The first Flyway Film Festival to held Oct. 10-12 in Pepin, Wisconsin
Posted by editor@vimooz.com on October 7, 2008 under Flyway Film Festival | 
The first Flyway Film Festival will be presented Oct. 10-12 by the Lake Pepin Art & Design Center, Second and Main streets. It will feature 32 cutting edge, thought-provoking, independent films, according to festival director Rick Vaicius.
Regional films will be featured in the opening night showcase, including the world premiere of the short film “The Wintress” by Twin Lakes, Wis., native Bill Elverman, now living in Los Angeles. He plans to attend the event, along with filmmaker Periclese Lewnes of Baltimore, Md., whose feature length film “LOOP” will be shown on Saturday.
The official selections include:
Archer House
16 minutes United States Directed by Dina Gachman
Written by Dina Gachman
A young outcast braves the petit-four fueled skits and cult like rituals of a Texas Sorority
Eighteen-year-old future journalist Sam Archer has always been the black sheep in her traditional Southern family, but when she decides to go undercover during rush in the very sorority that her mother and sister have been pushing her to join, Sam finds herself in the middle of a strangely alluring world full of teacups, skits, and sisterhood.
Dina Gachman was born and raised in Texas. She is a graduate of UCLA and Archer House is her thesis for the MFA Production program at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts
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Backgrounded
16 Minutes United States Directed by Matt Jackson
Written by Benj Goehner Produced by Andy Gunn
Evan thinks he signed up to be a movie extra. But why do the ADs have rifles and resort to violence so quickly?
Evan Higginbotham: professional movie extra. One morning on the way to set, Evan and his fellow “Background Actors” are left behind. Unwittingly picked up by terrorists, they are taken over the border to Mexico. Even after being stripped, hosed down, and stuck in a cold warehouse, not one of them can tell the difference between this and a normal day on a Hollywood set. Will they escape? Does anyone care? After experiencing this absurd circus Evan calls his career, he only knows one thing for sure: Hell IS other extras.
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Boletos Por Favor (Tickets Please)
14 Minutes Spain Directed by Lucas Figueroa
Written by Lucas Figueroa
A train, a pursuit, only one way to escape.
Lucas Figueroa was born in Argentina in 1978, and currently resides in Madrid, Spain. Though currently an award winning- filmmaker, he began his career as a director of television commercials.
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Bon Voyage
4 Minutes United States Directed by Allyssa Kaiser
Written by Allyssa Kaiser
A stop motion animated look at a young person’s preparations for a trip abroad.
“Bon Voyage” was inspired by filmmaker Allyssa Kaiser’s trip to France. Paired with music this animated short will leave you with feelings of happiness and a sense of adventure.
Allyssa Kaiser is a senior at The Perpich Center for the Performing Arts in the Media Arts Program. Her animated short “Bon Voyage” took 1st place for Best Animated short at the Westport Youth Film Festival, and has been screened throughout the country.
Bon Voyage is part of the Flyway Film Festival Wisconsin/Minnesota Showcase
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Cathedral Park
80 Minutes United States Directed by Vincent Caldoni
Written by Vincent Caldoni
Twenty years, six lives, two films, one family; everything will come to light eventually.
Vai’s parents, Basti and Miora, risked everything to escape their small, war- torn country of Otisia and give their unborn child a better life. Now a teenager, Vai has little interest in her people’s culture until she finds a box of hidden film revealing raw footage of a German documentary in Otisia, with her parent’s as guides. With her friend Katie, they begin making their own documentary to try and unravel what happened. This sets off a chain of events that bend the lines between the old world and the new and blur reality from fiction.
Vincent Caldoni began pursuing the performing arts while at Grant High School, in Portland, Oregon. There he began writing and directing and also produced several plays. In 2002, he joined with several other Art Institute students to form the Blueprintfilms collective. In 2004, he wrote and directed his first short film, “The Accordion” and has gone on to work on several shorts, features and music videos in a myriad of capacities. “Cathedral Park” is his first feature film.
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Count Backwards From Five
6 Minutes United States Directed by Tony Gault
Written by Tony Gault
A visual exploration of generosity and addiction. Using old answering machine tapes and home movies, filmmaker Tony Gault attempts to decipher his brother’s troubled life.
The films of Tony Gault have won awards at numerous film festivals around the world including Black Maria, Ann Arbor, Cinematexas, U.S. Super 8, Aspen Shorts and the New Orleans Film Festival. He teaches film production and studies at the University of Denver. He is currently working on a film about language and how it influences our perception of reality.
