

Website: www.luckydogfilms.com

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Ireland
Filmed & Directed By: Kim Bartley & Donnacha O Brian
Time: 74 minutes
Feature Documentary

Synopsis: 

HUGO CHAVEZ ELECTED PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA IN 1998, IS A COLORFUL, UNPREDICTABLE FOLK HERO, beloved by his nation's working class and a tough-as-nails, quixotic opponent to the power structure that would see him deposed. Two independent filmmakers were inside the presidential palace on April 11, 2002, when he was forcibly removed from office. They were also present 48 hours later when, remarkably, he returned to power amid cheering aides. Their film records what was probably history's shortest-lived coup d'état. It's a unique document about political muscle and an extraordinary portrait of the man The Wall Street Journal credits with making Venezuela "Washington‚s biggest Latin American headache after the old standby, Cuba."

Awards: 

Best Feature Documentary, Galway Film Fleadh, Ireland
The David Wolper Documentary Film Grand Prize, for Best Documentary, 2003
1st Prize, 3 Continents Film Festival, (South Africa)

Website: www.chavezthefilm.com/index_ex.htm

Das Leben Geht Weiter (Life Goes On)
Germany
StarCrest Media GmbH
Time: 86 minutes
Feature Documentary

Synopsis: 

In 1993 Hans Christopher Blumenberg’s book 'Life Goes On' was published in Germany. It told the absurd yet compelling story of the last, epic propaganda film of the Third Reich, which went into production in Winter 1944: The film 'Life Goes On' - planned to reawaken the Nazi dream of final victory. The producer Carl Schmitt has worked for nearly a decade to put this story on screen. 'Life Goes On' was shot between 1944 and 1945 but was never finished. The footage has been missing since the end of the war, an obvious problem for any documentary maker - as no clips from the original film could be shown. As the number of living witnesses available for interviews decreases every year, a documentary on the subject seemed ever more improbable. However, in 1998 Carl Schmitt and his long time collaborator, the English director Mark Cairns, began to develop a script and visual style suitable for such a documentary.

Awards: 2003 International Emmy Award For Best Documentary

Website: www.das-leben-geht-weiter.com/index_eng.html

18 Days 16 Hours
USA
Produced and Directed By Bruce Borowsky (Colorado Filmmaker)
Time: 24 minutes 30 seconds
Short Documentary

Synopsis: 

An exciting personal documentary of a novice sailor's adventure crewing a 72 foot sailboat on a race from Southampton, England to Boston. Sailing over 3,000 miles, while eating and sleeping at extreme angles, their boat wins the race - by 8 minutes! 

Awards: Best Documentary Route 66 Adventure & Travel Film Festival

Website: www.bruceborowsky.com

Spirit Of Snow
USA
Through A Child’s Eyes Production (Colorado Filmmaker)
Time: 47 minutes
Short Documentary

Synopsis: 

"Spirit of Snow" is a soulful and enlightening glimpse into the ethereal beauty of backcountry powder skiing. Powered only by the human spirit, skiers explore the most spectacular mountain landscapes in North America. This film will take the audience on a journey into the backcountry through the eyes of the earliest pioneering powder skiers, a 10th Mountain Division veteran and an avalanche forecaster bridging the gap between generations. The lure of the backcountry experience is contrasted with the reality of personal responsibility and inherent backcountry dangers.

"A magnificently filmed story of the history and allure of backcountry skiing ... the purity of the mountains and virgin snow are shown through incredible cinematography." Taos Mountain Film Festival

Awards: SPECIAL JURY AWARD Telluride Mountainfilm 2002 

Website: www.throughachildseyesproductions.com/film.html

Return Of The Scorcher
USA
Ted White
Time: 30 minutes
Short Documentary

Synopsis: 

This half-hour documentary looks at bike culture and bike lifestyles around the world with beautiful and inspiring scenes of bike use filmed in China, The Netherlands, Denmark, and the U.S. 

