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Fever Dreams and Heavenly Nightmares is the long awaited DVD compilation of independent filmmaker Chel White's visionary work. Spanning 20 years, this collection is an hours worth of award-winning short films, astonishing animation, and more.
From a story about a man who is obsessed with soil to an expressionistic choreography of photocopied bodies, Chel White's films defy easy categorization. Exploring love, obsession, memories and dreams, his work is sublime and intricately beautiful. Chel is often describes as a cinematic poet, and many of his films have a darkly humorous edge to them. The Austin Chronicle says, "Chel White's work seems to dispatch itself in some secret, subversive code, flashing messages amid animation, obscure stock footage, and actors with crazy eyes."
The Fever Dreams and Heavenly Nightmares disk features Magda, Dirt, and Soulmate, three adaptations of stories by long-time monologist and radio artist Joe Frank.
Fresh from its run of over 50 film festivals, Magda is a tale of a young man who joins a traveling circus after falling in love with the enigmatic contortionist. The film's actors are wooden literally. Using pose-able artist manikins in stop-motion animation, the film has a surprising emotional depth. To date, Magda has collected several first place awards, including the Grand Jury Prize for Best Animated Short from the Florida Film Festival. The Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival describes Magda as a "truly astounding short film".
The newest film on the DVD is A Painful Glimpse Into My Writing Process (In Less Than 60 Seconds). It is black humor tour de force derived from a poem by Scott Poole. The International Film Festival of Boston describes the film as a "dark comedy (that) captures the humiliating process of wracking your brain for something original to say."
Producer and indie film maven Christine Vachon (Far From Heaven, Boys Don't Cry) described Chel White's Dirt as "a post-modern Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The film won the award for Best Short Film from the Stockholm International Film Festival and played in competition at the Sundance Film Festival.
Other films featured on the Fever Dreams and Heavenly Nightmares DVD are Passage, described by the Willamette Week as "an eerily beautiful rumination on the passage between birth and death", and Eclipse, a haunting examination of the often-controversial subject of the right to choose, told from a perspective that is pointedly more personal than political. Also on this new DVD compilation are two of White's early animations, and a plethora of bonus material that includes glimpses behind-the-scenes, out-takes, experiments, an interview, a sampling of a few of White's artful commercials, and more. In addition to the DVD itself, the package comes with a 12-page film book with images, descriptions, and press quotes on the films.
Chel White, whose oeuvre includes narrative, abstract, animation and live-action, says, "I consider myself a moving-image alchemist. I get great satisfaction from being relentless in exploring new territories as I work to push the limits of my filmmaking, from the look of a film to the content below the surface." He adds, "Most of my film themes reside just between consciousness and dreams, where I find the most interesting stories".
Further Information:
Film titles include: A Painful Glimpse Into My Writing Process, Photocopy Cha Cha, Magda, Passage, Soulmate, Dirt, Eclipse, and Metal Dogs of India.
About Chel White:
Chel White has been making films independently for over 20 years. He got his start making films in high school and college. In his early 30's, he worked with filmmaker Gus Van Sant on three of Van Sant's films, including To Die For (starring Nicole Kidman) and My Own Private Idaho (starring River Phoenix).
From Berlin to Sundance, Chel White's films have been shown in film festivals all over the world, and recognized with many awards (including EMPA Work Life award from the Ann Arbor Film Festival). His work has screened at the Smithsonian and Brooklyn museums, and two commissioned projects he directed are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In addition to his work as an independent filmmaker, Chel White is a world-renowned commercial director. His work in this realm reflects his belief that the medium can be an art form. White is a partner in the commercial production company BENT, founded in 2002, and has directed parody shorts for Saturday Night Live and others. For the past 20 years, Chel White has been a vital part of the Portland Oregon filmmaking community.
| Catalog Number: MC-553 |
Type: Shorts Compilation |
Genre: Art / Artist, Experimental |
| Copyright: 2006 |
Length: 60 minutes |
Format:
DVD Region: 0 |
| TV System: NTSC |
ISBN: |
UPC/EAN: 880198055392 |
| Label: Chel White Films |
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Wholesale Purchasing:
Program MC-553 is available for wholesale from Microcinema DVD. Contact info[at]microcinema.com or call at +1-415-447-9750
Exhibition:
Microcinema is not authorized to represent this title for exhibition. Write us for this contact information.
Films In Compilation
Magda directed by
Chel
White
USA,
Animation,
2004,
Color,
Magnetic Stereo,
00:05:30
A first love is corrupted as a man recalls his affair with a beautiful circus contortionist in this stop-motion animation of wooden manikins. At its heart, Magda is an off-center parable about lost innocence and the corruptibility of human nature. Visually, the film explores the use of extreme telephoto lenses, creating enigmatic scenes that reveal themselves over time, and ghostly figures drifting in-and-out of focus. Magda is filmmaker Chel White’s third adaptation of a story by radio artist and writer
Joe Frank. (The previous films are “Dirt” and “Soulmate”.)
