THE AMERICAN AVANT GARDE FILMMAKERS ARCHIVE

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Rose Bond official site, installations and films.

Brian LaBrecque "Far Too Gone"

Jon Behrens official site for the renowned experimental filmmaker.

Wes Kim

Janice Findley Bio and Filmography at Canyon Cinema.

Alec Carlin

Corwin Fergus

Chel White official site.

David Russo Bio at www.microcinema.com

Paul Fraser

Gus Van Sant Show contributor, major independent motion picture director and producer: Drug Store Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, To Die For, Good Will Hunting, Gerry, Finding Forester, Elephant. Gus is an independent film legend, and we are oh so fortunate to be able to bring you some of his short films.

Ruth Hayes Ruth takes the normal world around us all, and brings it to its base of reality. Her works seem always to represent logic that anyone could see, if they only were looking. Much of her animated films mirror her flip books, and zoetropes in that there doesn’t need to be a huge production, with busy backgrounds and flashy details to tell a great story. She often does it with a bold graphic art style that keeps you captive. Whether making a political statement, or analyzing life through the eyes of a cat, Ruth always brings out the real emotion in all of us. I advise you to let Ruth’s world awaken yours. Ruth has more domestic and international recognition for her artistic work that we could ever have room for here. Check it out at randommotion.com on the web, near you!

Alex Gonzalez: Controversial Seattle filmmaker and actor.

Jim Blashfield: From his dozens of famous “Bill Graham Presents” and other Rock Posters, Commercial Art, Music Video, Animation and more… Jim Blashfield never fails to be on the cutting edge, a true American Avant-Garde! The short films he has contributed to the show are truly amazing! We really admire and appreciate his dedication to Film, and the Arts.

Trevor Fife: Experimental and/or Documentarian, well you just never know where Trevor will take you! Humor, despair, often a little bit of both to keep things interesting. His well-unbalanced style keeps you guessing what is next from beginning to end, if it is really the end at all? Ann Arbor Film Festival (Tom Berman Award Most Promising Filmmaker) for Meridian Days. Winner of the 2002 Peripheral Produce Invitationals. Athens Film Festival (film processing prize) for Meridian Days, among others!

Joanna Priestly: There really isn’t enough ink to do Joanna Priestly Justice! Winner of more awards and accolades than I can possibly mention here. Attributing her interest in animation to a toy zoetrope that she had as a child, the rain in Oregon, and a grandmother that did china painting, she is one of the truly great animators of our time. Never ending creativity, and an eye for the different make Joanna one of our favorite contributors. Just do a web search on her name, and you’ll see why!

Vanessa Renwick : Self appointed head of the Oregon Department of Kick Ass. Vanessa is becoming a short film, documentary, and autobiographical legend. Her films and videos take you beyond the obvious political pandering of many of the current so called documentary film makers, to show actual tensions and underlying images of modern culture that few ever really see. Prostitution, red necks, truckers, road art, open spaces, clogged places, fast rides, soft moments, it’s all there in her powerful pieces. Reality TV without the cutie pies and storyboards, just raw emotion, and real humor. Here is what you get, and that’s it. What “it” is, is often beyond description. You will lover her and you will hate her, the emotional roller coaster is well worth the price of admission.

Most of these artists truly deserve more than I have presented, and more information is available, including their films in some cases via web sites. Just do a search with their name and the word “film” so you don’t end up with a lot of family trees of dead people, or old baseball scores. We will try to give links to our film makers sites when we can in the future. Below are more of our contributors, not listed in any order of accolade or importance, just by the way I pulled them from Karl’s Files, if you can call them files. I would like to thank all of the contributors to The American Avant Garde, for their huge efforts and generosity.

Barry Mercer Promotions Director 206-948-2929, vmebarry@hotmail.com

Other First Year Contributors Listed in 52 pick-up order:

Heather Oaksen

Janice Findley

Heather Ayres

Mirian Walden

Alec Carlin

Alex R. Meyer

Alex Gonzalez

The Von Piglet Sisters

Kirk Hostetter

Wes Kim

Brian McDonald

David Russo

Andrew Blubaugh

Bill Foster

Brian Lebreque

George Griffin

Brian Quist

T.J. Martin

Paul Fraser

Andrew McAlister

Jon Behrens

Jeff Meyer

And your host Karl Krogstad!

This is of course only a partial list, as the show is growing! We will update it as we can. If you are on the list, and have a web site, please let me or Karl know, so we can create a link.

If you make independent films, and aren’t on the list, you should be!