Over The Top Fest 2008

Official Selection - Weekend of Horror (Germany) and Austin Fear Fest Audience Choice Award – Freak Show Horror Film Scream Fest Mark (Joe Davison) and Jennifer (Georgia Chris) are tabloid reporters, tired of the fake news they write all the time. They decide to investigate the case of serial killer, "The Teardrop Killer", who unfortunately for them but thankfully for us is a murderous clown whose weapon of choice is a giant meat cleaver. 100 Tears is one of the goriest American independent horror films to come around in a long time.

Marc Israel is attending film festivals where "Nearer My God To Thee" (concerning his troubled health & subsequent misadventures with Brazilian healer John of God) is receiving many accolades. Yet Israel still suffers intensely. Then, in the midst of a suicide mission, he becomes intoxicated with a 'rebirth of wonder' after imbibing copious amounts of mind-altering Kombucha tea. Thus begins an epic, desperate, & often hilarious quest thru the USA & Southeast Asia investigating a mysterious international motorbike balancing contest. Lean into the world alongside an assortment of renegade personalities, including the outlandish curators of Austin's Museum of Ephemerata, the charismatic ex-Amish street philosopher & Optimist Club founder Skutter, a self-described '"towel-face artist", and a motley assortment of bike balancers in Vietnam! "Marc Israel is a gifted storyteller. His honesty, deep sensitivity, and intelligent humor make him one of my favorite filmmakers working today." - Davy Rothbart, This American Life BALANCING ACT: kombucha/museum/contest/travel documentary film!

Official Selection – Fantastic Fest 2007 Best Underground Film of the 2007 – b-independent.com Best Documentary – B-Movie Film Festival, Atlanta Horror Film Festival, Coney Island Film Fest, and Fargo Fantastic Film Fest “If you don’t have those three things, then your film is not going to be successful”. - Joe Ripple, director Blood, Boobs & Beast tells the compelling story of Don Dohler, whose movies have been called everything from oddly brilliant to some of the worst films of all time. Despite his critics, Dohler has gotten all 9 of his sci-fi and horror films distributed internationally, as well as TV syndication for his first film, The Alien Factor. Dohler has also inspired artists and filmmakers such as Robert Crumb (Fritz the Cat), J.J. Abrams (Creator of TV show Lost, and Cloverfield) and Art Speigelman (Maus) with his underground commix character ProJunior, and his DIY filmmaking magazine, Cinemagic. Mild-mannered and unassuming, Dohler started making wholesome sci-fi films in the Baltimore area in 1976, but recently began including nudity and gore in his movies to please distributors. At age 59 he’s just finished his most gratuitous movie to date and it’s selling well, yet Dohler feels “sick of the exploitative stuff” and is considering giving up the “blood, boobs and beast” formula. However, Dohler’s recent partner Joe Ripple disagrees and views these components as essential to gaining distribution. Since the pair’s filmmaking philosophies have begun to differ, it’s possible that their current film could be their last together.

Best Feature – Anchorage International Film Festival In 1944, Charlie Rivel was a world famous clown who was performing in Berlin when he and his partner Witzi were asked by an SS officer to perform at the Fuhrer’s birthday party. Thinking that it will afford them the opportunity to cleverly poke fun at Hitler, they agree, but then find out that the officer intends to participate in the act, and is not going to allow anything that might upset the birthday boy in the routine. When they try to back out of their agreement, it’s too late, and the consequences are much more serious than they expected. Though based on a true story, and set in a very delicate time, The Clown and the Fuhrer is a wonderful film which is very funny, and thankfully doesn’t stoop to using easy sentimentality for its drama (something which can’t be said about a certain Oscar winning Italian film).

A ballet based on Deerhoof's album Milk Man was performed in North Haven, Maine, in October, 2006. With a live band directed by Courtney Naliboff, young musicians and dancers from the North Haven Community School and the community at large, and featuring choreography by Ken Jones, the show was a huge success. Though available on DVD, this is the first time that the show has been shown for a public audience on the big screen, aside from screenings at the North Haven Community School.

Have you ever wished there were more camp-musicals that overflowed with cult film homage? Local director David Frankovich is your fairy godmother.

Special Jury Prize – SXSW Film Festival 2007 Ten Best Undistributed Films of 2007 – indiewire.com Best Film Not Playing at a Theatre Near You – Gotham Awards “Bringing us face-to-face and much too close for comfort with a stuttering, snot-nosed, compulsively forehead-rubbing twentysomething Brooklynite named Keith (played with freakish intensity by an actor named Dore Mann), Frownland is either a primal scream issued from a potentially dangerous mind, a wildly original work of outsider art, a doctoral thesis on how not to make friends and influence people, or all (or none) of the above. Only this much is certain: It's been a while since something this gonzo turned up at a theater near you. … Frownland owes the most to the shoestring provocations of such '70s grindhouse auteurs as Wes Craven, William Lustig, and George Romero, who similarly used their films' crude façades to blur the boundaries between art and exploitation and to test the limits of audience identification with undesirable or potentially homicidal characters. Not for nothing does Bronstein begin Frownland with a monster-movie homage, though by the time he revisits that image, late in the film, with a drooling, sputtering Keith in place of the Frankenstein-like creature, it's unclear whether we're expected to fear or feel sympathy for the beast. In fact, even after a second viewing, I can't say I've completely deciphered what Frownland is all about, or why it's so hard to get it out of my head. But there is some kind of demented brilliance at work here, and I can't wait for the encore.” – Scott Foundas of the Village Voice Ronald Bronstein will be in attendance for a Q&A session.

As the power of the Internet increases, and innovative approaches to sharing data start paying off, old fashioned businesses are being forced to rethink their approach to the way they sell artistic commodities like music and film. Copyright - guaranteed in the American constitution, has become the biggest battleground in this exploding new world, where mash-ups, remixes and YouTube continue to push the rules. In Good Copy Bad Copy, Danish directors Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen and Henrik Moltke interview figures from both sides of the debate creating an inspirational examination of art, culture, copyright and the creative process. It’s easy to think of this divisive issue in terms of how it effects big record labels and film studios in the United States, but this electronic frontier is world wide - from the huge Nigerian film industry, held together by second hand equipment and verve, to the back rooms of Brazil, where the tecno brega movement was born, this energetic documentary charts creative collaborations across the world, showing how freedom of information can sometimes create artistic bonds between strangers. Featuring interviews with Gorillaz producer Danger Mouse (famous for his landmark mash-up album “The Grey Album”), DJ Girl Talk, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Lawrence Lessig (Creative Commons), Dr Lawrence Ferrara (Chair of Music at NYU), Dan Glickman (head of the MPAA) and others, Good Copy Bad Copy stands as both a basic lesson in the issues, terms and cases behind copyright law, and a tongue-in-cheek challenge to the status quo. If there’s one film to see about this issue, it’s this one.

The director of The Taste of Tea, Party 7, and Sharkskin Man and the Peach-Hip Girl’s latest film, Hokuro Brothers: Full Throttle is a series of 7 short animated episodes featuring the Hokuro Brothers, who first appeared in his film, Funky Forest: the First Contact (which you may have seen at Toronto After Dark 2006). The shorts follow the two white-suited brothers as they perform their slapstick stand-up routine to an audience of intergalactic soldiers, but also as they conduct backstage business with yakuza, engage in a frenzied spaceship battle, have an encounter with a dinosaur, and more. Hokuro Brothers: Full Throttle is an outright nutty film which is full of energy, insanity and wild animation that needs to bee seen on the big screen. If you’re a fan of Ishii’s (who is also responsible for the animated sequence in Kill Bill Vol. 1) or just of crazy films which seem to have been made for the director’s personal pleasure and bonus if other people enjoy it, then you can’t miss this screening; which will most likely be the only time it ever screens in Toronto.