FRIDAY, MARCH 29 TRAILERS & EVENT LISTINGS:

​Out of Step! Out of Line!!
Film Screening & Discussion
10:00am – 12:00pm |  Space 2435 North Quad | Free
The University of Michigan Department of Film, Television, and Media in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts presents top alternative work by students.

Juror Presentation: Triple Consciousness: Films by Akosua Adoma Owusu
1 pm | Michigan Theater Screening Room | FREE
The politics of representation depend on dismantling monolithic, reductive, and “Western”-centric renderings of exoticism and otherness in identities. This presentation looks at work by filmmaker Akosua Adoma Owusu, whose films address a collision of identities, where the African immigrant located in the United States has a triple consciousness. This third identity -- or consciousness -- of the African immigrant transitions between avant-garde cinema, fine art, and African tradition to complicate the nature of identity. Owusu’s documentary essay and experimental film work -- with its varied use of archival material, direct animation, and staged scenes -- examines the construction of historical memory and cultural identity.

Film Art Forum: A dozen six-minute presentations by AAFF filmmakers
Salon Session
3-5 pm |  Space 2435 North Quad | Free
In this Pecha Kucha-style event, filmmakers and other festival guests present 20 slides for 20 seconds each, resulting in a dozen six-minute talks by film artists. The subject matter varies, with all presentations aiming to promote an in-depth exploration of cinema as an art form and to encourage further discussion that nurtures the AAFF community.

Becoming Myself
Special Program
5 pm | Michigan Theater Screening Room
“Becoming” is a progressive process. “Myself” is a clear statement with a gender-neutral identity. The association of “becoming” with “myself” identifies the process and progress of coming to terms with oneself and aspiring to be a super-persona. The Chinese translation, Ben Zun (the enlightened), refers to the state of man(woman)hood with surreal power. This ascent to becoming oneself is elaborated in these nine artists’ video works. Audiences can feel their acute senses and sensibilities at living in a tumultuous time of instability, insecurity, and inconsequentiality. From these artists’ perspectives, we discover the representation and fruition of becoming oneself embodied in the motivations for seeking an identity/individuality with freedom, independence, recognition, trust, and love. Programmed and presented by Zhang Fang.

Films in Competition 7
5:15 pm | Michigan Theater Main Auditorium
Recent experimental, documentary, and animated films: Pwdre Ser: the rot of stars (Charlotte Pryce), Mr. Deer (Mojtaba Mousavi), La Sombra de un Dios / A God’s Shadow (Bernhard Hetzenauer), M52 (Yves Paradis), Still from afar (Eva van Tongeren), We Were Hardly More Than Children (Cecelia Condit), A Return (James Edmonds). 

Caballerango with Phantom Ride Phantom
Feature in Competition
7 pm | Michigan Theater Screening Room
From a “simple” camera pan…through a journey into a ghostly realm…to a veritable trip: Phantom Ride Phantom (Siegfried A. Fruhauf) carries out these three steps with cinematographic verve and technical finesse. And, in the Mexican village of Milpillas, a family remembers the last day they saw their youngest child, Nando, a lifelong horse wrangler. Exploring a rural community’s daily rituals, Caballerango (Juan Pablo González) evokes the presence of those who have parted.

Films in Competition 8
7:15 pm | Michigan Theater Main Auditorium
Recent experimental, documentary, and animated films: Sparky (Xinbaonuzi 心宝努子), WAAH (Sawako Kabuki), d. a. n. c. e. f. o. r. y. o. u. r. d. a. d. d. y. (Katharine Fry), Gloria's Call (Cheri Gaulke), Meteorite (Mauricio Sáenz), Flame (Sami Van Ingen), 2MissedCalls (LNZ), Slower (Kelly Gallagher), The Nature of Memory (Sean Quirk). 

Dressing Up + Down by Professor Rebekah Modrak and U-M students from the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design 
9 pm | Michigan Theater Grand Foyer | Free
Before and after the screening of Films in Competition 9: Animation (scheduled for 9:15 pm), U-M students in the Stamps School class Dressing Up + Down will appear in the wearable art that they have designed and built. These costumes were inspired by the iconic short animation Quasi at the Quackadero, created by artist Sally Cruikshank and shown in 1976 at the 14th AAFF. Working from pre-existing garments to turn the ordinary into the unconventional, students drew inspiration from elements in the film including Anita’s affectations; the whimsical, oblique architecture and wallpaper; 1970s fashion; characters that defy human and animal forms; and Cruikshank’s rendering of movement and impact through bursting stars and gusts of clouds. The costumes will remain on display on the mezzanine level of the Michigan Theater throughout the remainder of the festival.

Two A.M. with STREAM
Feature in Competition
9:00 pm | Michigan Theater Screening Room
In STREAM (Jan Brugger), David Copperfield (circa 1992) removes his assistant’s head from her body while Venus (a modern parody of both Cabanel’s and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus) squeezes a ThighMaster and swipes through her iPhone in a constructed cyber-cerebral landscape. And, set in the fringes of contemporary Berlin, Two A.M. (Loretta Fahrenholz) is a hallucinogenic fairy tale about peer-to-peer surveillance. Based on Irmgard Keun’s 1937 novel After Midnight, which narrates the rise of the Nazis from a young woman’s perspective, Two A.M. fever-dreams its way through a world of shifting desires, telepathic voyeurism, and ritualistic mind control, while exploring new ideas of post-cinema.

Films in Competition 9: Animation 
9:15 pm | Michigan Theater Main Auditorium
Recent animated films from near and far: Quasi and the Quackadero (Sally Cruikshank), TV (Richard Reeves), Confidence Game (Kathleen Quillian), HEDGE (Amanda Bonaiuto), Intermediate Landscapes (Richard Negre), 32-Rbit (Victor Orozco Ramirez), Sun Zoom Spark (Gina Kamentsky), Cow Palace (Julian Gallese), Silver Seeds (Kim Collmer), Rabbit Tracks (Luke Jaeger), Smoke's Last Thought (Miranda Javids), Shape of the Moment (Mateusz Sadowski), Maze of Noumenon (Tianran Duan), Under Covers (Michaela Olsen).

Afterparty
10 pm-2 am | Club Above | $7, Free with AAFF Pass
Features a live magic lantern performance by Melissa Ferrari and Sam Gurry, and a
DJ set from Aaron Batzdorfer.

Midnight Movie: Meow Wolf: Origin Story
12 am | State Theater
Directed by Morgan Capps and Jilann Spitzmiller, this independent 2018 documentary takes viewers through the meteoric rise of a penniless, anarchic art collective (including the featured presenters at the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series on Thursday, March 28) as it attracts the support of author George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones), morphing into a multimillion dollar corporation in just a few short years.

For tickets to the Ann Arbor Film Fest, click here for individual events; for full or weekend passes, click here. Use code AAFF57_AADL to get a discount on tickets and passes. Visit aafilmfest.org for more info.
Trailers for: March 26 | March 27 | March 28 | March 30 | March 31
Click here for the landing page for our 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival.