Fri, 07 May 2004 04:00:00 -0400
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Accolades for UMBC Film/Video Makers

When the doors open for the 2004 Maryland Film Festival (May 6-9 in Baltimore), the work of UMBC faculty, students and alumni will take center stage. Among the highlights of the Festival will be a new feature film, Saved!, by Brian Dannelly (Visual Arts �97, Magna Cum Laude), which had been featured in the 2004 Sundance Festival and is scheduled for national theatrical release later this month.

Dannelly credits UMBC with much of his success. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from UMBC, he went on to become a directing fellow at the prestigious American Film Institute (AFI), the preeminent national organization dedicated to advancing and preserving film, television and other forms of the moving image. “It was absolutely amazing for me,” Dannelly says. “I never would have gotten into AFI if it weren’t for my experience at UMBC.”

In addition to Saved!, UMBC�s contributions to the Maryland Film Festival include Fulton Fish Market by Mark Street (assistant professor, visual arts); Overpass by Alan Price (assistant professor, visual arts); Site Visits by Carol Hess (associate professor and chair, dance), which features a sound score by Timothy Nohe (associate professor, visual arts); Bludren by Jill Johnston-Price (adjunct assistant professor, visual arts); Today is Thursday and Warp & Weft by Jo Israelson (IMDA �04); L�Invitation and Love and a �61 by Nick Prevas (visual arts �03); Method for Self-Defense Against Scorpions by Tanner Almon (visual arts �03); and Remission by Dan Stack (undergraduate, visual arts).

The recent attention on UMBC�s film and video makers hasn�t limited to the Maryland Film Festival. At April�s 2004 Rosebud Film Festival, an annual festival and competition founded in 1990 to promote independent film and video in Washington, Maryland and Virginia, UMBC faculty and students took three of the five prizes. Among the recipients were Alan Price for Overpass, which won the �Best of Show� award; Jo Israelson for Warp & Weft; and IMDA graduate student Renée Shaw for Blood, Breast and Other Strange Events. And in May 2004, a comedic film by May Tam (visual arts �03), Inverval, will be included at the DC Underground Film Festival.

Mark Street�s film At Home and Asea screened at the American Film Institute Silver Theatre in April. The film was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York last October, where another of Street�s films, Fulton Fish Market, played in March�and that film was recently invited to play at the Tribeca Film Festival in May.

Associate Professor Hollie Lavenstein�s most recent short film, Cleave (2000), starring Wendy Salkind (associate professor and chair, theatre) has received accolades at the Chicago International Film Festival (Silver Hugo Award), the South by Southwest Film Festival (Best Narrative Short Runner-up Award), the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival (Best Short) and the Ann Arbor Film Festival (Lawrence Kasdan Best Narrative Short). Additionally, the film has been broadcast on the Sundance Channel and has been screened at the Denver International Film Fest, the Slamdance Film Festival, the Humboldt International Short Film Festival, the Seattle International Film Festival, the Maryland Film Festival and the AFI Fest.

Alan Price�s Overpass won an award at the 2004 Humboldt International Short Film Festival, and received second prize at the Black Maria Film Festival, which is currently on tour. The film will be screened at the Rochester International Film Festival in May, where it will receive an award. Overpass has or will be screened at many other festivals, including the Big Muddy Film Festival (Illinois), the Festival Arcipelago (Italy), the Filmstock International Film Festival (England), the Melbourne International Animation Festival, the Seattle International Film Festival, the Philadelphia Film Festival, the Crossroads International Festival (Mississippi), the Fargo Film Festival, the Texas Film Festival, the Independent Film Festival of Boston, the Trenton Film Festival, the Blackpoint Film Festival (Wisconsin), the Antelope Valley International Film Festival (California) and the Langbaugh Film Festival (Portland).

Jill Johnston-Price�s animation, Bludren, won the Grand Jury Prize in Animation at the DC Independent Film Festival, and it received the GB Hajim Juror�s Choice Award at the 2004 Humboldt International Short Film Festival.

UMBC alumni who are active in the field include Joanna Raczynska (IMDA �00), the media arts director and curator at Hallwalls in Buffalo, New York, and Kristen Anchor (visual arts �02, Summa Cum Laude), the director of the Creative Alliance MovieMakers in Baltimore.

(4/30/04)