Cin/Optic

The Northern Lights Film Festival brings independent films and filmmakers to the campus and surrounding community. The festival is a FREE ADMISSION marathon of different independent films presented by special guests. 

http://director.hu.mtu.edu/northernlights/index.html

This year’s guests to the festival are Bob Brown, executive director of Michigan’s Charity Island Pictures production company, and Suzanne Jerva, Feature Film Executive and Michigan Tech graduate.

Friday’s lineup of films and speakers:
Noon: “As We Forgive” - How does one go about forgiving the unforgivable? This is the central question of Laura Waters Hinson’s documentary on Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s release of untried murderers who confessed their crimes, filling the roads of Rwanda with ex-prisoners. Narrated by Mia Farrow. (53 min.)

4:00 pm: “Lioness” - Lioness tells the story of a group of female Army support soldiers who were part of the first program in American history to send women into direct ground combat. (81 min.)

7:00 pm: Guest Speaker Bob Brown - The Governor’s office has announced that 6,000 new Michigan jobs will be created by its efforts to attract film production companies to the state. Bob Brown of Michigan-based Charity Island Pictures will discuss the new film industry tax incentive and its growing impact on Michigan careers.

8:30 pm: “Escanaba in da moonlight” - Named by Variety magazine as one of the highest grossing independent films in 2001, this film was produced by Michigan residents, Bob Brown and Jeff Daniels. When the Soady clan reunites for the opening day of deer season at the family’s Upper Peninsula camp, Reuben Soady must face the curse of being the oldest Soady in the history of the Soadys never to have bagged a buck. (91 min.)

10:30 pm: “Zombie Girl: The Movie” - 12-year-old Emily Hagins is making a movie: a feature-length zombie flick, Pathogen. With the help of her mother as agent, crew, and biggest fan, Emily embarks on a two-year adventure in filmmaking. (89 min)

Saturday’s Lineup: 
Noon: “Student Academy Award Winners” - The Cin/Optic Media Entherprise Team invites you to look at 4 Oscar-winning films produced by students across the world. Films presented are “A Day’s Work” (Narrative), “Viola: The Traveling Rooms of a Little Giant” (Alternative), “Zoologic” (Animation), and “Auf der Strecke (On the line)” (Foreign). 

2:00 pm: “Illegal Use of Joe Zopp” - When Joe Zopp’s out-of-touch parents squander the proceeds of his finest invention, he skips town, vowing never to return. (110 min.)

4:00 pm: “Trouble the Water” - The most acclaimed documentary of 2008 tells the story of Kimberly and Scott Roberts, two streetwise New Orleans residents who chased down Hurricane Katrina with a home video camera. (93 min.)

7:00 pm: “I met the walrus (short)” In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck and a head full of questions, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. (5 min.)

“Establishing shots” - In this experimental short, McNamara explores the cinematic convention of the establishing shot. Winner, 2007 Ann Arbor Film Festival. (9 min.)

8:00 pm: Speaker Suzanne Jerva and “Changing Keys” - Suzanne Jurva graduated from Michigan Tech with a degree in Scientific and Technical Communication. She worked as Feature Film Development Executive with Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Studios and founded the mobile-delivery media company, Starcut. She presents her documentary, “Changing Keys,” telling the story of Minneapolis native Billy McLaughlin, who in the late 1990s, began to lose control of his hand and arm, unable to play his own music. Many thought his career was over when he was diagnosed with focal dystonia, an incurable neuro-muscular disorder, but Billy had other ideas. He began the arduous task of retraining himself to play left-handed, one note at a time.