In the 1890's, before automobiles ruled the roads, bicyclists were referred to as "Scorchers" because of their blazing speed. A century later, in a world filled with car-related environmental and social problems, Return of the Scorcher discovers an inspired and evolving bicycling renaissance. 

This documentary touches on a surprising variety of subjects including romance, rebellion, early feminism, and spirituality - all viewed within the context of bicycling. Return of the Scorcher questions our obsession with "progress" and status and presents a diverse cross-section of cycling visionaries who see the bicycle as a life-affirming vehicle for change. 

Website: www.tedwhitegreenlight.com/

We Are Traffic
USA
Ted White
Time: 50 minutes
Short Documentary

Synopsis: 

We Are Traffic! chronicles the history and development of the "Critical Mass" bicycle movement, one of the most spirited and dynamic social/political movements of the apathetic 90's. In over 100 cities in 14 different countries, Critical Mass has now become a monthly ritual of reclaiming the streets by bicycle activists riding en masse. 

With traffic congestion, pollution, and road rage on the rise, growing numbers around the world are advocating for transportation alternatives, and Critical Mass is at the cutting edge of this mindset.

We Are Traffic! tracks this leaderless, grassroots movement from its beginnings in San Francisco in 1992 to its spread across the globe. With a radical direct-action approach the participants of Critical Mass are celebrating the bicycle and in turn taking on perhaps the century's most sacred cow: the automobile.

Website: www.tedwhitegreenlight.com/

Grandpa’s Still In The Tuff Shed!
USA
Robin Beeck (Colorado Filmmaker)
Time: 60 minutes
Feature Documentary

Synopsis: 

An updated, feature-length version of the award-winning cult classic documentary about love, death, ice and high hopes. In this film we get an understanding of the impact of Trygve Bauge’s experimental cryogenics on his grandfather Bredo Morstol on the community of Nederland, Colorado.

Awards: Best New Filmmaker - 1996 Telluride Mountain Film Festival

Website: www.robinbeeckfilms.com/awards.html

The Weather Underground
USA
Directed By Sam Green & Bill Siegal
Time: 92 minutes
Feature Documentary

Synopsis: 

In 1969, a radical splinter group broke off from SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), convinced that only militant action could end racism, the war in Vietnam and the inequalities they felt inherent in a capitalist society. The Weather Underground engaged in numerous bombings (and failed bombings) that landed them on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Today - in light of a new age of terrorism - former members as well as their critics look back on the ’70s and reflect on what they did and why they did it.

Awards: 2004 Academy Awards Feature Documentary Nominee

Website: www.upstatefilms.org/weather/

Capturing The Friedman’s
USA
Directed By Andrew Jarecki
Time: 1Hour 47 Minutes
Feature Documentary

Synopsis: 

This documentary "captures" the experience of a family in crisis, through the actual home video movies of the Friedman’s, a seemingly average upper-middle-class Jewish family in Great Neck, NY whose world was changed disastrously when the father and son were charged with horrible crimes of child molestation in 1987. In the 1980s, Arnold Friedman was a high school science teacher who taught elementary school children computer classes in his home where his wife also ran a toddler childcare group, which made him one of the first teachers to establish a computer education curriculum for children that young. Their lives changed, however, when the U.S. Postal Service began investigating Arnold and his family, which led to the eventual charges that he and his 18-year-old son Jesse had committed dozens of acts of a sexual nature. The media saturated the airwaves with coverage of the event, but some of the best footage was shot by the family themselves... which is seen publicly for the first time in this documentary.

Awards: 

2004 Academy Awards Feature Documentary Nominee
Grand Jury Prize 2003 Sundance Film Festival

Website: www.capturingthefriedmans.com/main.html

Asylum
USA
Sandy Mcleod (Colorado Filmmaker) and Gini Reticker 
Time: 20 minutes
Short Documentary

Synopsis: 

The film profiles a Ghanaian woman, Babba, who escapes to the U.S. to avoid the practice of genital mutilation. Claiming refugee status, she spends a year in a detention center in New Jersey until she can prove she has a legitimate reason for being granted asylum.

