Undefinable 'Cool' of Resfest in Tribeca

 by Barry Owens

The making of a music video for the rock band Polar Bear did not re-quire a single frame of film, an inch of video tape or even a camera. Instead, director Brett Simon pressed the lead singer's face onto a flatbed scanner and used thousands of the ghostly images to create a moving picture. The result is a strikingly innovative production that could be considered the quintessential Resfest entry-if there is such a thing.

"We Have Decided Not to Die," a short film by Daniel Askill, opens the festival.

The Resfest is a touring digital film festival that began eight years ago as a celebration of the art of music videos, advertising spots and short films created with digital cameras and desktop tools. It opens its 2004 world tour Sept. 9 with three days of screenings at Tribeca Performing Arts Center.

Since it began, however, the festival has evolved from strictly computer-based productions to include low-budget art-house works, inventive animation and seemingly any short work that achieves that undefinable quality of "cool."

"It's always hard to pin down what the 'res' aesthetic is," said the festival's founder and director, Jonathan Wells. "Very innovative. A mix of different technologies. Stylish."

"When we first started it was about the digital camera and the computer," he continued. "But today, we're much more about what the content is than what the tools are."

 
This year's offerings include the retelling of the Oedipus tragedy with a cast of vegetables, a cinematographer's look at scars of rock stars and the award-winning short "We Have Decided Not to Die," by director Daniel Askill. The film follows three characters as time slows, then stops, allowing them to transcend their destinies.

"Bushwacked," a series of more than a dozen short films that make fun at the president, will be a festival highlight, said Wells.

Featured in "Bushwacked" will be the world premiere of "Pirates & Emperors (Or Size Does Matter)," an animated chronicle of recent United States foreign policy decisions, and a music video directed by filmmaker Michael Moore.

"There's always been an undercurrent of poking fun at politics and corporate society with our filmmakers," Wells
A digitally altered George W. Bush from the festival's "Bushwacked" series.
said. "But this year we saw a real trend, a lot of this kind of work, and thought we'd do a dedicated program for that."

Aside from the screenings, the festival offers workshops (one of them reveals the secrets to movie-making with mobile phone cameras) and tours of local artists' studios.

"I want people-whether they are a filmmaker, a furniture designer, work at an ad agency or are just curious-to come and be inspired," Wells said.

Resfest 2004 is at Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers St., 212-240-1460, Sept. 9-12. For tickets and program information go to www.resfest.com.