NewsUpdates-WIFT-Houston Women's Showcase 03-08-09

There are currently 182 events planned from over 18 different countries to mark this March 8th occasion. Women in Film Chapters are participating in China, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Sweden, and 12 cities throughout the U.S. For more details visit. www.WIFTI.org.

Making this year's showcase even more exciting, filmmaker Kat Candler's project, QUARTER TO NOON, a last-minute entry at the urging of WIFT Houston president was among the final selections. It will be the closing entry shown around the world during this special celebration.

Kat Candler has been teaching film classes and camps since 2001. She's worked with Expanding Your Horizons Youth Conference, Video Association of Dallas, Southwest Alternative Media Project, American Youthworks, The Austin Film Society, The Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, Skill Point Alliance and The Austin School of Film. She helped create and teach the Austin-based Summer Film Camp for Girls. She's currently a Lecturer at the University of Texas and teaches her own classes at Arts and Labor Productions.

Her includion in the program for Houston means we'll have some representatives who worked on her latest short, QUARTER TO NOON, here with us to introduce it and participate in the Q & A following the screening of these shorts. Though originally planning to be here, she will be returning from NY at the time of our screening and have to postpone a trip here, but she does promise to do a workshop for us on short filmmaking later this year. Her composer/editor Brian Satterwhite is planning to be with us and possibly the cinematographer on the project. More on Kat Candler at www.candlerproductions.com; and on composer Brian Satterwhite at www.nuancemusic.com.

WIFTI INTNERNATIONAL SHOWCASE LINEUP

TAKE 3
12 minutes
New Zealand
Owen Hughes~ producer
Roseanne Liang~ director
Comedy
The audition room is a minefield for three Asian actresses who are expected to be Asian in ways they are not completely comfortable with. When the humiliations mount, they transcend their rivalry in one gleeful act of solidarity, empowering themselves with the very stereotype that they've been subjected to.

MONTREAL 1944
18.5 minutes
Montreal, Canada
Vanya Rose ~ director/writer/producer
Drama
Three part poetic portraits taking place throughout the 20th century in Montreal Canada. Explore the modest home of an immigrant family in 1944 through the eyes of an imaginative little girl. All the creative ways in which children see the world around them are captured through her point of view. From winning a game of hide and go seek to being tempted by a bushel of ripe apples, she finds contentment and distress in the limits of her own house.

LOVE LETTERS
8 minutes
Australia
Peggy Yabevula - producer/cinematographer
Nick Khoo - director
Drama - Premiered at WOW Festival 2008
Steve, an 8 year old corresponds with 8 year old Theresa, in Africa, through a sponsorship organization which only allow communication until she is 18. Before the contact is cut off, he has to tell her how he really feels.

EDGAR and ELIZABETH
17 minutes
Australia
Melissa Kelly - producer
Renee Webster - director
Romantic Comedy - WOW Festival 2008
Work place attraction, loneliness and love in a surreal world. A recalcitrant photocopier leads two unlikely people into a romance.

ONE SHOE SHORT
8 minutes
Sydney, Australia
Jackie Van Beek - producer/director/writer/editor
Comedy - Premiered at WOW Festival 2008
On a town camp in Alice Springs Australia, a boy searches for a pair of shoes so his friend can go to school.

FORGET MY NAME
11 minutes
New York, New York, USA
Julia Kots~ director/writer
Frederick Bouchardy - producer
Dark Comedy
The cynical host of a radio call-in program that offers helpful hints for a successful suicide pays a visit to a momma's boy to aid in "taking care" of his death-obsessed mother... and soon has doubts about offing herself. A pitch-black comedy that would make Harold and Maude proud.

QUARTER TO NOON
14 minutes
Austin, Texas, USA
Kat Candler~ director/writer/producer
Greg Omelchuck~ producer
Ray Pena~ producer
Aman Satterwhite~ producer
Drama/Comedy/Fantasy
Enclosed in a stale office with a single door and a single window and several framed "Best Worker" Awards A worker works. She is good at her job. Consistent, dedicated, and high performing. However, when she discovers a new world outside her office window... she escapes to it.