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Cottonwood
6 Minutes United States Directed by Chris Powers
Written by Dennis Mattai, Jason Klobassa, Wade Barry, Ian Kellogg & Brent Latchaw
A desperado relives his past as he faces death at the hands of lawmen.
Jack has reached the end of the line of a life filled with tragedy. Forced to live on the wrong side of the law, he finds himself face to face with his captors. The random firings in Jack’s brain take him back to the moment in his childhood and the message from his angry Father that shaped his destiny of lawlessness. Can death be any worse than the pain of life?
Cottonwood was created as part of the 48 hour film project, a contest in which teams of filmmakers are assigned a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue, and have 48 hours to create a short film from concept to completion containing those elements.
Cottonwood is part of the Flyway Film Festival Wisconsin/Minnesota Showcase
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Disconnected
62 Minutes United States Directed by Melody Gilbert
Produced by Reed Langton-Yanowitz, Julian Laurent, Mitchell Lundin,
Caitlin Magnusson, Jerome Potter, Andrew Tatge, Tom Schmidt, Ezra Velazquez, Wain Yee
How long could you go without a computer?
In this thought- provoking documentary, three Carleton College students take on the challenge of ditching all of their computers to see how their academic, social and work lives are affected. No Facebook. No word processing. No e-mail. How will they get their work done? Will they cheat? This film follows Andrew, Caitlin and Chel as they learn to interact with themselves and others in ways we have largely forgotten.
Melody Gilbert is an award-winning independent filmmaker, journalist, and educator from St. Paul, MN Oh yeah; she’s also the professor of the class.
Disconnected is part of the Flyway Film Festival Wisconsin/Minnesota Showcase
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Eugene and the Worm
15 Minutes United States Directed by Josh Hope
Written by Josh Hope
Tuna. Basketball. Perversion.
“Eugene and the Worm” is the story of two awkward teenagers who team up and challenge street bullies to a game of basketball in order to win enough money to finish their robot.
Josh Hope, a native of Waynoka, OK got his start on several popular network television shows (production assistant “The Biggest Loser” and “American Idol”), and has worked on a variety of independent film projects.
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Farewell Darkness
96 Minutes United States Directed by Daniel Pico
Written by Roy Maurer and Daniel Pico
Sometimes the war comes home.
A young Chicago native, heavily abused by his father as a child, grows up to face adversity— socially, mentally and eventually, during Operation Iraqi Freedom as a Marine. Upon his return from his tour of duty (suffering from PTSD), he learns his mother has been driven to suicide by this abusive father. He must face his past to learn to deal with his present.
Daniel Pico was awarded the Albert P Weisman award for his original screenplay “Two Days in Limbo”, which went on to screen at the Marche du Filme at Cannes, and has won several awards, including the Grand Jury Prize - Best Short Film - Michigan Independent Film Festival. Pico holds a Bachelor of the Arts in Film and Video from Columbia College, Chicago.
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Faubourg Tremé
67 Minutes United States Directed by Dawn Logsdon
Written and Co-Directed by Lolis Eric Elie
Produced by Lucie Faulknor, Dawn Logsdon and Lolis Eric Elie
Executive Producer Wynton Marsalis and Stanley Nelson
The Untold Story of Black New Orleans
Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans is a riveting tale of hope, heartbreak and resiliency set in New Orleans’ most fascinating neighborhood. Shot largely before Hurricane Katrina and edited afterwards, the film is both celebratory and elegiac in tone.
Faubourg Tremé is arguably the oldest black neighborhood in America, the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement in the South and the home of jazz. While the Tremé district was damaged when the levees broke, this is not another Katrina documentary. Every frame is a tribute to what African American communities have contributed even under the most hostile of conditions… It is a film of such effortless intimacy, subtle glances and authentic details that only two native New Orleanians could have made it.
Directors’ Statement
We are New Orleans filmmakers, one black and one white. With the failure of the federal levees after Hurricane Katrina, our entire city was transformed overnight into the symbol of all that has gone wrong in America, in particular its deepening racial and economic divide. Seared into the nation’s consciousness are images of desperately poor black people trapped on rooftops and denied the most basic protection of American citizenship. Those images have come to represent black New Orleans.
