Silver Lake Film Festival presents "Silver Lake Shorts," a monthly screening of alternative short films and videos from around the world... and around the corner. Under the direction of Jason Dollar, "Silver Lake Shorts" is held on the 3rd Sunday of the month at AKBAR Bar and Club, 4356 Sunset Blvd. (at Fountain Ave.) in Silver Lake. The screenings are are free and open to the public. See a film, sip a cocktail and have a blast! Read on for more information about upcoming programs...

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Silver Lake Shorts, in association with mp4fest, is proud to present an evening of Dorenfeld’s work; a retrospective and an experience, covering the best and most irreverent animations and short films made from high school on- including the infamous Done by One series.

Tawd b Dorenfeld is an essential part of a new crop of independent filmmakers in America hell-bent on destroying the hallowed notions of mono-disciplinian filmic approach. A graduate of NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, Dorenfeld has developed a coherent but eclectic vision encompassing many mediums, including stop-motion animation, claymation, web animation media such as Flash and After-Effects, every type of film process, photography, hand-drawn animation and (phew!) sculpture. His heavily art directed work ranges from slick Hollywood-style public service announcements and music videos (he’s directed videos for The Offspring, Zap Mama featuring Erykah Badu, The Sirens and Good Charlotte, among others), to intentionally grungy in your-face skate videos, to purely experimental animation and film.

There is also the question of his impressive web-based output which includes work aimed at the education of children (earning him the “Best Educational Animation Produced for the Web” award in 2001 by The World Animation Celebration, for “The Abcs Game”), as well as work that can only be defined as politically progressive visual activism in short film or animation format (earning him praise and honorable mentions from such media institutions as E! Online). The conceptual energy of his many influences, as well as a slightly manic will to produce, infuses his work with a sort of polymorphic vitality, which, when combined with his larger-than-life persona and puck-rock (ir)rationality, allows for an inventive and authentic panorama of endeavor.

Dorenfeld has just completed his feature film “The Anna Cabrini Chronicles”, which will go on tour, rock and roll style, at the end of 2006.

Curated by Darin Klein

Where: Akbar; 4356 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles
When: June 18, 7 PM doors; 8PM screening
Featuring shorts by: Julianne Becker · Cathy Begien · Sara Enid · David Enos · Jose Rodriguez…and many more!

Edinburgh Castle, located in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco and long known for live rock shows and piping hot fish 'n chips, has been hosting renegade film nights for the last two years. Overseen by "den mother" and San Francisco’s Opera Plaza Cinema general manager Jackie Moe, the evenings often feature themed shorts made specifically for each night.

Joined by many guest artists since Edinburgh Castle Film Night’s inception, regular members of the loose-knit family of filmmakers include Jose Rodriguez, whose provocative and unsettling work got him expelled from SF Art Institute; Cathy Begien whose compelling and heartfelt pieces evoke bittersweet longing and wistful joy; David Enos, whose decidedly low-tech stop-motion works use original drawings to tell fictionalized biographies; and Sarah Enid, whose poetic visions manifest in neo-Edwardian fantasies.

Often lending a hand in front of the camera as stars and extras, they support each other behind the camera as well with the technical aspects of filmmaking. Styles and aesthetics do overlap, but never at the expense of the distinct voices the individual artists have cultivated.

Having garnered local acclaim (in 2005 the SF Bay Guardian lauded their work with a ‘Goldie Award’ as well as a ‘Best of the Bay’ award for “Best Night-spot for Movie-making Maniacs) the Edinburgh Castle All-Stars are now beginning to show their unique work in galleries including enView in Long Beach and Angela Hanley in LA; film festivals including Frameline and SF International Film Festival; and museums including The Getty Center in LA and the Pacific Film Archive at the Berkeley Museum of Art.

Please join us for an evening of specially selected, heartfelt, experimental, creepy, humourous, and fantastical short films by a truly talented and motivated group of filmmakers.

Check out these links to see what SF Bay Guardian has to say about the Edinburgh Castle Film Night:

http://www.sfbg.com/goldies05/edinburgh.html
http://www.bestofthebay.com/2005/best_sex.php?show=239

Short films about women coming-of-age, making peace with their past and fighting their way - sometimes violently - across thresholds in life. There's sex, politics, relationships, and, well...drinking radium.

May’s selection of films will run approximately 1 hour, 20 minutes and are drawn from up-and-coming Los Angeles and New York filmmakers. They include:

“Madura” (“Ripe”), a sexual coming-of-age story by producer-director Sarah Adina. The urban landscape is eerily transformed through surreal audio and visual distortions as a teenaged girl explores the dangerous world of almost-womanhood. In Spanish and English.

Put sex, violence and politics in a blender and hit “puree.” You’ll have “The System Wurks” by filmmaker Aaron Sutherland. This action-comedy-romance is for every politically correct liberal who secretly dreams of having his or her girlfriend kick ass while wearing a Catholic schoolgirl uniform.

In “Twilight’s Last Gleaming” a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s wanders onto the highway at night and begins an odyssey through America’s past. Producer-director Paul Schneeberger creates a heart-felt look at war, loss and remembrance in a world of magical realism.

A woman wakes in a nameless American city to discover her government has been overthrown by a military coup and political dissent has been outlawed. Lynne Kuemmel’s broad, absurdist comedy charts one woman’s struggle to be heard in “Shhh...”

In “Radium Follies” producer-director Sarah Birns takes us on a fictional farce through the real-life world of 1920’s “radium parties,” at which the newly discovered, glow-in-the-dark, radioactive element was drunk and acclaimed for its “healthful properties.”

Filmmakers will be on hand to introduce their shorts! Drinks are available all night at the Akbar.

Suggested donation is $5.

May Curator:
Lynne Kuemmel
Silver Lake Film Festival
(818) 796-7614
lakuemmel@gmail.com

Event Contact:
Jason Dollar, Director, Silver Lake Shorts
323.854.1207
jjasondollar@sbcglobal.net

Gabriela Sosa's "La Gran Colombia"; A two-part series.

When: Sunday April 23, 2006:

Where: Akbar, 4356 Sunset Blvd.

Time: 8:00 PM

Long before the European Union, there was La Gran Colombia.

Whatever happened to the Bolivarian dream of unifying Latin American into one Super Power?

“La Gran Colombia, Then & Now” gathers shorts films from the countries which once were one; Panama, Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia. Through their juxtaposition the audience is lead to ponder whether these four diverse yet similar cultures could or should one day reunite.