FILMS

AFTER ELLA

Hope is a successful photographer. Introverted and quiet, her demeanor plays in stark contrast to her glamorous work environment. When she learns that her sister Ella has passed away, Hope is stunned... until she begins to receive text messages from her. Are they for real? Using art as a tool for recovery, Hope begins to accept the fatality of death. She will evoke her sister's presence - alive and in memoriam.

PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY

Filmmaker Ross McElwee (Sherman’s March, Bright Leaves) finds himself in frequent conflict with his son, a young adult who seems addicted to and distracted by the virtual worlds of the internet. To understand his fractured love for his son, McElwee travels back to St. Quay-Portrieux in Brittany for the first time in decades to retrace his own journey into adulthood. A meditation on the passing of time, the praxis of photography and film, and the digital versus analog divide.
Authors: Ross McElwee, Marie-Emmanuelle Hartness
Producers: Marie-Emmanuelle Hartness, Ross McElwee
Production Companies: St Quay Films, French Connection, ARTE
Photographic Memory premiered at the 67th Venice Film Festival

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MICHELLE MAREN

An Autobiography of Michelle Maren details the life of an African-Italian-American woman who grew up as an illegitimate child -rejected by her father and abused by her mother. At seventeen, Michelle ran away to New York City in hopes of finding a career in music and theater. Instead, she wound up homeless, eventually finding work as a go-go dancer, sex surrogate, escort and porn star. In her long career of performance, she also sang and danced as an opening act for Tiny Tim, won the Miss Big Apple Pageant and worked as a magicians assistant. Today, Michelle is forty-nine years old and suffers from a number of phobias and mental disabilities, including borderline personality disorder and schizoaffective disorder. She has isolated herself in her apartment because "feelings" overwhelm her. Throughout her adult life she has sought her father's recognition, dreaming of a Hollywood-like reconciliation. Her spirituality sustains her and assuages her mental and physical ailments. She believes that God preordained the making of her film autobiography (in collaboration with Michel Negroponte) and that an honest and purposeful self-examination of her fractured past will help liberate her from her demons.