1998, 31ST ANNUAL HUMBOLDT INT’L FILM FESTIVAL
Howdy Folks! Welcome to the show!
The Humboldt International Film Festival was started many years ago by two students who wanted to bring films up to the North Coast. And now we are the oldest student run festival on the world!
This year we continue the tradition of celebrating and promoting the best student and independent films from around the globe.
We received entries in every category including narrative, experimental, documentary, animation, and even some films beyond categorization.
Selected films were passed onto our panel of judges, three visiting filmmakers who will be showing their work as well as giving free workshops during the festival week.
We’ve enjoyed being able to help bring you this rare opportunity to view some of the most unique and diverse films from around the world and we thank you for your support.
Now sit back, relax, and enjoy!
CO-DIRECTORS
Bruce Halling
Peter Breuer
Abby Kavanaugh
Steve Love
FILM FESTIVAL JUDGES
MARTHA COLBURN
Martha Colburn is a self-taught experimental filmmaker living in Baltimore. Martha spends most of her time either collecting found footage and making collages or new films or teaching filmmaking. Adding her own creative imagery and music, she creates some of the most vivid and outrageous experimental films of our time.
Martha’s films are far from the ordinary. Her intense imagination is taken straight from her head and put directly onto the screen. Her unique combination of underground, over-the-top, flashy, wacky and almost perverse images of animation and collages set to original music expresses a unique view of filmmaking. Her work has been admired and praised by many critics from such papers as The San Francisco Bay Guardian and The Austin Chronicle.
JIM KLEIN
Jim Klein has been an independent filmmaker since 1969. With two Academy Award nominations, national airings of every film and presentations at many leading film festivals, such as the New York Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival, Jim proves to be one of the leaders of his field.
Besides making award winning films,judging at film festivals and being on the Board of the Association of Independent Video and Film for 6 years, Jim is also one of the founders of New Day Films. New Day Films is a cooperative of around 100 media producers who, together, operate one of the top educational film and video distribution companies in the country. Jim has also been teaching narrative filmmaking to students in a professional training program for the past 12 years.
LETTER TO THE NEXT GENERATION is a feature documentary about college students and their attitudes and values in the 1990’s. LETTER had it’s premiere at Kent State University in Ohio during the anniversary commemorating the shootings that occurred there in 1970.
PAUL ZEHRER
Paul Zehrer was born and raised in a small dairy farm in Minnesota. His interest in film began in 1987 while working at the University Film Society in Minneapolis. He moved to New York in 1988 and began working as a film editor. In 1994 Paul wrote and directed
his first film BLESSING.
BLESSING was a critical success at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the 1995 IFP/West Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. In addition to writing and directing, Zehrer continues to work as a free-lance editor for independent films, long-format documentaries and music videos.
BLESSING is an emotionally charged drama about a young woman’s struggle to reconcile family expectations with personal dreams. Randi, the main character, has a dream to go to the ocean. Her dream is thwarted by her parents’ wish for her to take over their farm complicating her decision to leave. Ranging from intimate family drama to tragedy in its most classic form, BLESSING is a heartrending portrait of the, love, rage and hope that bind family life.