Our goal in making this film was to tell the story behind those images. We chose to focus on one New Orleans neighborhood, Faubourg Tremé, a historic community that like much of the old city is predominantly African American, poor, and steeped in distinctly un-American traditions. For us Faubourg Tremé is quintessential New Orleans. We wanted to capture the spirit of this place that has persevered in the face of great hostility for centuries and created a culture and history that enriched America and the world.
-Dawn Logsdon & Lolis Eric Elie
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Fodor’s Hamlet
131 Minutes Great Britain Directed by Alexander Fodor
A modern, stark and stunning interpretation of Shakespeare’s ghost story.
Alexander Fodor is the son of a Hungarian porn film director, making films out of Berlin and Amsterdam. Up to the age of ten he thought all women walked around in the nude. An essential ethos carries forward from his childhood; there’s no point making something if no one watches it.
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For A Few Marbles More (Voor Een Paar Knikkers Meer)
11 Minutes The Netherlands Directed by Jelmar Hufen
Written by Jelmar Hufen
Their playground was stolen, now they want it back
Four ten-year-olds are kicked out of their favorite playground by two aggressive drunkards. When they realize their parents are not going to help them, there’s only one solution. They have to find a way to get the toughest boy in the neighborhood to help them.
Jelmar Hufen worked in the Dutch film industry for a couple of years doing various jobs as an assistant. With savings of € 10.000 and the help of some generous friends in the Dutch film industry “For a few marbles more” was shot. In October 2006 it had its premier at The Netherlands Film Festival. Hufen is currently working as a successful commercial director in The Netherlands.
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Here Comes Funky Kazoo
17 Minutes Great Britain Directed by Paul Fuller
Written by Mark “Papa” Garcia and Paul Fuller
Mark couldn’t be happier. He’s got a date with the girl of his dreams.
However, the course of true love never runs smoothly, and when Mark arrives for his date, things are not quite as he had expected. Unable to recover from a bad start, Mark can’t quite get the date back on track and begins to feel like a bit of clown.
This is the sixth short film from writer/director Paul Fuller. Originally from Hull in East Yorkshire he now resides in North London. After establishing Scarytree Films in 2002 with the award winning, ultra-low budget short film, “Dummy”, he now produces all his films from the living room of his flat and is currently working on his first two feature scripts. Paul also wrote and directed the “Cycle Hero” cinema advert for the cycling charity CTC’s climate change campaign. When he’s not making films, he works as the art director for a national newspaper in London. This latest film is the result of a collaboration with Mark “Papa” Garcia who after appearing in Paul’s last film, “Jigsaw”, co-wrote, co-produced and starred in “Funky Kazoo”.
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Letting Go
4 Minutes United States Directed by Dan Masucci
Written by Dan Masucci
A father struggles with his son’s growing independence in this heartfelt short film about a boy who decides to put away his security blanket.
“Letting Go” was made by request of the producers at Mark Burnett Productions for continued participation in the audition process for Fox Televisions,” On the Lot”. Director Dan Masucci was one of a hundred filmmakers (selected from more than 12,000 applicants world wide) asked to create a short film for further consideration in being cast on the program.
Contacted by talent producers for Fox in mid-February of 2007, Dan was informed that he was onto the next round of auditions. He was also told that should he proceed further, he might be called upon to make a film at a moment’s notice. Five days later, he got the call.
That same night, Masucci wrote and story-boarded “Letting Go.” The following night, he rehearsed the actors while his brother conducted lighting tests. The night after that, the camera was rolling from 6:00pm until 2:30am. When the crew left, Dan began editing. He finished in time to get his son ready for school.
After forty-three hours without sleep, the film completed in just four days, Dan Masucci went home to bed.
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LOOP
85 Minutes United States Directed by Pericles Lewnes
Written by Pericles Lewnes
Imagine waking up not knowing who you are, who you were, or who you will be, in a place familiar, yet foreign.
The world is in chaos and it twists around you like a snake. Everything brings a vague recollection of memories you just can’t grasp. You meet others like you - lost, confused, and enraged - while the rest seem to ignore your very existence. Who is your enemy? Who is your ally? Is that really your wife? Who can be trusted? Meet Joseph List, bewildered white male, midlife mad, drifting in a time warp where answers just generate more questions. Joe knows something happened to him — something powerful and personal — and he is desperate to find out what it is. Is it meaningful or meaningless? Can it be fixed or is it not broken? “LOOP” is one man’s journey into a senseless world of bent time and elastic reality - a world where he finds that the sanity he seeks is the insanity he’s lost.
Pericles Lewnes is best known for his feature length horror spoof “Redneck Zombies” (1986) which was originally distributed on video. Dubbed as a cult classic by horror fans “Redneck Zombies” was included in the 80’s edition of Trivial Pursuit. Lewnes is a special effects artist as well as a director of television commercials, documentaries and music videos. In 2006 his gritty expose of mixed martial arts, “Fighter” won Best Documentary at FAIF International Film Festival and Best Biography at the New York International Film Festival. Lewnes was born in Annapolis, MD and currently works as a shooter/editor in Washington DC when he’s not making movies.
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Made In Japan
7 Minutes Spain Directed by Ciro Altabas
Written by Ciro Altabas Screenplay by Iñigo Díaz-Guardamino
Showing up late for a date, a man has to explain his delay. It all started when he tried on his mother’s fur coat, found a letter revealing a family secret, and caught the next plane for Japan.
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Mary’s Friend
4 Minutes United States Directed by John Roberts
Written by John Roberts
A charmingly creepy Tim Burton-esque animated short by UW-Milwaukee student John Roberts.
Mary’s Friend is part of the Flyway Film Festival Wisconsin/Minnesota Showcase
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Marta’s Sex Tape
46 Minutes United States/Mexico Directed By Anthony Rivero Stabley
Written By Anthony Rivero Stabley
A Pop Art Comedy
Marta is just a regular girl, who is deeply in debt. In order to pay back what she owes, she decides to make a very, um… special kind of movie. This is that film.
“Marta’s Sex Tape” was the recent winner of the Underground Spirit Award at the Minneapolis Underground Film Festival.
Anthony Rivero Stabley was born in La Paz, Bolivia, and has been the Art Director on such Hollywood films as- White Oleander, City of Industry and Stigmata.
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Melody Of Rain
6 Minutes Turkey Directed By Ridvan Cevik
Written By Ridvan Cevik
Did you ever wonder where birds go when the weather is rainy?
Ridvan Cevik born in Eskişehir, Turkey in 1979. Currently he is a research assistant at the Anadolu University Animation Department.
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Morbid Curiosity
6 Minutes United States Directed by Cindy Baer
Written by Matthew Irving
What would happen if your deepest, darkest thoughts came true, just by thinking them?
A woman’s videotaped confession reveals a lifelong struggle to control her deadly ability.
Director’s Statement
Long before I met him, my husband Matthew Irving wrote the short story “Morbid Curiosity” for a class assignment at Stanford University in 1992. I’m sure he never imagined that 14 years later it would be dug up, and adapted into a short film. I have always wondered what role our subconscious mind plays in our day-to-day life. We can’t control the things we think, right? The constant flood of information that we take into our unconscious brain (from television, movies, music, the internet) has to affect who we are as people. And I’m particularly drawn to stories that have multiple layers, as well as comedy. That’s what attracted me to this one. Not only did it make me wonder, “What hidden thoughts in my own head are influencing how I live my life?” but also I knew it could be fashioned inside a comedic “wrapper”. In this quirky little tale about a woman who has terribly violent thoughts that come true, we actually laugh. It’s kind of dark, funny, and philosophical, all at the same time.
-Cindy Baer
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Now You See Me, Now You Don’t
30 Minutes Hungary Directed by Attila Szaz
Written by Attila Szaz
What would you do if your child became invisible?
It seems like an ordinary day. Dad is experimenting in the lab; Mom is at home boiling water, while their six year old son, Alex, is playing around her. But this day is different. This day Dad brings something home from the lab. And the next morning…Alex becomes invisible.
Attila Szaz was born in 1972, and graduated from the Producer class of Academy of Theatre and Film in Budapest at the age of 23. During his schooling he produced almost a dozen short films. In 2000 he became editor-in-chief of VOX, Hungary’s biggest movie magazine. A year later, he directed his first commercial. In 2002, he quit journalism and started directing and writing screenplays full- time. Since then he has directed numerous commercials and music videos and has written four screenplays. Currently he is pre-producing his first feature film, Full House.
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Older Than America
90 Minutes United States Directed by Georgina Lightning
Written by Georgina Lightning and Christine K Walker
Produced by Christine K Walker
Kill the Indian, save the man.
A woman’s haunting visions reveal a Catholic priest’s sinister plot to silence her mother from speaking the truth about atrocities that occurred at a Native Indian boarding school. A supernatural thriller with cultural content, “Older Than America” speaks to the lasting impact of the cultural genocide that occurred at such schools throughout the United States and Canada.
