The inaugural Strange Beauty Film Festival played to enthusiastic, sold out houses in January, 2010. See the schedule and additional film info below.

Media coverage
Festival preview by the Independent Weekly.
WUNC radio interview with filmmakers and festival organizers
News & Observer festival preview
Herald-Sun festival preview


Schedule
Friday, January 22
8:15 p.m. Screening block 1: Wherever you go, there you are
   The place where you are, reconsidered. A place you really don't want to go, reconfigured.
   A lot of journeys, and there's no map that can help you anyway.
   - Chocolate Bunny, Lernert Engelberts & Sander Plug
   - The Empress, Lyle Pisio
   - Star, Dust, Karen Hanson
   - Spaceman, Nicole Triche
   - La Boya, Mariano Salvador
   - Scene 32, Shambhavi Kaul
   - Jornada del Muerto, Neal Hutcheson
   - COPS, Brad Boll
   - Notes on a Fair, John Scott & Karen Rodriguez
   - America is Fucked (Graphically at Least), Jess Gibson
   - Chorus & Verse, Anne Arrington
   - Ichthyopolis, Andre Silva

9:30 p.m. Durham Cinematheque presents "Two Ways of Seeing     (Things)"
Durham filmmaker and scholar Tom Whiteside has created a brand new show expressly for Strange Beauty, culled from his legendary collection of films. Two screens will simultaneously show brief excerpts from films both famous and not, shots from newsreels, fleeting moments from anonymous home movies, and other unique bits of archival flotsam and jetsam. Despite the "twice as many as usual" format, this is not a "sensory overload" program, nor is it strictly informational. It is sometimes slow, sometimes surprising, and sometimes dazzling.


Saturday, January 23
2:00 p.m. Screening block 2
Part 1: More songs about buildings and food
   A path from the natural to the mechanical.
   - Goat, Jennie Thwing
   - On the Killing Floor, Savannah Scarborough
   - Ecological Apple, Andreas Soderberg
   - Stone Moss, Leighton Pierce
   - Charades, Ann Steuernagel
   - CAT, Jaime Heinrich
   - Alice Underwater, Kate Balsley
   - Surface Kinetic, David Ellsworth
   - More Control, Steve Daniels

Part 2: Taking a gun to a knife fight
   It's a dude thing. And that means that sometimes, too much is not enough.
   - Suite of Summer Evenings, Robert Harris
   - Page 1 of 1, Russ Roe
   - DeVon Smith: Robot Man, David Craig
   - A Moment, Bob Hurst
   - How to Summon Nackycole, Brad Boll
   - Brother Micah, Kevin Wells
   - Insurgency of Ambition, Anya Belkina
   - Ben Pickle, Nic Beery


8:15 p.m. Screening block 3
Part 1: A place for my stuff
   Keeping things, losing things, dealing with everybody else's things, and the musical question,
   "Where will we put all our things?"
   - Aviarium, Arne Muench
   - Fledgling, Elizabeth Henry & Tony Gault
   - Fair Trade, Leslie Supnet
   - Blackbirds, Bottle Caps, and Broken Records, Margaret Morales
   - Sylvia & George, Cara Clark
   - Letting Go, Naomi Schegloff,
   - Bloodsucker, Meghan O'Hara
   - Yard Work is Hard Work, Jodie Mack

Part 2: Love me, love me, say that you love me
   Love. It just won't stop hitting me.
   - Notes on Liberty, John Scott
   - Spitty, Phoebe Brush
   - I Love(Hate) You: Gloria, Kate Raney
   - Remember Me, Monique Velasquez
   - eaten, Anne Haydock
   - Tools of the Trade, Katherine Perry
   - Pollenating, David Montgomery
   - Ghost Conversations, Jeremy Bessoff
   - O Quam Tristis, Maite Abella


Film information

Alice Underwater
Kate Balsley, Brown Deer, WI
2:00 - 16mm
Alice, underwater.

America is Fucked (Graphically at Least)
Jess Gibson, Portland, OR
3:12 - MiniDV
It's all Blippo Bold from here on out. One guy is aiming to change that.

Aviarium
Arne Muench, Cologne, Germany
3:52 - Animation/After Effects
A surreal, dreamlike journey through apocalyptical landscapes - breathtaking.

Ben Pickle
Nic Beery, Carrboro, NC
12:35 - HD
Ben lives more inside his brain than outside in the real world.

Blackbirds, Bottle Caps, and Broken Records
Margaret Morales, Durham, NC
15:39 - MiniDV
The U.S. produces nearly five pounds of trash per person, per day. Here's how one woman's going to deal with it.

Bloodsucker
Meghan O'Hara, San Francisco, CA
4:00 - 16mm
West Nile Virus meets the real estate bubble.

La Boya
Mariano Salvador, Spain
12:00 - DVCPRO-HD
Life is out there, just past the next buoy.

Brother Micah
Kevin Wells, Durham, NC
5:54 - MiniDV
A man with a mission--coming soon to a college campus near you.

CAT
Jaime Heinrich, Reno, AV
6:48 - RED
Dude, where's my emerald-seeking stuffed kitty?

Charades
Ann Steuernagel, Cambridge, MA
7:00 - MiniDV
A feeling of being separated from the lower world.

Chocolate Bunny
Lernert Engelberts & Sander Plug, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2:37 HD
"I can't define strange beauty, but I know it when I see it."

Chorus & Verse
Anne Arrington, Charlottesville, VA
5:00 - MiniDV
A road trip told in layers.

COPS
Brad Boll, Chapel Hill, NC
1:00 - 16mm
Don't taze me, bro.

DeVon Smith: Robot Man
David Craig. Portland, OR
9:06 - Hi8
Not even Disney had a family of robots.

eaten
Anne Haydock. Durham, NC
6:24 - Super 8, 16mm, MiniDV
A game of dress-up captured for posterity.

Ecological Apple
Andreas Soderberg. Stockholm, Sweden
1:00 - DVCPRO-HD time lapse and After Effects
It lives, it breathes. It's an apple.

The Empress
Lyle Pisio, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
8:25 - JPEG Sequence
Loneliness, desire, love, hesitation, miscommunication, fear and loss with a touch of alcoholism for comic relief.

Fair Trade
Leslie Supnet, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
4:31 - Video/Adobe After Effects
Trauma, purging, healing, transformation, animation.

Fledgling
Elizabeth Henry & Tony Gault, Glenwood Springs, CO
7:00 - 16mm
Man raises crow--"I feel I have definitely screwed with the natural order of things."

Ghost Conversations
Jeremy Bessoff, Chicago, IL
8:27 - MiniDV
Giant marionettes and a dream of a flying ace.

Goat
Jennie Thwing, Glassboro, NJ
12:00 - MiniDV
A lamb learns which animals to trust in this fairtytale more Grimm than Goose.

How to Summon Nackycole
Brad Boll. Chapel Hill, NC
2:18 - MiniDV
Chances are, you don't want to try this at home.

I Love(Hate) You: Gloria
Kate Raney, Chicago, IL
6:10 - MiniDV
Love is a kick in the head. Over and over and over.

Ichthyopolis
Andre Silva, Wilmington, NC
9:22 - DVCPRO-HD
The Fish Wrangler and the Fish Queen must deal with a powerful disturbance.

Insurgency of Ambition
Anya Belkina, Boston, MA
7:58 - Digital animation with tactile textures
Success ain't what it's cracked up to be. It's actually big, scary, and black and white.

Jornada del Muerto
Neal Hutcheson, Raleigh, NC
10:00 - Super 8
Gliding across the Nevada desert on a peoplemover, in search of water. Las Vegas was not built by cowboys.

Letting Go
Naomi Schegloff, Brooklyn, NY
2:30 - MiniDV
A woman takes things seriously.

A Moment
Bob Hurst, Lawrence, KS
4:00 - Mini DV
A study of psychic readings and domestic spaces.

More Control
Steve Daniels, Colombia, SC
5:25 - Super 8
Cinema is an evil force. Its point is to exert control over people and events.

Notes on a Fair
John Scott & Karen Rodriguez, Ithaca, NY
6:00 - 16mm
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares, in Skowhegan County.

Notes on Liberty
John Scott, Ithaca, NY
8:00 - 16mm
Even a five year old knows what the Statue of Liberty is about, right?

O Quam Tristis
Maite Abella, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
8:48 - Super 8
Love me, love me, say that you love me.

On the Killing Floor
Savannah Scarborough, Carrboro, NC
14:28 - MiniDV
Meat is murder. But is it art? Artist/activist Sue Coe braves a slaughterhouse to show us the real guts of global capitalism.

Page 1 of 1
Russ Roe, Wilmington, NC
2:30 - MiniDV
Skateboarding is not a crime.

Pollenating
David Montgomery, Fernandina Beach, FL
3:33 - MiniDV
Flowers. Imperfect--and sexy.

Remember Me
Monique Velasquez, Durham, NC
5:43 - DVCAM
I'm gonna wash that girl right out of my head.

Scene 32
Shambhavi Kaul, Durham, NC
DVCPRO-HD - 5:00
A map of the indistinct terrain that lies between a beloved place and the objects that represent it.

Spaceman
Nicole Triche, Durham, NC
3:24 - HDV, super 8, found footage
Space Monkeys: gone but not forgotten. We thank them for their service.

Spitty
Phoebe Brush, Durham, NC
13:52 - Mini DV
Woody Guthrie, we got fooled. That's why dad wrote a song about it.

Star, Dust
Karen Hanson, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
1:46 - MiniDV
Is that a galaxy in your head, or are you just glad to see me?

Stone Moss
Leighton Pierce, Iowa City, IA
10:05 - DVCPRO-HD
A cascade of images and roiling sound suggest that the camera is not an eye, it's a consciousness.

Suite of Summer Evenings
Robert Harris, Lexington, MA
22:00 - U-Matic
Carnival nights and coughing cars. A dirt track symphony.

Surface Kinetic
David Ellsworth, St. Mary's City, MD
13:45 - Super 8 & 16mm
Two buildings, one weird relationship.

Sylvia & George
Cara Clark, Greensboro, NC
5:56 - DVCPRO-HD
George Scheer's grandma left him a store where nothing's for sale. His reimagining of it becomes a work of art.

Tools of the Trade
Katherine Perry, Columbia, SC
1:00 - Super 8
Perfect.

Yard Work is Hard Work
Jodie Mack, Chicago, IL
28:45 - 16mm
Girl Meets Boy, they get stuff. Consumerist culture, home ownership, and the American dream--The Musical!