Indie films come to you as OPB presents some of the best work of Pacific Northwest filmmakers over four nights. This eclectic collection, hosted by Steve Amen, will surprise, delight and challenge you.
Note: All of the stories featured are the property of the filmmakers. Please contact them directly for any questions regarding the production.
- Monday, August 17, 10-11pm on HD and OPB
Rebroadcast Wednesday, August 19, 4-5am on OPB The Leeward Tide — On a lonely stretch of coastline, a forlorn mariner seeks comfort in the rusted remains of a forgotten shipwreck. Unbeknownst to him, his redemption will arrive with a leeward tide. Filmed along the scenic Oregon coast and historic Astoria, Oregon, this film tells the story of an old man haunted by the memories of his long-lost love.
Filmmakers: Brett Eichenberger, Jawad Mir, Jill Remensnyder and Dayn Wilberding
Web site: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=28177699The Cowboy Way — This is what it's like to be a cowboy, according to Ron Colton, lifetime cowboy. Shot in Baker County, Oregon and Ogallala, Nebraska in May 2009.
Filmmakers: Brett Eichenberger
Web site: http://www.vimeo.com/5102025mood: reflective — This film is the result of a class assignment to establish a mood almost entirely through the selection of subject matter, camera angles and lighting. Music and dialogue were to be kept to a minimum.
Filmmaker: Brett Eichenberger
Web site: http://www.vimeo.com/4467603
About the Producer: Brett Eichenberger picked up the camera at age 12 and hasn't put it down since. Throughout high school and college, Brett directed various award-winning films, music videos and a season of the local alternative sports and music TV show, Insomnia. This led to jobs in Los Angeles and eventually took Brett to Washington, D.C. where he produced and edited public service announcements broadcast in Iraq during the war. In 2005 Brett documented the aftermath of the cataclysmic Pakistan earthquake, and in 2006 produced a short film in Cairo, Egypt. More recently Brett has been working as an independent video director and editor. Brett currently lives in Portland, Oregon.
Contact: E-mail Brett EichenbergerMood: Disturbing — This film shows totally different results from the class assignment to establish a mood almost entirely through the selection of subject matter, camera angles and lighting. Disturbing and entertaining at the same time.
Filmmaker: Johnny Buell
Skinny Baggy Jeans/Emo Pants — This piece was one of the winners in "The Celebrate Portland in :30 contest." All entries had to express original sentiment about what makes Portland wild, weird or otherwise wonderful.
Filmmakers: Johnny Buell
About the Producer: Johnny Buell is a beginning filmmaker from Clearwater, Florida. He has produced several music videos, narratives, and short documentaries and was winner of the Viewer's Choice Award at the 2008 Portland Visuals Film Festival as well as one of three winners in the Celebrate Portland in 30 Seconds Film Festival. His work centers on the agitation of societal constructs and attempts to elicit the ridiculousness present therein. He is taking film studies and production courses in the Portland area at the Northwest Film Center, PNCA, and Portland State University and is presently involved with several projects including a documentary surrounding the 2008 Minesweeper World Championships.
Contact: E-mail Johnny BuellWhat's Keeping Portland Weird — The name says it all. See just a few of the many events, people and businesses that contribute to Portland's dubious reputation as one of the weirdest big cities in the country.
Filmmakers: Christina Diamond, Cori Barnett Mintzer and Joshua James McHale
Web site: http://flux.uoregon.edu/multimedia/whats-keeping-portland-weird
About the Producers: Christina Diamond recently graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in journalism: electronic media. Christina is pursuing a career in documentary filmmaking. Cori Barnett Mintzer is a recent graduate from the University of Oregon with a degree in journalism: electronic media and art as well as receiving a film certificate. Joshua James McHale hopes to pursue his aspirations as a documentarian/filmmaker with his newly formed production company, Altered Impact Media, LLC.
Contact: E-mail Christina Diamond
E-mail Cori Barnett Mintzer
E-mail Joshua McHaleInside Looking Out — Through the study of classic literature, university students learn to understand life inside a prison environment while inmates learn what it's like to be in college.
Filmmakers: Tiffany Kimmel and Jessica Reedy
Web site: http://vimeo.com/5193052
About the Producers: Tiffany Kimmel graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in electronic media this spring. She filmed three documentaries in her last term and hopes to continue her film education next fall. Jessica Reedy is currently completing a journalism degree at the University of Oregon with emphasis in electronic media and communication studies. This summer, she will be traveling to Ghana to work as a human rights reporter at a local radio station.
