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Stillwell and Neff invited to Slamdance Film Festival in Park City
January 09, 2003 -- Carol Schmidt
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| Bill Neff and Cindy Stillwell, MSU film professors, work on their film, "O, Sprinklers!" that was accepted for screening at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City later this month. |
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Bozeman -- A film made by Cindy Stillwell and Bill Neff , film professors at Montana State University, has been accepted for screening at the Slamdance Film Festival, a prestigious film festival held con-currently with the Sundance Film Festival from Jan 18-25 in Park City, Utah.
"O Sprinklers!," a seven-minute short by Stillwell and Neff, was one of 50 films selected from throughout the world from more than 2,500 films submitted to be screened Jan. 20-23. This is the second year in a row that a film made by Stilwell has been selected for the Slamdance Festival. Last year her short alternative film, "The First Story," was selected as one of just a handful of films picked for the Slamdance competition. This year's film will be screened in the Gallery section of the festival in Slamdance headquarters at Park City's Treasure Mountain Inn.
Stillwell said Slamdance is considered an alternative to Sundance Film Festival. Slamdance tends to show films that take more creative risks than the films found at Sundance, the famed festival founded by Robert Redford. She said she is pleased to be screening her work at Slamdance again because it provides such good exposure for filmmakers, especially those who do not live in New York City or Los Angeles.
"It is the best way to get an audience for a film like this one; it's a short, only seven minutes, it's experimental, not necessarily a money maker, but hopefully enjoyable to watch just the same," Stillwell said. "The hardest part of making films is finding an audience."
Neff agrees. He says that watching Stillwell's film, "The First Story," inspired him to collaborate on the subject of sprinklers.
"She had sprinklers in her film and I have wanted to do a film on sprinklers for over 20 years. The new digital formats make it so much less expensive ..... the time was just right to do it."
Stillwell and Neff say "O, Sprinklers!" is a celebration of the ordinary.
"We were interested in looking at the mundane everyday objects of sprinklers and finding its beauty, and maybe reinterpret them as possible artifacts of human life," Stillwell said.
Neff and Stillwell say that sprinklers "conjure different things for different people: the image and the sound of sprinklers, the season they bring to mind, their innate rhythm. We were interested in how memory and experience can transform everyday objects into cultural phenomena."
For more information on the Slamdance Film Festival, go to its Web site: http://www.slamdance.com/2003/festival/.
Contact: Cindy Stillwell (406) 994-6521 or Bill Neff (406) 994-6222
Hi-Resolution Image or PDF Available:
| [View or Download] | 1. | Bill Neff and Cindy Stillwell, MSU film professors, work on their film, "O, Sprinklers!" that was accepted for screening at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City later this month. |
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