Awards: 

2004 Academy Awards Documentary Short Subject Nominee
Honorable Mention 2003 Sundance Film Festival

Straitjacket
USA
Wednesday Productions (Colorado Filmmakers)
Directed by Nathan Hall; Produced by Allison Price and Nathan Hall
Time: 2 Hours
Feature Film

Synopsis: 

Straitjacket is a heartbreaking tale that chronicles the fall of a broken man and his unexpected path to redemption. Through the backdrop of a city punk rock scene, where drugs and promiscuity run rampant, a story unfolds that is both beautiful and harsh.

Awards: Best Story at the 8th Annual Long Island International Film Expo, July 2003

Website: www.wednesdayproductions.com

Breakfast With Hunter
USA
Directed By Wayne Ewing (Colorado Filmmaker)
Time: 91 minutes
Feature Documentary

Synopsis: 

Breakfast with Hunter is a feature length documentary starring the infamous outlaw journalist Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. The film follows several story lines in the trials (literally) and triumphs of this cultural icon who created his own genre of writing - Gonzo journalism.

Website: breakfastwithhunter.com

Apple, Hardware and Software Products for Film

Brooks Masterson, Student Representative for Apple Computer, Colorado School of Mines

Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks 
USA 
Time: 40 minutes 
Director: Bobby Houston 
Producer: Robert Hudson 
Short Subject Documentary 

This is an oral history, with eyewitnesses' stories, of the life-long activist committed to social change and the worldwide human rights movement. This film revisits a familiar historical event and finds new stories that introduce new heroes. 

Awards: 2003 Academy Awards Short Subject Documentary Nominee; 
Best Documentary Short, Ojai Film Festival

Berga: Soldiers Of Another War
USA
Direct By Charles Guggenheim
Time: 90 minutes
Feature Documentary

Synopsis: 

BERGA: SOLDIERS OF ANOTHER WAR is a film about an unknown and overlooked event in the history of World War II, in which for the first time the story of the American GI intersects with the tragedy of the Holocaust. Thousands of American G.I.s, including soldiers in Guggenheim's 106th Infantry Division, were captured by the Nazis during the Battle of the Bulge. Those "identified" as being Jewish -- along with fellow G.I.s who "looked Jewish" or had "Jewish-sounding" last names -- were selected to fulfill a quota and shipped off to a satellite of the notorious concentration camp at Buchenwald where they suffered harrowing atrocities as slave laborers. Guggenheim, who had remained stateside with a debilitating infection during the final months of the war, carried with him a personal and moral obligation for more than 50 years to tell this untold story for his comrades who did not return, and for those who have lived with the horror of their experience. While completing the film, Guggenheim faced a heroic battle of his own with terminal cancer. He died six weeks after the film was finished.

Awards: 

IDA Award for Distinguished Feature Documentary Film – Pare Lorentz Award 2003
Columbus International Film and Video Festival – Best of Festival – Chris Award 2003

Website: www.gpifilms.com

Cost Of Freedom
USA
Director/Producer: Vanessa Schulz
Time: 36 minutes
Short Documentary 

Synopsis: 

In 1995, the United States Fish & Wildlife Service reintroduced wolves from Canada into the north-west region of the United States. This much-publicized and controversial Wolf Reintroduction Program reignited a war on wolves that had ended in the late 1930's with their brutal extermination. Despite majority public support for the wolves' return, the political and social environment into which they have been reintroduced is disruptive and often fatal for wolves. 

While wolf opponents and supporters battle, "Cost of Freedom" takes viewers on a journey into the wilds of Idaho to track the "White Cloud Pack." The pack’s struggle for survival illustrates remarkable similarities to human nature, encouraging a deeper understanding of this fascinating social predator as the true cost of freedom is revealed.

