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EXHIBITION

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» The Territory Season 28
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THE TERRITORY SEASON 28
Explore the edge of the media frontier! THE TERRITORY series showcases new directions in film, video and digital media. This 28th season is a provocative mix of experimental, documentary, narrative and animated shorts that allows the audience to take TV trips around the world and to major Texas media festivals. THE TERRITORY is produced by the Southwest Alternate Media Project, the Austin Museum of Art and Houston PBS, in cooperation with The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

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Program 1
Making of a Prodigy
Colm McCarthy, Ireland, 12:00mins, 2002
Good intentions are eclipsed by ego in a dark tale about drawing out the talent of an artistic child.
Roam
Carolina Vila-Ramirez, California, 13:40mins, 2001
Homeless street kids play out an all-too-modern but classically poignant version of "He ain't heavy, he's my brother."
What's Wrong with This Picture
Jeffrey Travis, Texas, 0:28mins, 2003
Creating an imaginary friend has unhappy results in this lively public-service spoof.

Program 2
Drawing the War
Lena I. Merhej, Lebanon, 5:02mins
A Rorschach of abstract images coalesces into a portrait of a war-torn family in this chilling animated piece.
Confession
Marina Petrovskaia, Pennsylvania, 19:00mins, 2001
Experimental documentary meets video diary, as a young filmmaker tracks down an aging aunt who recounts her own flight across war-torn Europe.
Darwin's Evolutionary Stakes
Andrew Horne, Australia, 3:30mins, 1998
This clever animated piece follows the human "race" from the opening gun to a photo-finish in the new millenium.

Program 3
Sofa Rockers
Timo Novotny, Austria, 5:16mins, 2000
This collage charts a modern Japanese cityscape from alternating bird's-eye and street-level viewpoints, creating images both familiar and oddly disconcerting.
Arrêté
Bernhard Schreiner, Austria, 11:16mins, 2001
Almost beyond perception, a visual poem emerges, pierced by flashing images and sounds from outside as unsettling as the engulfing darkness within.
My Body is a Boat
Shalom Gorewitz, New York, 7:15mins, 2000
The incomparable Shalom Gorewitz combines words and music, sound and image, analog and digital technique, to celebrate the ceaseless flow of life and nature. Besenbahn
Dietmar Offenhuber, Austria, 10:48mins, 2001
An eerie sound track and a relentlessly moving camera combine to convey both a reassuring sameness and the inevitability of decay.

Program 4
The Meadow
Mitko Panov, Texas, 10:48mins
Somewhere in Central Europe, two neighbors collaborate in an ancient ritual of sowing and reaping, living and dying.
Epiphany
Joseph Ambrosavage, Texas, 8:48mins
With subtle, offbeat humor, the filmmaker takes a swipe at our all-too-human foibles, with a payoff right out of The Twilight Zone.

Program 5
Yours Is Next (A La Otra)
Sandra Solares, Mexico, 7:13mins, 2002, in Spanish with English subtitles
A modern-day highwayman takes a shine to a would-be target -- who is not quite what she seems.
The Message Storm
Toby Meakins, United Kingdom, 10:00mins, 2002
When her dead lover sends her an undeveloped photograph, a grieving woman must decide whether she truly wants to see beyond life. . .
Clutch
Jackie Schulz, Australia, 8:00mins, 2003
The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree in this bittersweet tale of a grease-monkey and his estranged daughter.

first to see the sun Program 6
First To See the Sun
Joe Tunmer, United Kingdom, 9:42mins, 2003
The battle of the sexes takes a curious tumble in this futuristic British tale of courtship, cross-checks, and online gambling.
Big Canyon
David Agosto, California, 10:33mins, 1999
Badlands meets Pulp Fiction in this screwball romance about a con-artist couple on the run, whose game of worst-case-scenario turns all-too-real.

Program 7
What I Remember
Robert Frank, New York, 5:00mins, 1998
Pioneering American avant-gardist Robert Frank recalls, re-creates, and re-enacts a visit with another photographic genius, Alfred Stieglitz.
Seven Hours To Burn
Shanti Thakur, Canada, 9:00mins, 1999
An Indian funeral pyre ignites memories of families and cultures torn asunder by political havoc and human loss a half-century ago.
Gertrudis Blues
Patricia Carillo-Carrera, Mexico, 10:00mins, 2001
In Spanish with English subtitles
Times and places, races and nations, languages and musical forms -- are all freely mixed in this memoir of one woman's remarkable heritage.
Intersection
Arie L. Stavchansky, Texas, 3:00mins, 2003
A street scene glimpsed through a rain-streaked window is digitally transformed into an enchanting pas-de-deux.

