Jesse Borkowski, York
“Mimetic: #7”
alternative, 10 min.

Borkowski, a recent graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, calls his 15th film and first film to be entered into a festival, an “exploration of the limitations of written and visual communication in expressing the ‘real.’” 

“Visual connections are created as well as broken in an effort to question how we are able to comment on objects that do not exist except in an intellectual plane,” Borkowski adds. “For example, how does a filmmaker question non-synchronous sound in a film, when synchronous sound, by definition, does not exist?”

Borkowski, who prefers to work with Super 8mm film versus digital recording devices, is the director, producer, editor and cinematographer of “Mimetic #7.” His ideas often come from philosophy and theoretical writing, including many post-modern writers like Sartre. “(These writers and philosophers) pose interesting questions about the world around us,” says Borkowski.  “A lot of it is how we interact with the world.” 

“Mimetic #7,” which took nine months from start to finish, was Borkowski’s senior project at RIT. He’s won several awards for it, including the Princess Grace Film Honorarium (2004), a national award given to two undergraduate filmmakers every year, and a first place award at the After Hours Film Festival in Illinois (2005). Borkowski will appear at the screening to answer any questions.

Savannah Magruder, South Berwick
“Swampcat”
horror/comedy, 6 min.

“The swampcat is a very fierce creature who lives in a swamp,” explains 11-year-old Savannah Magruder.  “Most of the locals who live near the swamp are afraid of it. … There’s also a variety of legends about the creature.” Her first feature took about two hours to film, then another month to edit and add a soundtrack, provided by her father on electric bass and vocals.

It was dad’s idea to enter  “Swampcat,” a movie he thought was funny and creative, into the film festival.  Magruder agreed. “I thought it was worth a try to get into (the festival),” she says. Magruder, who will be at the screening of her movie to answer questions, explains that when she found out she was accepted she was so happy, “I couldn’t stop smiling.”

Michael Gillis, Rollinsford
“The Listeners”
drama, 16 min.

Mike Gillis and the production team at Bulkhead Pictures, led by principals Gillis, Jonathan Millman, and Lars Trodson, brings to screen an old story with a surprise twist ending. The movie begins with a couple leaving a friend’s party and traveling home on a snowy country road in the middle of the night. In the middle of nowhere, they come upon a car parked in the road. “We wanted to take an old cliché and see if it had any life in it,” says Gillis. “We wanted it to be powerful, to surprise people with what’s left of the cliché.” 

The footage for the film, scripted by Trodson, was filmed in three days and edited in six months.
“The idea started as a boast,” says Gillis. “One day at work I said, ‘Hey, let’s work on something together’ to Lars.” Three days later they had a first draft of the script.   

From the original script, Gillis and company paired down the film from 22 minutes to 16 minutes.  “It’s changed quite a bit but the meat of the story is still there.”

Gillis has been making movies since he was nine. He started Bulkhead Pictures with Millman and Trodson to tap the filmmaking resources in New Hampshire. “We have many talented people with plenty of film experience working with us,” says Gillis. 

Stefan Glidden, Rochester
“S Katz, V.P.”
comedy, 16 min.

“S Katz, V.P.” is a comedy about a college student who deals with the everyday hassles of running his own casino, including a strict gambler dress code and a rival casino stealing his business, until eventually he hits rock bottom. The film was Stefan Glidden’s senior thesis at Boston University and NHFX marks its festival premiere.

For Glidden, finding ideas for scripts is done purely on a whim. “I’ll be sitting at a bus stop, … brushing my teeth, or picking flecks of paint off the wall and I’ll just get an idea,” he says. 

“S Katz V.P.,” shot in five days, Glidden’s first experience directing a large crowd of people. “At one time I had 50 people standing around because of all the extras,” says Glidden. Naturally, there were snags.
A scene with Sam Katz and a rival casino operator, which was supposed to take place in a Boston coffee shop, had to be moved to an outside location the morning of the filming. The coffee shop owner, who forgot he had agreed to filming months in advance, was not available to close his shop so that Glidden and his crew could film in it. The result was an improvised scene outside, with all the fixings of a coffee shop. “My God, do you know how hard it is to track down tiramisu at six in the morning?” Glidden asks.

Glidden has known since seventh grade that he wanted to make films. His first screenplay, created his freshman year at BU, was nominated for best drama and best screenplay at the SunDeis Film Festival at Brandeis University. A year later he won best picture, best screenplay, and best editing for a different film at SunDeis. He’ll be moving to Los Angeles at the end of this year to work on full-length feature films with a director he met last summer while interning at Universal Studios. “I’m only 21, I don’t need to rush it, but I also can’t just sit around,” says Glidden about his fast-track to Hollywood. “As long as I’m making movies, though, I’ll be happy.”

Marc Dole, Portsmouth
“Loose Change: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Making of ‘The Toll’”
animation/documentary, 5 min.

Director and founder of Hatchling Studios in Portsmouth, Marc Dole will be screening, “Loose Change,” a behind-the-scenes look at his company’s first short animation film and Hollywood calling card, “The Toll.” The Pixar-style animated story is based on a retelling of the Billy Goats Gruff. The film grew into a character documentary about a student interviewing the troll, with all the typical student film mistakes like bumping the microphone and flubbing lines.

Dole started Hatchling Studios (initially called M2-3D) in 2000 with a partner. “Loose Change” came about because Dole wanted to show how difficult and long the process is to make a Pixar film. “People look at a Pixar film and see a 90-minute film,” he says. “They don’t understand why it takes so long to make them.”

So far it has taken Dole and his crew of five 18 months to complete the footage they have of “The Toll,” about one minute of the five-minute long film. The remaining four minutes should go faster though, Dole reassures, now that they have all the preparation work complete. His hope is to screen “The Toll” at the Los Angeles SIGGRAF conference for computer graphics and its New England debut next year at the 2006 NHFX festival. 

Ron Wyman, Portsmouth
“Tunde”
documentary, 29 min.

Ron Wyman’s documentary focuses on the West African kora (harp) player Tunde Jegede, an artist who grew up studying western classical music in London and the traditional African music of Gambia and Senegal. Jegede worked to become a master kora and cello player, composing music that mixed contemporary classical and pop with traditional African music. Wyman’s film follows Tunde as he works on compositions and performs with various London musicians in rehearsal and in Paris in front of a live audience.

Wyman met Tunde while working on another film about the Pan African Orchestra of Ghana. He decided the artist was much more interesting. Wyman worked on the piece for a year-and-a-half, traveling between London and Africa, speaking with the artists Tunde works with and capturing the traditional music of his homeland. The film is the first piece in a series on the music of western Africa. Martin Maris, project manager in education for the BBC Philharmonic, has described it as “very gentle and beautiful and (reflecting) Tunde’s music in a moving way.”

Wyman calls his film, like most documentaries, a very improvised piece. “The thing with a documentary is you can set out on a certain direction or goal but you need to be able to shift your attention because you can’t predict what’s going to happen,” he says.

Bill Rodgers, South Berwick
“Flying Downhill: The Art of Bode Miller”
documentary, 80 min.

In a special behind-the-scenes look at Bill Rodgers’ feature-length movie about Bode Miller, Rodgers follows the progress of the athlete as he transforms into one of the greatest ski racers in the world. “Flying Downhill,” which should be completed in the next couple of weeks, also focuses on Miller’s childhood in Jefferson, N.H., and goes inside the Olympian’s head to find out what makes him tick. 

“The focus of the film is Bode at races and with his family at home, and how they see him and think about him,” says Rodgers. The filmmaker will attend the screening of his film at NHFX to answer any questions, while Miller will be busy preparing for his first ski race of the season at the Sölden World Cup opener in Austria.