Awards: 

Special Juror Award Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, 2003
Best Documentary, Female Eye Film Festival, 2003
Merit For Conservation Advocacy, 26th International Wildlife Film Festival, 2003

Website: 21paradigm.com

Hip Hop Culture
USA
Dustyn Connelley (Student Colorado Filmmaker)
Time: 5 minutes
Short Film

Synopsis: 

A recent graduate from Colorado State University, Dustyn Connelley chose to do a piece on Hip Hop Culture for her senior project. This short/documentary uses a unique editing style and motivated color schemes to explore the elements of hip hop, and the culture surrounding the music.

Ferry Tales 
USA 
Katja Esson 
40 minutes 
Short Subject Documentary 

Synopsis: 

In the powder room of the Staten Island Ferry, a group of women gather each day to put on their make-up and share their thoughts and problems. 

Farther Than the Eye Can See 
USA 
Michael Brown 
77 minutes 
Feature Length Documentary 

Synopsis: 

An intimate look inside one of the most successful Everest expeditions ever. Erik Weihenmayer became the first blind person to stand on top of the world; teammate Sherman Bull became the oldest person to summit Everest; with his son Brad they became the first American father-son team to stand on top together; and the climb was shot in High Definition, a first on Everest. Most noteworthy, 19 members of the team stood on Everest's summit, the most from a single team ever to reach it in a single day. For this achievement, Erik won an ESPY Award and his climb was designated by Time as one of "Sports: Best of 2001." Time called the team one of the greatest ever to climb on Everest

Amid Dark Dreams
Robert David 
40 minutes

Synopsis: 

"Amid dark Dreams" is a compilation of 6 films:

• "Phroid" A unique film that pokes fun at Freudian cliches. 

• "Inn Decay" A place can haunt a person....Welcome to the end of the road, where dreams fade.

• "Social Disease" A political film about one of those mice that live in the walls of the global village. 

• "Still Life" Dead folks do live on--in one way expressing themselves in stone gardens.

• "The Capture of Bigfoot Gilda" A humorous and disturbing look at the technology of movies.

• "Edison's Frankenstein" A thoroughly researched remake of the first film version of Shelley's story.

Castaway
Seven-year-old Goldenite Alex Taylor
5 minutes

Synopsis: 

A play on Robinson Crusoe using plastic model toys. 

The Dominion of Canada
Mike Taylor
5 minutes 

Synopsis:

A humorous look at how a Canadian thinks the outside world views Canada.

Harvie Krumpet
USA
Adam Elliot
22 minutes
Animated Short

Synopsis:

Harvie Krumpet is an ordinary man whose lifelong string of bad luck is offset by occasional episodes of joy.

Nibbles 
USA
Chris Hinton
5 minutes
Animated Short

Synopsis:

A father takes his sons fishing in the forests of Canada...with a few stops along the way.

Die Rote Jacke
Florian Baxmeyer
20 minutes
Short Live Action

Synopsis:

A jacket thrown in the trash by a grieving German father makes its way into the hands of a boy in war-torn Sarajevo.

Awards: 

Sehsuechte Producer's Award 2002, Pro7 Newcomer Award 2002, Main Award Moscow 2002, Miller Tripods Australia Award 2002 for Best Cinematography, Golden Sparrow 2003 Gera, Golden Lion 2003 Taipei, Student Academy Award 2003

Squash 
Lionel Bailliu
27 minutes
Short Live Action

Synopsis:

Alexandre's boss belittles him as they play squash, and then challenges him to either win the game or lose his job.

Awards: 

2002 Audience Prize Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival; 2002 Best Actor Award (Malcolm Conrath and Eric Savin)--Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival

(A) Torzija ([A] Torsion) 
Stefan Arsenijevic
15 minutes
Short Live Action 

Synopsis:

The members of a choir in Sarajevo are awaiting safe passage through a tunnel when a farmer begs them to help his injured cow.

