Contact Steve Fesenmaier
Mystery12@charter.net
(304) 345-5850
or
Kevin Carpenter, Director
WV Filmmakers Film Festival
wvfff@elkhotel.us
92 South Stonewall St
Sutton WV 26601
Charleston, September 20, 2006
This year’Äôs festival will open on Friday, October 6th and continue until Sunday evening on October 8th.
Ray and Judy Schmitt will open the 2006 festival at 7 PM at The Landmark Studio with the world premiere of their two new documentaries about artists that live and work in Sutton. The first film is about The Landmark’Äôs own theater group in ’ÄúFor the Love of Theater’Äù lead by Jim Walker. The second film, ’ÄúBeautiful You ’Äúis about Chinese-American poet and sculptor Ai Qiu Hopen, the wife of Bill Hopen, the founder of the Landmark Studio. Ray Schmitt was chosen to be the 2004 WV Filmmaker of the Year. More than a dozen WV films will be shown during the three day event.
On Saturday, after the annual official meeting of the WV Filmmakers Guild at 10:30 and lunch, WVSU film professor David Brock will give a workshop at 1 PM on how to adapt a literary work to film. His MFA film at Ohio University, ’ÄúStephen King’Äôs The Road Virus Heads North’Äù was nominated for a student Oscar. The films that will be shown during the rest of Saturday focus on traditional life in West Virginia. At 2 PM Terry Lively’Äô will introduce her film, ’ÄúCrossings ’Äì Bridge Building in West Virginia.’Äù Ms. Lively is the secretary of the WV Filmmakers Guild. She recently received her MA in communications and film from WVSU, the state’Äôs only film program. She has worked on many WV indie films including ’ÄúCorrect Change.’Äù She also has produced a cable TV series for the WV Dept. of Transportation. At 3:00 PM B.J. Gudmundsson will introduce her film on Rupert mayor Charles W. Mundy, ’ÄúA Sense of Values.’Äù At 3:30 PM Gerald Milnes, Augusta Heritage folk arts coordinator and frequent guest at WVFFF, will show his film on pioneering central West Virginia musicians, Lester and Linda McCumbers, ’ÄúThat Old Time Sound’Äù which also includes music by Homer Sampson and many others.
After dinner at the Cafˆ© Cimino, the films will start again with a presentation of Jacob Young’Äôs 2004 documentary, ’ÄúClogging in the New Millennium.’Äù Young is best known for his 1991 film about Jesco White, ’ÄúDancing Outlaw,’Äù that was recently celebrated at JescoFest in Hinton. At 8:00 PM the 2006 West Virginia Filmmaker of the Year will be announced. The award is funded by the WV Film Office. Each year Sutton artist Bill Hopen designs a unique work of art given to the recepient. After this program, various shorts will be showing including ’ÄúLot Lizards’Äù starring Landmark Players member Lydia Mong in ’ÄúLot Lizards, ’Äú Charles Cline’Äôs new film,’Äù XXXX,’Äù ’ÄúThe Passenger,’Äù ’ÄúTempus Fugit,’Äù and films by Richie Sherman, Kevin Scarborough, Chi Slankard, and Jack Wright. Also, the winners of the ’ÄúTwo-Minute Horror Film Competition’Äù will be shown.
Starting at 12:30 PM on Sunday, ’ÄúDowser’Äù by WVPBS filmmaker Chuck Kleine about Bridgeport water dowser Art Digman will be shown after the filmmaker and Mr. Digman introduce the film.
At 1 PM the short film made by three Pennsylvania high school students, ’ÄúBringing Down the Mountain’Äù will be shown before Catherine Pancake’Äôs new feature film,’Äù Black Diamonds’Äù is shown. Ms. Pancake and her sister Ann Pancake, a well-known WV writer, spent years working on a film that has bee called ’ÄúThe Harlan County, USA of the 21st century.’Äù The film focuses on the effects mountaintop removal mining has on the citizens of West Virginia. At 3:15 PM the festival will conclude with a new film by Allen Johnson, a leader of the Christians for the Mountains, and B.J. Gudmundsson, ’ÄúMountain Mourning.’Äù Mr. Johnson is an award-winning library director from Pocahontas County, a Christian Peacekeeper who has spent time the last two years working in Palestine, and a subject of Bill Moyer’Äôs coming PBS program, ’ÄúBill Moyers on America ’Äì Is God Green?’Äù that will be aired October 11th.
For more information on the festival - http://www.landmarkstudio.org/wvfff/index.html
#30