Shot on location in and around Cloquet, MN.
Georgina Lightning brings a long track record of creative experience in the film industry as an actor, producer and acting coach on such projects as: Dreamkeepers, Backroads, Johnny Greyeyes, Christmas in the Clouds, Tecumseh The Oath, Smoke Signals, among countless others. Lightning has also guest starred in T.V. episodes of Walker Texas Ranger and West Wing. Lightning’s directorial debut Older Than America is inspired by stories told to her by many of her family members and friends who attended the Native Indian Boarding schools.
Lightning is also the cofounder of Tribal Alliance Productions, a production company committed to producing media that matters told from a native prospective. A long time advocate of Native Indian advancement in the film industry, Lightning also formed Native Media Network, a group dedicated to the promotion and advancement of Native Indian talent.
Christine Walker is an award-winning producer whose projects include Factotum starring Matt Dillon and Marisa Tomei. The film premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Walker also Line Produced American Splendor which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and the International Critics Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Other projects include: BackroadsEaster written by Big Love Exec Producer Will Sheffer, Happy Heights Dream Society a Thai-language film that screened at numerous interntional film festivals. Walker also worked as a production Supervisor on the Chris rock film Head of State. which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival,
Walker’s awards and recognitions include: Producer’s Guild of America Diversity Award, Independent Spirit Award Nominee for Motorola Producer of the Year, the MN Blockbuster Film Fund Award, and the Sundance Producer’s Institute Fellowship Award.
Older Than America is part of the Flyway Film Festival Wisconsin/Minnesota showcase.
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Rattle Basket
98 Minutes United States Directed by Thomas L. Phillips
Written By Jared Tweedie
Why does anyone act the way they do?
Wherever Cerina Strickland and her sister Tabitha go, emotional devastation is sure to follow in their wake. Shielding them from the darker consequences of their fickle and self-centered relationships, Stuart Clemons has been their best, and only, friend since childhood. But when Cerina, jealous for his undivided attention, tries to sabotage his burgeoning relationship with Bridgett, a whimsical divorcee she ironically fixed him up with, the girls’ friendship with Stuart becomes strained to the breaking point. It couldn’t come at a worse time, as Cerina contends with the unexpected and unwanted neediness of the community college professor she seduced for a B+ and Tabitha struggles to rebuff the advances of her psychotic ex-cop boyfriend while dealing with her emerging feelings for Stuart’s crap-talking bartender friend, Wogbe. The girls must grow up and learn to handle their own problems or risk permanently fracturing their friendship with Stuart.
Thomas L. Phillips was born and raised in Knoxville, TN. The same birthplace as one of his favorite filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino. He decided to leave Knoxville in 1995 when a gun was stuck to his head while walking home from his job as a dishwasher.
Every movie Phillips has directed has been written by screenwriter Jared Tweedie. They met in film school at Chapman University and have continued their working relationship ever since.
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Speedy Delivery
72 Minutes United States Directed By Paul Germain
David Newell travels the globe as “Mr. McFeely” to keep Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood alive, despite major transitions in children’s television.
Paul Germain has an extremely intense passion for storytelling. As an avid painter, musician and writer of poetry and fiction, Germain is obsessed with hearing, collecting and sharing stories through artistic media. Amongst these and other creative outlets, documentary filmmaking reigns supreme as his single greatest passion.
Germain graduated from Lafeyette College (Easton, PA) with a BA in English/Art. It was here that he completed as interdisciplinary thesis entitled “Human Expressions in Graffiti” an in-depth artistic and textual analysis of school desk graffiti. He recently earned his Masters Degree in Arts Management and a Masters in Entertainment Industry Management through Carnegie Mellon University.
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Standing On A Whale
29 Minutes United States Directed by Jorge Arrieta
Written by Jorge Arrieta
I will be a bird and fly – over the clouds… and when I’m tired I will rest in your tree.
But what if you’re SO BEAUTIFUL they put you in a cage for all to see?
…I will be an artist…
Imagine 55 pieces of artwork ranging in size from 5 inches to 12 feet.
Visualize an accompanying 28-minute film with animation. Now consider 913 days of creation while simultaneously working odd jobs and realize the inspiration of only one man — one artist.
