Arts & Events

The East Bay Media Center is wrapping up its 24th Berkeley Video and Film Festival (BVFF) this weekend with screenings drawn from more than 75 independent films from the US, Switzerland, Russia, and Ireland. Thanks to an exclusive partnership with the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts the BVFF will also spotlight a host of "masters-degree" short films and animations. In addition to an array of Jury-selected features and documentaries, the BVFF also includes outstanding shorts and experimental cinema.

The last three days of festival's offerings will be held at the East Bay Media Center's performance space at 1939 Addison Street in Berkeley's Downtown Arts District. Space is limited so it's advisable to secure tickets in advance. Tickets are also available at the door at a 'pay what you can' rate.

Email maketv@aol.com, or call 510-843-3699 for more info and to order tickets. 

Here's the schedule for the BVFF's Final Weekend 

Friday November 13 

5:50pm - Infrastructures - Aurele Ferrier - Experimental - 23 minutes - Switzerland 

The film involves a journey through a landscape of infrastructures that are common to an everyday reality of routine. Yet here we find these environments are deserted. This allows attention to focus instead on the design and spatial arrangements of the objects, which become centrally present. Infrastructures involves a series of seven tracking shots. A steady flow of objects in various contrived arrangements passes by the eye. 

6:30pm - Suggestive Gestures - David Finkelstein - Experimental Feature -75 minutes 

A journey into a labyrinth, where a variety of dazzling verbal, musical ad visual textures lead to a mystery at the center. 

7:45pm - Q & A with David Finkelstein 

8:00pm INTERMISSION 

8:30pm - NOWRUZ: Lost and Found - K-Von - Comedy - Best Comedy Documentary Award - 82 minutes 

In his movie, K-Von discovers he was not informed about a huge holiday known as NOWRUZ (Persian New Year) celebrated by over 300 million people worldwide. Instead of getting mad at his Iranian father for not sharing, he grabs a camera crew and sets out to learn as much as he can, inviting the viewer to join along on his quest. 

Saturday November 14 

7:35pm - TWO LANDSCAPES - Neil Ira Needleman - Short Feature, 3 minutes 

A clash between the landscape the eye perceives and the one that's deeply embedded in the mind. 

7:40pm - SPRINT TO THE PAST - Selkin Fedor - Short Feature - Russia -16 minutes 

This short film follows 3 students involved in Academic Rowing and how their lives evolve and change into middle age. 

8:00pm - AmericaAntiAmerica - Neil Ira Needleman - Experimental - 3minutes 

A short, light philosophical video that asks questions about the meaning and power of imagery, and the nature of patriotic (and anti-patriotic) acts. 

8:05pm – PsychoNation 2.0 - Kit Young - Experimental - 4 minutes 

Our Sisyphean journey towards racial equality was in mind as I created this piece, as well as how differently our democracy appears from different perspectives in our country and around the world. 

8:10pm - Business - Zachary T. Scott - Music Video - 3 minutes 

Two thugs rob a mansion. Then get a taste of their own medicine. 

8:30pm - Scammerhead - Dan Zukovic - Feature - 90 minutes 

Scammerhead is a Global Film Noir with dark comic elements that follows the adventures of Silas Breece, a legendarily unorthodox business hustler who travels the world seeking capitol from bizarre investors and underworld mobsters, for a series of increasingly elaborate investment schemes. When his projects turn sour he finds himself in a desperate cat and mouse chase with the global mafia out to exact revenge. 

10:00pm - Intermission 

10:15pm - Fight to the Death - Zachary T. Scott - Short Feature, 3 minutes. 

Two brothers survive the apocalypse only to be so bored they decide to fight to the death. 

Sunday November 15 

3:00pm - Leaving Selma - Andrew Young, and C.B. Hackworth - 94 minutes 

"The darkest hour of the Civil Rights movement, was its greatest victory". After passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, white America and President Johnson moved on to other issues. But in many places, the new law was simply ignored. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. realized it would be necessary to replace racist public officials where blacks were still unable to register to vote. Dr. King brought the movement to the small, vicious town of Selma, Alabama and made history. Starring: Willie Bolden, Amelia Boynton, Narration by: Molly C. Quinn 

5:00pm - Resistencia: The Fight for the Aguan Valley - Jesse Freeston - 92minutes 

When the first military coup in a generation ousts the only president they ever believed in, these farmers took over the plantations of the most powerful man in the country . . . and they have no plans to ever give them back. 

More information on the programming can be found at BerkeleyVideoFilmFest.org