Program 8
Hard Labor
Oliver Krimpas, United Kingdom, 10:00mins, 2002
In a triangular tale of contemporary life, two women become pregnant by the same man -- but who will be left holding the baby?
In God We Trust
Jason Reitman, California, 16:35mins
Fate gives a mischievous prankster a second chance in this satirical life and death comedy.

Program 9
Angels (Des Anges)
Julien Leloup, France, 14:13mins, 2001
In French with English subtitles
For the troubled and troublesome youths in this disturbing narrative, violence comes all too easily and breeds only pain, confusion, and further violence.
The Kisses of Others (Les Baisers des Autres)
Carine Tardieu, France, 13:37mins, 2002
In French with English subtitles
With wit and bittersweet poignancy, a woman looks back on her anxious confusion as a girl contemplating "the kisses of others."

Program 10
Black Sheep
Louise Glover, Australia, 27:00mins, 1999
An Australian woman comes to terms with her sexual, racial and professional identities -- and the challenges involved in trying to reconcile them.

Program 11
Plug
Meher Gourjian, California, 11:13mins, 1998
Live-action meets digital animation and courtship merges with high-speed videogame in this retro-futurist tale of boy-chases-girl.
The Last Time
Conor Horgan, Ireland, 13:55mins, 2002
Intimations of mortality lead a middle-aged woman to take desperate action for the sake of a final intimate encounter.
Asthma
Martha Colburn, New York , 2:20mins, 1995
Fifties-era found footage is re-purposed to create a different public service announcement about the effects of smoking.

Program 12
Mother Tongue
Susan Kim, Australia, 6:00mins, 2002
Words and images coalesce to overcome space, time and memory as a girl struggles to find her way and to hold her far-flung family together.
A Busy Man
James W. Johnson, Texas, 6:30mins, 2002
Long on plans but short on execution, our hero manages to keep us engaged with the pure force of his verbal assault.
Trilemma
Ye Won Cho, California, 3:00mins
She comes undone, to stringed accompaniment, in this stylized, stylish animation.
cubica Cubica
Michael Aschauer, Austria, 4:00mins, 2001
Dots become lines become three-dimensional forms in this mesmerizing, hypnotic work.
A Rilke Poem
Francesca Talenti, North Carolina, 1:15mins, 2003
Words trump images in this understated gem about fathers and sons.
I Reason
Francesca Talenti, North Carolina, 1:00mins, 2002
Images of the New York City skyline, punctuated by a haunting Emily Dickenson poem, somehow convey the unspeakable.
Rio Grande
Francesca Talenti, North Carolina, 1:00mins, 2003
Another minimalist masterwork from Francesca Talenti, who is fast emerging as the chief architect of the animated tone-poem.
Nonsense Poems
Francesca Talenti, North Carolina, 2:30mins, 2003
Animator Francesca Talenti is back with her characteristic wit and her relentless insistence that we stop making sense.

Program 13
For Our Man
Kazuo Ohno, New York, 24:48mins, 2002
Alone in the night, an old scribbler begins work on a story. It should not be much of a problem. Then again, memories have this way of intruding…

Executive Producers
Judith Sims, Austin Museum of Art
Mary M. Lampe, Southwest Alternate Media Project

Co-Producers
Ed Hugetz, The University of Houston
Celia Lightfoot, Independent Producer, Houston
Marian Luntz, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Dr. Tom Schatz, The University of Texas at Austin

Editor
Joe Brueggman, HoustonPBS

Graphics and Music
Robert Smith, HoustonPBS

Director of Programming
Ken Lawrence, HoustonPBS

Director of Operations
Steve Pyndus, HoustonPBS

Website
Linda Cozzen

Theme Music
Japanic

Special Thanks
Atom Films; Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival; Cinema Texas, Austin; Dos Gringos Productions, Texas; Electronic Arts Intermix, New York; Flickerfest, Australia; The Houston Film Commission; Mexican Film Institute -- Imcine; La Luna Productions, Paris; Michelle Mower; Network Ireland Television; Ralph McKay/Sixpack Film; Short Circuit Films, Sheffield, England; University of Southern California/School of Cinema-TV; Video Association of Dallas; and Women Make Movies

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