Director’s Statement
I began working on “Standing on a Whale” about 1000 years ago. What can be created that does not take an eternity? We shape and are formed by all. So, when I was swallowed by everything outside myself I had a choice. I traveled inward. I sketched. I painted. Then I designed. I filmed and edited. I painted more and more. I closed my eyes and found myself awake. What do you see when you sleep? Are you standing on a whale fishing for minnows? Well, then come to the show. Everyone is welcome.
— Jorge Arrieta
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Sur La Terre Comme Au Ciel (On Earth As It Is In Heaven)
21 Minutes Canada Directed by Herve Demers
Written by Hervé Demers and Xavier Lechausseur
After the passing of his beloved wife, an old man is left alone and feels that those around him seem to envision his imminent death, as well.
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TREE
46 Minutes United States Directed by Michael Steinbeck
Written by Michael Steinbeck Screenplay by Bill Elverman
I’m seeing my inglorious end…
After a recent tragedy, Tom Brueggeman and his family move to the old farm where they discover a large tree that seems to give them cryptic visions of their future. While his wife Ellie and daughter Katie seem to welcome the mysterious phenomenon, Tom struggles with what appears to be a vision of his own demise.
Both Michael Steinbeck and Bill Elverman were born in Twin Lakes, WI. We are proud to showcase films from both Michael and Bill (The Wintress) on the opening night of our festival.
TREE is a part of the Flyway Film Festival Wisconsin/Minnesota Showcase
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When I Was A Partisan
90 Minutes Lithuania Directed by Vytautas Landsbergis
A child that sees things that are not meant for him, becomes an adult.
Vytautas V. Landsbergis (born in 1962) is a poet, prose writer, dramatist, cinema and theatre director and musician. Landsbergis is first and foremost known as the author of numerous fairytales. His fairytales were born of the stories the writer used to tell to his own children and from improvisations during meetings with friends. These are funny, ironic texts of nonsensical poetics in which the author plays with words and uses elements taken from Baltic folklore, the Bible and Lithuanian history. The fairytales portray a bright, surprising world in which the core values are outlined clearer and clearer and the resistance to evil is encouraged.
He is also the son of Lithuania’s first freely elected President following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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Wing, The Fish That Talked Back
13 Minutes The Netherlands Directed by Ricky Rijneke
Written by Ricky Rijneke
Little Wing is now sure. Grandmother should be returned to China. Fantasy and reality begin to mingle in a story concerning an old lady who does not talk, some fish, and a cup of tea.
We see this film through the eyes of Wing, who creates a totally artificial world for herself and doesn’t allow real life to get in. Her world is always miraculous, weird and sometimes frightening.
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The Wintress World Premier
16 Minutes United States Directed By Bill Elverman
Written By Bill Elverman
Executive Producers Bill Elverman, Michael R Steinbeck, David Dietrich
Mike’s concern for his friend reveals horrific abuses on a cold winter day in Wisconsin.
The Flyway Film Festival is proud to present the world premier of The Wintress as part of the Wisconsin/Minnesota Showcase.
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Woodpecker
87 Minutes United States Directed By Alex Karpovsky
Written By Jon E. Hyrns and Alex Karpovsky
An existential tragi-comedy about hope, perception, and some very strange birds.
Fanatical birdwatchers have descended upon a small town in the Arkansas bayou in hopes of finding the celebrated Ivory Billed Woodpecker. Declared extinct in the 1940’s, the bird has apparently been spotted by numerous experts. Enter amateur birder and poet Johnny Neander, who has convinced his taciturn sidekick that he will be the one to find the elusive woodpecker. The ensuing chaos divides the small town between believers and non-believers, rabid environmentalists and opportunistic entrepreneurs. Much like the bird itself, Woodpecker explores the intersection of fact and fiction, manipulating our notions of documentary and narrative techniques within a tragic comedy about hope, perception, and some very very strange birds.
Alex Karpovsky’s first feature film, The Hole Story, won numerous awards on the festival circuit before being released theatrically last year. Filmmaker Magazine selected Alex as one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film 2006″ and he was short listed for the “Someone to Watch” Independent Spirit Award last year. In addition to “Woodpecker”, Alex is also in post-production with the feature-length documentary “Trust Us, This Is All Made Up”, which focuses on America’s most revered long-form comedy improvisers - TJ Jagodowski and David Pasquesi. Alex also enjoys acting, most recently playing the male lead in a new film by Andrew Bujalski as well as the voices of several Russian gangsters in the newly released Grand Theft Auto IV.
