From October 24-27, the Walker Art Center and the Minnesota Film Board copresent DIG.IT, a series of screenings, panels, and workshops that celebrates the burgeoning field of digital film. Programs take place at the Walker and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
A festival of cutting-edge moving-image work, DIG.IT highlights an international kaleidoscope of digitally realized features, shorts, and works created for the Internet. Beyond the screenings, this collaboration between the Walker and the Minnesota Film Board seeks to provide a forum for media students and industry professionals through artist panels, lectures, and workshops. DIG.IT is cosponsored by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, the Minneapolis Community Technical College, and the University of Minnesota.
This series is made possible by generous support from Best Buy Co., Inc.,
Northwest Airlines and
Apple Computer.
Unless otherwise noted, screenings take place in the Walker Auditorium.
DIG.IT
FIRST ANNUAL DIGITAL FILM FESTIVAL
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24
Opening Night: Digital Glimpses, 8 pm $6 ($4 Walker members)
Highlights include the scathing caricature of a contemporary Westerner in Japan,
The Fuccon Family, by Kyupi Kyupi member Yoshimasa Ishibashi (2001, Japan, color, video, in Japanese with English subtitles, 10 minutes); the Atlas Group's experimental documentary
Hostage: The Bachar Tapes, about the Western hostage crisis of the late 1980s (2000, U.S., color, video, 17 minutes); audio-visual works by Austrian artists Michaela Schwentner (
Transistor, 2000, Austria, BW, video, 6 minutes) and Renate Oblak (
Mobile V, Austria/The Netherlands, color, video, 3 minutes);
Heal Me, directed by Hester Scheurwater and Roald de Boer, a work showing a half-naked woman in an empty space, vulnerable and helpless (2000, The Netherlands, color, video, 4 minutes);
Cargo, a dreamy video diary by the stranded crew of a cargo ship (2001, The Netherlands, color, video, 29 minutes); the extremely rhythmic and whimsical
Calma, by German director Alex Heim, which was part of the 2001 New York Video Festival (2001, Germany, color, video, 4 minutes); and
GTgranturismo, directed by Günther and Loredana Selichar (2001, Austria, color, video, 5 min.). Program length: 90 minutes.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25
Student Forum, 6 pm FREE
Students from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, the University of Minnesota, and the Minneapolis Community and Technical College present their work. Program length: 90 minutes.
The Fourth Dimension, 8 pm FREE
Introduced by director Trinh T. Minh-ha
Trinh T. Minh-ha's films don't explain or instruct — rather, they hypnotically unsettle viewers through radical exploration of form and time. As professor of rhetoric, women's studies, and film studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of
The Moon Waxes Red and
Cinema Interval, she brings an academic, interdisciplinary perspective to her film work. Minh-ha's foray into digital video,
The Fourth Dimension is informed by her experiences with the uneasy symbiosis of modern technology and ancient tradition in Japan. She explores video aesthetics while capturing cultures in conflict through the motions of bullet trains and the segmented frames that recall the sliding panels in traditional architecture. 2001, U.S./Japan, color and BW, video,
87 minutes.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26
Three Filmmakers/Three Visions, 8 pm $6 ($4 Walker members)
In Public
Directed by Jai Zhang Ke
One of today's leading Chinese directors takes a harsh look at the everyday lives of people gathering in a "public place" — a bus station — in an abandoned mining town. In this reflection on the wave of capitalism in China, Zhang Ke juxtaposes the exponents of newly acquired wealth with an appalling reality. 2001, China, color, video, in Chinese with English subtitles, 32 minutes.
Digitopia
Directed by John Acomfrah
Digitopia, a film in search of the emotional undercurrents of the digital realm, is about a man who seeks his pleasure and searches for love in the digital world, but works and wants relationships in the analog world. 2001, U.K., color, video, 32 minutes.
A Conversation with God
Directed by Tsai Ming Liang
Tsai Ming Liang was determined to ask God, face to face (via his DV camera), whether he could film her. While driving his 50cc motorbike, he gets caught in a traffic jam caused by an impromptu banquet in the middle of the road. He doesn't capture God on camera, but discovers something else instead. 2001, Taiwan, color, video, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 33 minutes.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27
Workshops/Receptions/Exhibitions, 9 am-5:30 pm
Minneapolis College of Art and Design Auditorium, 2501 Stevens Avenue South, Minneapolis
In addition to the evening screenings, DIG.IT features a number of in-depth opportunities for continuing education in new media presented by the Minnesota Film Board.
Minnesota e-Commerce in the New Media World, 9-10:30 am
$6 ($3 Walker members and students)
This seminar focuses on the ways new media has impacted "old media" in Minnesota's moving-image production community and takes a look at how the Internet has affected advertising, corporate communications, and television delivery. Panelists include representatives from local advertising agencies and corporations.
Aesthetics of Digital:
Where's the Future and When Will It Get Here? 10:45 am-12:30 pm
$6 ($3 Walker members and students)
This panel discussion will utilize the expertise of our visiting filmmakers and academics from the University of Minnesota New Media Institute, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Carleton College, and the Minneapolis Community and Technical College to forecast where digital filmmaking is going and how it will impact the look, narrative structure, and overall experience of the digital moving image as a storytelling medium.
Digital Interaction, 2-4 pm
$6 ($3 Walker members and students)
Digital technology offers audiences the opportunity to further their engagement with films and videos through Web sites, CD-ROMs, and DVDs. Laurence Bricker of Popular Front Interactive Communications discusses the ways he and his team have blurred the lines between the TV set and the desktop for such PBS programs as
American High,
American Photography: A Century of Images, and
Continental Harmony. Popular Front will work with a U of M student to determine the interactive possibilities for his/her project.
Post-Panel Reception, 4-5:30 pm FREE
Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Meet the many panelists, academics, and members of the local digital media arts community at this post-panel reception.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27
The Creators of the Shopping Worlds
(Die Shöpfer der Einkaufswelten), 6 pm $6 ($4 Walker members)
Directed by Harun Farocki
In his new film essay, Farocki shows how shopping malls are conceived-commercially, architecturally, and visually-in order to entice regular customs and promote in them a feeling of well-being. Farocki systematically records discussions and brainstorming sessions involving designers and financiers as they assess plans for a large mall. From overall concept of the shopping space to the way a cake is positioned in a display, nothing is left to chance. 2001, Germany, color, video, in German with English subtitles, 72 minutes.
The Star Wars We'd Like to See, 8 pm
$6 ($4 Walker members)
Digital cinema advocates claim new production and editing technologies will democratize filmmaking;
Star Wars fan cinema is the proof. Shooting in garages and basements, rendering F/X on home computers, and ripping music from CDs and MP3 files, they have created new versions of the
Star Wars mythology that stand on their own alongside George Lucas' Hollywood blockbusters. This program, curated by Henry Jenkins, director of Comparative Media at MIT, brings together an eclectic mix of fan-created films that suggest the astonishing range of techniques, themes, and approaches these emerging storytellers have taken. Program length: 90 minutes.
For more information about this program, visit gallery9.walkerart.org/fanfilms/.
