Thanks to the estimated 150 attendees who crowded Tressa’s for the MAP’s Local Film Forum. Thanks to the filmmakers Mark Hosler (Negativland ), Lawrence Benner (The Nudger), Daniel Potthast and Josh Sonstroem (Absent Productions), Francine Cavanaugh (Mountain Eye Media),  Michael Folliett (Spentzal Mas Productions), and Chusy Jardine (Asheville, The Movie) who presented their work. And thanks to filmmakers, inc for the well-attended benefit party they threw for the MAP to conclude the successful film-filled week.

Off the MAP will take a brief holiday hiatus in December and return in January.

Coming soon: news on the MAP’s next project, the Media Arts Directory.

Saturday, Nov. 6th, 9pm
Gypsy Moon Sofa Bar
13 Walnut Street
Downtown Asheville
$5 donation at the door

http://www.filmmakersinc.com/

Western North Carolina isn’t just a tourist destination or a scenic backdrop for location footage--it’s home to its own filmmakers.  While the Asheville Film Festival brings in films from around the world, the nonprofit organization the Media Arts Project (MAP) will hold a Local Film Forum representing a cross section of local filmmakers. The free screenings and presentations will take place on Friday, November 5 at 8:00p.m. at Tressa's, 28 Broadway, downtown Asheville. Fast moving presentations followed by a cocktail hour and informal question and answer period will make for an engaging, entertaining Friday night.  See the Local Film Scene Comes Into Focus article in the Citizen-Times.

Mark Hosler, founding member of the culture jamming group Negativland, will present new shorts including "Time Zones," a collaborative collage and CGI video about cold war paranoia, and "Truth In Advertising,” about media literacy. "For more than 20 years, Negativland  has earned renown for manipulation of both tape and media," The Los Angeles Times wrote of the collective's collage-like re-use of appropriated materials. Wired Magazine has said Negativland's members are "perhaps America's most skilled plunderers from the detritus of 20th century commercial culture." Since moving to Asheville, Hosler has continued to work with Negativland as a musician, video artist, author, and advocate for fair use of intellectual property. Negativland will soon release a new album and book, No Business, and a new DVD, Our Favorite Things.

Lawrence Benner and Dougal Bailey will present excerpts from The Nudger, a feature length film being produced by Buried Pictures in Asheville using local talent. The Nudger is an urban fairy tale about a love affair between nudger--a woman who travels from house to house waking people up for a fee--and a suicidal petty criminal. Benner, also a musician and theatre critic, wrote and is directing The Nudger. Bailey, who edited a Shorts Selection Winner at the Key West Indie Film Festival and a short that won at The Eye of the Beholder Film Festival, is the DP and editor for The Nudger.

 Daniel Potthast and Josh Sonstroem and, a video artist and electronic musician respectively, collaborated to create "Cathexis Blue." The duo will present excerpts from their experimental work, which includes stop motion graphics.

Francine Cavanaugh and Adams Wood of Mountain Eye Media will present an excerpt from their current project, a documentary on mountain top removal coal mining in Appalachia. Directors and editors of Boom: The Sound of Eviction , a documentary about gentrification in San Francisco, and contributors to the documentary The Miami Model , about the repression of protestors, Cavanaugh and Wood continue to address social, environmental, community, and sustainability issues through video activism.

 Michael Folliett will present “Tape,” a short film created spontaneously by two artists in an alley with a mile of adding machine tape. As the manager of a nonprofit DV production business in Ohio, Folliet contributed to more than 80 video projects, many involving at-risk youth. Within less than a month of arriving in Asheville, the MAP accepted his work to be screened.

Chusy Jardine, the director often known by only his first name, will present a promo for Asheville, The Movie, a feature film to be shot in Asheville in spring 2005. Chusy was formerly the executive creative director of a multinational agency in Rio de Janeiro and has created over 100 commercials, including work for Gatorade Coca Cola. A local realtor’s description of  Asheville, where Chusy now lives, inspired Asheville, The Movie: "It's the place where the bus carrying Deadheads…crashed head on with a bus carrying devotees of reverend Billy Graham."