Awards: 

Best Short Film Award – 5th Festival of Slovenian Film, 2002, Portorož; Golden Bear for Best Short Film and UIP Berlin Award – IFF Berlin 2003

Perpetual Motion
USA
Kimberly Miner
2 minutes
Animated Short

Synopsis:

A device for perpetual motion is discovered by the combination of two popular maxims in this drawn animation short.

Awards: 

30th Student Academy Awards, Gold Medal

Movie Saturday
USA
Colorado School of Mines Students (Student Colorado Filmmakers)
Time: 3 – 10 minutes each
Short Film

Synopsis: 

A small group of Colorado School of Mines students and a couple members of the Golden community gather on Saturday mornings and work as a group, planning, directing, and filming short films. A selection of their movies, filmed between September 2003 and January 2004 are presented.

Website: jeffc.zapto.org/Movie_Saturday

2nd Annual 2004 Golden Film Festival
Tentative Schedule
As of 2/13/04
Note: Subject to change

BALLROOM A: Oscar Nominated Films and Colorado Films

4:00 Ferry Tales
5:00 Farther than the Eye Can See, followed by Q&A
6:45 Torzija
7:15 The Weather Underground
9:00 Capturing the Friedmans

BALLROOM B: Colorado Films and Oscar Nominated Films

4:00 Squash
4:45 Spirit of Snow
5:45 Breakfast with Hunter
7:30 Something Better, followed by Q&A
10:00 Torzija
10:15 18 Days 16 Hours

BALLROOM C: Film Mix and A Featured Segment

4:00 Berga: Soldiers of Another War
5:45 Cost of Freedom
6:30 Movie Saturday: Because it was Dead, …with a View, Weekend Warrior, Aware, The Fallen Ninja, What you Want!, Sustain, The Cold, Grey Light
7:30 Featured Segment: Celebration of Black History and Women’s History Month: 2003 Oscar Nominated Mighty Times: The Legend of Rosa Parks (7:30); Asylum (8:15); Hip Hop Culture (8:40)
9:00 Grandpa’s Still In the Tuff Shed!
10:15 Return of the Scorcher

BALLROOM A: Oscar Nominated Films and a Premier of A Colorado Film

11:00 Berga: Soldiers of Another War
12:45 Castaway
12:55 Dominion of Canada
1:15 The Weather Underground
3:00 Capturing the Friedmans
5:00 Farther Than the Eye Can See, followed by Q&A
6:45 Die Rote Jarke
7:10 Perpetual Motion
7:30 Premier of Laurel Hunter’s Something Better, followed by a reception and Q&A

BALLROOM B: Film Mix and a Featured Segment

11:00 Harvie Krumpet
11:20 Nibbles
11:30 Apple Computer Presentation
12:00 Return of the Scorcher
12:30 Cost of Freedom
1:15 Das Leben Geht Weiter
3:00 The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
4:30 Featured Segment: Celebration of Black History and Women’s History Month: 2003 Oscar Nominated Mighty Times: The Legend of Rosa Parks (4:30); Asylum (5:15); Hip Hop Culture (5:40)
6:00 Ferry Tales
7:00 Das Leben Geht Weiter
8:45 Squash
9:15 Die Rote Jarke

BALLROOM C: Colorado Films

11:00 We are Traffic
12:00 Grandpa’s Still in the Tuff Shed! Followed by Q&A
1:45 Breakfast with Hunter
3:30 Straitjacket, followed by Q&A
6:00 18 Days 16 Hours
6:45 Movie Saturday: Because it was Dead, …with a View, Weekend Warrior, Aware, The Fallen Ninja, What you Want!, Sustain, The Cold, Grey Light
7:45 Amid Dark Dreams
8:45 Harvie Krumpet
9:10 Nibbles