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FTVM & the ANN ARBOR FILM FESTIVAL
The Ann Arbor Film Festival is the oldest avant-garde and experimental film festival in North America. Internationally recognized as a premiere forum for independent filmmakers and artists, each year's festival engages audiences with remarkable cinematic experiences.
This special edition of the FTVM newsletter highlights FTVM's contributions to the festival. 
TUESDAY, MARCH 21
Tuesday, March 21 - Sunday, March 26 
Selected Student Work from Terri Sarris' FTVM 203:
"Experimental Media and the Ann Arbor Film Festival" 
New Voices Program
North Quad Space 2435

Beginning at the opening reception on Tuesday, March 21 (4:00-5:30 PM),and continuing on a loop throughout the Festival, selected creative work from Terri Sarris' Fall 2022 mini-course, FTVM 203 "Experimental Media and the Ann Arbor Film Festival," will be screening in the "New Voices" Program.

Students in this mini-course explored experimental media in the context of the Ann Arbor Film Festival and its adventurous spirit. They considered how the AAFF operates, looked briefly at its history and mission, and served as a “screening group” for the 61st AAFF, viewing select film entries and deciding whether to advance them to the next round of screening. They also created and edited 1-2 minute experimental films integrating hand-made, cameraless 16mm leader film footage made in class with additional footage and sound elements.  The program includes the following projects (pictured below from top left, clockwise): 
 
I Feel Good, Ahmad Kady
Pay Attention, Himaja Motheram
Here Comes..., Kristian Williams
Pillow Song, Emma Ristau
Actual Zeppelin Crash, Christian Dean
Cycle, Nikki Ratanapanichkich
The Sky, Maggie Granata
above stills courtesy of Terri Sarris 

Thank you to Veerendra Prasad for compiling this work and to Alan Young and Paul Sutherland
for technical support of this project. 
THURSDAY, MARCH 23
Films in Competition 5: Out Night
Curated by PhD Candidate Sean Donovan
9:30 PM | Michigan Theater Main Auditorium
Available Online - 3/21, 8:15 PM
Out Night spotlights contemporary experimental films with LGBTQ+ themes.
View the full list of films in this program here. 
FRIDAY, MARCH 24
Cinema Guild and Campus Film Societies: Their History and Legacy
Roundtable with Professor Hugh Cohen, Dave DeVarti, Philip Hallman & Anne Moray 
Moderated by Frank Uhle
3:30 PM | North Quad Space 2435
Cinema Ann Arbor author Frank Uhle will moderate a panel of former University of Michigan film society members. According to critic Leonard Maltin, from the early 1930s through the 1990s, these student-run groups helped make Ann Arbor “one of the most cinematically saturated communities in the country.” While fighting challenges from censors and administrators, they provided vital support to the festival, helped launch an underground filmmaking scene, and brought guests like Robert Altman and Frank Capra to campus.
Longtime festival projectionist Frank Uhle has made 8 mm films, helped archive the papers of Orson Welles, proofread Psychotronic Video magazine, and written about cultural history for Ugly Things and Pulp. Cinema Ann Arbor is co-published by Fifth Avenue Press and the University of Michigan Press.
Dor (Longing) - Feature in Competition
Dir. Jannes Callens 
Bistrita, Romania | 2021 | 53 | DCP 
Introduced/Q&A Moderated by Chris McNamara, FTVM Production Faculty 
5:00 PM | State Theater
Available Online - 3/21, 12:00 PM
A cinematic and existential encounter between Belgian-Romanian Stefan Gota and a group of young shepherds. Gota returns to his native Romania to make a fresh start as a shepherd. Jannes Callens’s film moves at the same pace as a pasture crossing, between expedition, pause, and contemplation. Striking images of this profession merge with existential considerations. How can you guide a flock when you’re a little lost yourself?
Jannes Callens, director of Dor, speaks
about his film with Chris McNamara here. 
Films in Competition 6: Celluloid
Sponsored by the Department of Film, Television, and Media
5:30 PM | School of Kinesiology Bldg. 2500
Available Online - 3/24, 5:30 PM
Sponsored by the Dept. of Film, Television, and Media, Celluloid features films in competition shot on 16mm and 35mm film. View the full list of films in this program here. 
SATURDAY, MARCH 25
"Adieu Sauvage" Feature in Competition 
Dir. Sergio Guataquira Sarmiento
Mitu, Colombia | 2022 | 90 | DCP 
Introduced by Veerendra Prasad, FTVM Production Faculty and AAFF Board Member
5:00 PM | State Theater
Available Online - 3/21, 12:00 PM
Since the 2000s, several waves of male suicide have followed one another in the Amerindian population of the Colombian Amazon. The filmmaker discovers that lovesickness is often the cause. Wives leave their husbands for “white” men who think that Indians do not feel anything because they do not express their feelings in the Cacua Language. Is it possible that members of the Cacua community have no feelings and no words to talk about love?
Sergio Guataquira Sarmiento, director of "Adieu Sauvage" speaks
about his film with Veerendra Prasad here. 
SUNDAY, MARCH 26
What the Hell Was That?
Moderated by Daniel Herbert
10:30 AM | North Quad Space 2435
This panel discussion has been an Ann Arbor Film Festival favorite for more than a decade. It began when a filmmaker overheard an audience member declare, “What the hell was that?” after viewing his film. An enlightening discussion ensued, and the idea for the panel was born. Join visiting filmmakers and other special guests for an opportunity to watch and discuss three short experimental films selected from this year’s festival lineup.
Daniel Herbert is a media scholar and an associate professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Media. 
Life ⇋ Ritual ⇋ Cinema
The Experimental Films of Donald Richie
Curated by Professor Markus Nornes and FTVM Major Hannah Glass-Chapman
12:30 PM | Michigan Theater Main Auditorium 
Donald Richie (1924–2013) spent most of his life in Japan and is credited with introducing the world to Japanese cinema. Best known as a prolific author, his books on Japanese film history, Ozu, and Kurosawa are considered classics. A queer man who found a safe haven in Japan, he delighted in the surreal. This particularly comes out in his experimental cinema, which he began making in the 1940s. By the 1960s, Richie was well respected as an organizer on the Japanese experimental film scene. This program introduces the other Richie, who was always sexy, strange, dirty, and quite amusing.
 
View the list of films being screened in this program here. 
MEET the FTVM AAFF INTERNS
This year, three FTVM majors (pictured left to right, below) are interning for the Ann Arbor Film Festival:
Rose Albayat (Program Assistant), Emma Burton (Operation Management), and
Shujun Li (Marketing and Public Relations). 
Click their names to find out more about them!
The AAFF's 61st Festival Trailer by Steve Wood
Currently a freelance Filmmaker, Steve studied film at The University of Michigan in the 1990s
and has worked in post-production for 25 years. 






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University of Michigan Department of Film, Television, and Media · 6330 North Quad · 105 S. State St. · Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285 · USA

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