Contact: E-mail Tiffany Kimmel
E-mail Jessica Reedy- Tuesday, August 18, 10-11pm on HD and OPB
Rebroadcast Thursday, August 20, 4-5am on OPB Never Stop Moving — Kevin was a typical young man with a love for anything athletic until a tragic skiing accident left him a quadriplegic at the age of 21. Kevin started World Wheelchair Sports, a Eugene-based non-profit organization that sets up athletic opportunities and recreational experiences for folks who use wheelchairs.
Filmmakers: Kevin Hasenkopf, Melanie Johnson, Brian McAndrew and Ashlea Holcomb
About the Producers: Kevin Hasenkopf has a lot of experience in editing, filming, and research and some experience in writing. He will be a senior at the University of Oregon this fall majoring in journalism, specifically electronic media with a minor in digital arts. Melanie Johnson is a senior at the University of Oregon majoring in electronic media and minoring in business. Melanie recently returned from an internship in Cape Town, South Africa working on commercial shoots.
Contact: E-mail Kevin Hasenkopf
E-mail Melanie Johnson
E-mail Brian McAndrew
E-mail Ashlea HolcombThe List: Portland's Most Wanted — By 2003, the Old Town neighborhood had established a reputation as the epicenter of drug abuse and crime in Portland, Oregon. That year, a police veteran, Officer Jeff Myers, created a program that cracked down on a select list of repeat offenders and pushed them into immediate, high-quality treatment. His program -- known as "the list"-- worked, and the streets of Old Town are now safer than ever before. Still, some Portlanders describe Officer Myers as a tyrant rather than a hero. The ACLU has joined Portland's public defenders in arguing that the list directly undermines Oregonians' constitutional rights.
Filmmakers: Taimi Arvidson and Tiffany Kimmel
Web site: http://flux.uoregon.edu/multimedia/the-list
Contact: E-mail Taimi ArvidsonArt in a Time of War — This is a story of World War II-era artists who were interned in labor camps because of their pacifist beliefs. Stationed at Camp Waldport in Oregon, these men suffered public contempt, a harsh existence and deadly work. In spite of these conditions, they showed a resilience and communal spirit that enabled artistic creativity and social conscience to flourish. The impact of their work resonates decades later: They laid the foundation for one of the most important artistic movements of the last century and pioneered the reform of the mental health care system.
Filmmakers: Michael Werner, Katie Campbell and Pierre Anthony Canovas
About the Producers: Michael Werner is an award-winning writer and multimedia journalist based in Oregon. His writing has appeared in publications around the country and internationally. Michael has also written for the Associated Press and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, a New York Times-run daily newspaper. He currently serves as the associate editor of Etude: The Journal of Literary Nonfiction and is the Visiting Instructor of News/Editorial Journalism at the University of Oregon. Katie Campbell is an award-winning writer and photojournalist and is the multimedia editor at Etude: The Journal of Literary Nonfiction. Through her writing, Katie has explored a variety of misunderstood fringe subcultures: child pageant contestants, illegal immigrants and the homeless. She was an enterprise reporter at newspapers in Florida and Minnesota where she earned awards for in-depth coverage of the criminalization of mental illness in small-town USA, the rise of medical bankruptcy among the uninsured and Florida's urban growth. Pierre-Anthony Canovas is a French freelance journalist who studied in 2007-2008 at the University of Oregon. He recently graduated with an M.A in European politics and is now based in Paris where he regularly writes or produces videos for several media outlets including European Youth Press.
Contact: E-mail Michael WernerWhat We Could Carry — This film tells the story of four Japanese American students who were denied diplomas and expelled from the University of Oregon campus in 1942. Three of the characters went to camps and two escaped to states outside the exclusion zone. Ultimately, they went on to become surgeons, nurses and major business leaders.
Filmmakers: Sam Allen, Emese Foss, Catalina Vazquez and Daniel Miller
Featuring Sam Naito, Robert and Homer Yasui, Midori Funatake, Alice Kawasaki and National Book Award winner and Oregon's former Poet Laureate Lawson Inada.
