Livermore Valley Film Festival 2016
LIVERMORE, CA – (April 25, 2016) – The Livermore Valley Film Festival announced the official list and schedule of films to be shown at the three-day event, “Where Science Meets Art,” in downtown Livermore beginning Friday, May 13, 2016. The LVFF will feature a broad range of independent films from around the world that explore how science and technology are both portrayed in films and used in the filmmaking process. Over the weekend, nearly 50 feature and short films in a variety of categories will be screened in downtown venues, workshops and panels will be offered by professional filmmakers, and awards will be announced, including the winners of LVFF’s 48-hour Filmmakers Crush Competition.
LVFF Director Lynn Monica was delighted to see the diversity of films submitted, both in type and geographic source. “For a film festival, particularly a new one, to be able to provide such breadth is tremendous,” she said. “It allows each filmmaker’s entry to be viewed against comparable works and provides a far richer, more enjoyable experience for the audience.” Of the films chosen for the festival, one third are from outside the US including Pakistan, Australia, Iran, Sweden, Germany and Japan. Approximately half of the films from the US are by Californian filmmakers, many of them Bay Area-based. There are more short films than feature length but the categories, which include documentary, narrative fiction, science/technology/ innovation, social/health/disability, and student submissions, are equitably represented.
While all the films reflect the theme “Where Science Meets Art,” each takes a different approach to exploring the intersection between the two. Among the feature films to be shown are “Cesium and a Tokyo Girl,” an adventure fantasy from Japan that tells of Mimi and the seven gods who go in search of her grandmother’s myna bird, Hakushi. Another feature film, the documentary “A Beautiful Equation,” follows eight grandmothers as they rehearse for and perform a unique presentation about two renowned physicists, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. The many short films to be screened range from the mesmerizing “KIRK,” a film portrait celebrating the “art in motion” of renowned Bay Area kinetic sculptor Jerome Kirk, to the comic French short “The Right Person for the Job,” an entry in the “Social/Health/Disability” issues category.
The LVFF will run from May 13-15 and will begin with a Red Carpet Premiere on opening night featuring a screening of “The Man Who Knew Infinity,” the story of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a World War I-era mathematics pioneer, as well as a special guest appearance by Broadway actress and comedian Julie Halston. As part of the LVFF, participants of all ages are invited to enter the 48-hour Filmmakers Crush Competition and produce a five minute film on an assigned topic in 48 hours or less. Competition results will be shown during the LVFF and awards given for Best Open Film Division and Best Student Film Division. The LVFF will close with an awards celebration for all film categories on the evening of Sunday, May 15th.
For more information, a list of films, daily schedule, film screening tickets, and festival passes visit www.livermorefilm.org. For purchase of tickets go directly to the LVPAC website ticketing page http://tickets.livermoreperformingarts.org/single/EventListing.aspx.
The Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center provides wide-ranging programs that provide access to the arts for the Tri-Valley community and beyond. The Bankhead Theater and the Bothwell Arts Center are home to nine resident performing arts companies and over 40 studio artists and cultural arts instructors. Between them, they have offered more than 500 public activities each year, from classes and workshops, to concerts, festivals and performances, as well as ArtWalk and extensive educational arts outreach. A list of upcoming performances at the Bankhead Theater, as well as activities scheduled at the Bothwell Arts Center, is available online at www.lvpac.org or via the LVPAC mobile app.
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