Sunscreen Film Festival 2009

Each Independence Day, spectators gather in the nation’s capitol for the official fireworks celebration. Against a backdrop of the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, pyrotechnics paint the sky capital red, white, blue and every imaginable color.Filmed in high-definition, 3,2,1 FIREWORKS! takes viewers behind the barricades of one of the largest and most impressive fireworks shows in the country, the annual Fourth of July celebration in Washington, D.C.The film visits small factories in China to see the making of fireworks that will ultimately be destroyed in Washington D.C. Once there, an army of technicians undertake the arduous task of setting and filling 2,500 mortar tubes. Days before the show, their frenzied, last-minute preparations include wiring, setting charges, trouble-shooting and, coping with unexpected weather delays.These pyrotechnicians face incredible danger. 3,2,1 FIREWORKS! highlights an annual safety training course that illustrates what can go wrong when dealing with thousands of pounds of explosives. Additionally, a 5,000-frame per second camera captures the destruction caused by an errant firework shell.Dr. John Conkling, one of the world’s foremost experts on fireworks chemistry, explains how different chemical compounds react to create fireworks’ signature colors, shapes, sparks and crackle. He also provides a brief history of fireworks – from the discovery of powder in China to its use by European royals.Finally, the program witnesses the culmination of a year’s worth of work from the pyrotechnician’s vantage point. The production’s dazzling finale left the crowd of 600,000 onlookers cheering for more.

Logline:Getting old is the most unexpected certainty.Synopsis:In the twilight of his life, Ned reflects on his past, his remaining years, and discovers how his role in life has changed..Against the Wind is a sentimental film that shows the old truly are young at heart and that universal emotions live within us all.

Miguel lived a very simple happy life with his wife Angelica and son Gabriel. After a corporate company comes to Miguel's home town to start logging, a malaria outbreak ensues. His wife Angelica dies because of it, and Miguel needs to decide whether to stay in Colombia or to immigrate to the United States in hope to save his son's future. Gabriel is all Miguel has left and with a promise of an American Dream, Miguel leaves for the United States.After two years in America, with the failing economy, and struggling to find work, Miguel realizes that life can change in the blink of an eye.The purpose of this film is for the viewer to engage and discuss in many different social problems that surround and connect us all.

As politicians stand up and promise 'change' to the nation, what are the people who need it the most doing to make a difference in their own communities with nothing at their disposal but their own creativity?Living together in a converted school bus, a wildly diverse group of artists, filmmakers, and musicians leaves Los Angeles behind looking for answers and searching for the intersection of Art and Politics in America. Pocket Change is a road movie truly like no other: meet everyone from guerilla poster artist Robbie Conal to controversial film director Oliver Stone; militant hip hop duo Dead Prez to Hurricane Katrina survivors in New Orleans' devastated Ninth Ward. Follow the LAFCO (Los Angeles Filmmakers Cooperative) crew as they search for, and find, 'pockets of change' in the most downtrodden parts of America. From Venice Beach to Brooklyn, New York, through the Southwestern desert to the deep south, this is a portrait of the United States seldom seen in the mass media. 'You're trying to change things by doing pure actions. In an impure world, that's a beautiful thing.' -Oliver Stone

Short and Feature winners

The South, 1958. An off-duty police officer is driving home the family babysitter when she gives him a disturbing ultimatum.Starring Joel McKinnon Miller (HBO’s Big Love, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Truman Show) and Julie McNiven (AMC’s Mad Men), Scott W Lee’s noir short ‘Bluff Point’ is a twisted tale from a wholesome era. When the police officer’s attractive teenaged babysitter makes a startling confession, what started as an innocent rural drive becomes a journey to the dark heart of desire, madness and human frailty. Forced to confront his most secret longings, the man faces an impossible dilemma in which the only way he can save his family is to betray it. Directed by award-winning music video director Scott W Lee and based on the screenplay by British playwright Kieron Barry, ‘Bluff Point’ was shot by Roger Deakins protégé Tony Corapi entirely on the new Red One camera. Lush cinematography of the Tennessee countryside and lovingly recreated period detail serve as ironic counterpoint to the film’s unflinching psychological narrative; from its small-scale, domestic beginnings, ‘Bluff Point’ soon unfolds to become a headlong rush into the abyss. Featuring sparse storytelling, fractured dialogue and two vivid, haunting central performances, ‘Bluff Point’ is a thriller that combines the claustrophobic intensity of Hitchcock with the unfathomable moral core of Graham Greene.Brutal, dazzling and totally unforgettable, ‘Bluff Point’ is a searing examination of love, lust and obsession.

A revolver lies threateningly on the kitchen counter in a mansion. What is going on in the life of successful architect Erik Faber (Ralph Herforth)?He should be a happy man: he lives with his lovely wife Jenny (Zora Holt) and their two children in a dream house which he himself designed.Yet he senses a terrifying truth lying hidden behind his perfect life. Strangers claiming to know him speak to him on the street. Hallucinations haunt him even at home. Reality and phantasm threaten Faber’s family. Is the affair with his beautiful assistant Iris (Lauren Talbot) the clue?Faber has but one night to find a way out. It will be a decision between life and death.