About the Producers: Daniel Miller is a professor of documentary film at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. He is the director of The Oregon Documentary Project that he founded in 1995 to assist students and community members in producing quality documentary films for broadcast on Oregon's history, society and culture. He has produced, directed or photographed many award-winning films including Dream to Fly featuring Walter Cronkite, Fire in the Heartland: The Tragedy at Kent State University, Making Pictures: Photojournalism and a Community Newspaper, Ninos del Campos: The Children of Migrant Workers, The Frohnmayer Chronicles, and What We Could Carry: The Story of Japanese American Students during WWII. Dr. Miller is now producing a documentary film and book entitled Documenting War: A History of Photojournalism and Film Documentary of War and Conflict. Sam Allen directed his first documentary at the age of 17: When Stumptown was Jumptown, the history of Portland jazz. He graduated with a degree in electronic media journalism from the University of Oregon in 2009. While a student at the UO, Sam took on the story of Oregon's pioneer minister geologist and produced the NW college Emmy-nominated documentary Reverend of Rocks: the Legacy of Thomas Condon. In the spring of 2009, Sam took on a comprehensive re-edit of a 12-minute rough-cut piece that would become What We Could Carry. Sam currently lives in the Portland area. He is also an accomplished painter.
Contact: E-mail Sam Allen
E-mail Daniel Miller- Wednesday, August 19, 10-11pm on HD and OPB
Rebroadcast Friday, August 21, 4-5am on OPB Architect of Sound — David Gusset of Eugene, Oregon has been making violins for 35 years and is one of the few people to win the prestigious Stradivari International Violin Making Competition in Cremona, Italy.
Filmmakers: Marc Dadigan and Katie Kalk
Web site: http://flux.uoregon.edu/multimedia/the-architect-of-sound
Contact: E-mail Marc DadiganMaking Music: The Art & Craft of David Rivinus — David Rivinus has spent the last 40 years honing his craft as a violin maker. But what sets his work apart from others is how he has changed the look and feel of the violin. Early on David noticed many professional players developed physiological problems ranging from tendonitis to carpal tunnel syndrome and back and shoulder pain. This Oregon violin maker is now known internationally for his adaptations to the violin to overcome orthopedic issues.
Filmmakers: Carl Vandervoort and Christopher Ley
About the Producers: Carl Vandervoort, co-director and editor, makes his living producing training, educational and fundraising programs for non-profit and public agencies, including Growing Gardens, Headstart and the Oregon Department of Education. His feature-length documentaries include Olivia & Tim – Very Much Alive on themes of leprosy, AIDS and friendship, featured at the 1994 Hawaii International Film Festival and the NW Film & Video Festival, which he shot and co-directed with Christopher Ley; and All We're Asking for is Peace about a Portland choir's musical and cultural exchange trip to Cuba, which was an official selection for the 2005 Havana Film Festival. He is currently in post-production of a feature-length documentary about art and the environment called Wetlands. A documentary filmmaker and teacher for nearly 30 years, videographer and co-director Christopher Ley is on the staff of Portland Community Media as community outreach facilitator and producer for the program Face to Face: Community Matters. Formerly a staff member and instructor at the Northwest Film Center, Christopher has also worked in television news and on numerous local and national productions. A lifelong love of music and stringed instruments in particular led to the production of their latest work Making Music - the Art and Craft of David Rivinus.
Contact: E-mail Carl Vandervoort
Call Viewpoint Media at 503.737.5585- Thursday, August 20, 10-11pm on HD and OPB
Rebroadcast Sunday, August 23, 4-5am on OPB Andrus: The Man, the Mind & the Magic — Best known as one of the most influential "close-up magic" performers of all time, Jerry Andrus is equally regarded among scientists, educators and even skeptics as a visionary, poet, philosopher, inventor and creator of truly astounding optical illusions.
Filmmakers: Robert Neary and Tyson Smith
Web site: http://www.skepticalmedia.com/
About the Producers: Andrus is Robert Neary's first professional documentary feature film. Robert has made several small productions back in the early days when film editing was accomplished with scissors and glue. A member of several skeptic and free-thinker organizations, such as Oregonians for Science and Reason and the Skeptics Society, Robert took on the project of telling the Jerry Andrus story from the skeptic's perspective. Tyson Smith directed and edited his first feature film, The Sexy Chef, then later his second independent film, Monday Night Gig. Tyson is also an award-winning graphic designer and works as a freelance illustrator. A partial list of clients includes the Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, Nike, Wizards of the Coast, HP, Nickelodeon, Golf Digest, and many other nationally-distributed magazines and newspapers.
Contact: Visit the Skeptical Media Web site
Call Skeptical Media at 541.752.1862