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A Painful Glimpse Into My Writing Process directed by
Chel
White
USA,
Animation,
2005,
Color,
Magnetic Stereo,
00:01:30
Dark and humorous, this extremely short film is a stream-of-conscious look at the writing process, told with animated images straight from the subconscious… or somewhere. The narrative originates from an unpublished satirical essay by poet Scott Poole about his own writing process. It was the inspiration for filmmaker Chel White to build this one-minute film upon.
Influenced in part by collage films of the 1960’s and early 70’s, this film jitters and pops with a hodgepodge of crazy images. Some are derived from digital still photographs of actor Don Alder and various prop elements relating to the narration. Others are bits and pieces of photo collage overlaid to further push the frenetic energy of the whole piece.
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Photocopy Cha Cha directed by
Chel
White
USA,
Animation,
1991,
Color,
Magnetic Stereo,
00:04:00
A bizarre mixture of the surreal, the sensual, the beautiful, and the absurd, all tied together in a quickly paced collage of humor and photocopy fetish. All of the film's images were created solely by using the photographic capabilities of a photocopying machine to generate sequential pictures of hands, faces, and other body parts.
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Dirt directed by
Chel
White
USA,
Experimental,
1998,
Color,
Magnetic Stereo,
00:04:00
A man’s strange obsession with dirt starts as a childhood game, but eventually manifests itself on a most surreal level. The dark, expressionistic images create an allegory for individuality and self-sufficiency, in this off-beat ecological parable. “Dirt” marries Chel White’s filmmaking with the satirical writing of Joe Frank.
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Soulmate directed by
Chel
White
USA,
Drama,
2000,
Color,
Magnetic Stereo,
00:14:00
Eerie, erotic, and touching, Soulmate is a complex study of alienation and sexual obsession. Told from the point-of-view of a 55-year old woman, it explores longing and objectification through the unconventional story of a landlady and her younger male tenant. Soulmate is based on a story by National Public Radio personality Joe Frank, known for his bold and original radio plays.
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DREAM #631 directed by
Chel
White
USA,
Experimental,
0,
Color,
00:00:00
A dream-film, comprised of memories of love and loss smoldering in the mind’s eye.
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Passage directed by
Chel
White
USA,
Experimental,
2001,
35 mm,
Color,
Dolby Digital,
00:11:00
Passage deals with the poetic and the terrible, with innocence and corruption. Haunting underwater portraits of people are juxtaposed with archival films of war and atrocities to create a film that is part collage, part visual poem.
Taking its cues from the ethereal music of Gustav Holsts's Neptune, the aqueous portraits allow each person's vulnerable core to surface, exposing a deep primal innocence. Simultaneously, wars are waged, brutalities committed, and the worst of the human race evolves. But in this sea of humanity, all is not lost to the corruption of the human spirit.
Passage made it's world premiere (as a silent film) in Film Harmonic, a program of short films and live orchestral accompaniment, performed by the Oregon Symphony, Portland, 2001.
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ECLIPSE directed by
Chel
White
USA,
Experimental,
2003,
Color,
Magnetic Stereo,
00:03:00
A haunting poem describing a life eclipsed is the basis for this short collage film. Utilizing old NASA and science films inter-woven with original footage, the film’s enigmatic images trail the path of the poem, creating a film about a unique kind of loss. The often-controversial subject of a woman's right to choose is depicted from a perspective that is pointedly more personal than political.
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2006-09-06 Educational Media Reviews Online
By Reviewed by Dr. Beth A. Kattelman, The Ohio State University
Chel White is a director/animator who has been making independent films for over 20 years. White has directed many commercials, videos, multi-media installations and feature film effects, but it is his short films for which he is best known. White’s short films have won several awards and have been featured in festivals throughout the world. This DVD collects most of White’s short films into one volume. These films present the vast array of techniques and images that White has explored throughout his career, and their juxtaposition provides the viewer with a good overview of the themes of his work; themes that include: alienation, danger, obsession, dreams and love. White creates his short films around the works of poets and essayists. For example, Magda, Dirt and Soulmate are based on stories by monologist and radio artist Joe Frank, while White’s most recent film, A Painful Glimpse Into My Writing Process (In Less Than 60 Seconds) is based on a humorous essay by Northwest poet Scott Poole. This last is one of my favorites, and should provide a good chuckle for anyone who has ever sat down and faced the dreaded blank page.
Although many of the videos on this DVD are rather gloomy and angst-ridden, they contain an undercurrent of subtle, dark humor. Soulmate, one of the creepiest, presents an extended monologue delivered by actress Vana O’Brien as a landlady who has a slightly sinister obsession with a young man who is a tenant in her building.
There are a few nice extras on the DVD, including some short animation experiments, commercials, biographies of the creative team behind White’s short films and an interview with White. Unfortunately, the interviewer interrupts and interjects confusing comments and opinions into the conversation rather than letting White speak for himself, thus making it a somewhat flawed example of White explicating his work. It does present a nice opportunity, however, to see a bit of the man who has created these evocative films.
This DVD is recommended for both public and academic libraries and should especially be considered for special libraries dedicated to the preservation of film and video. White is a gifted animation artist and filmmaker, and this handy volume gives viewers access to some of his most influential works. |
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Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers
MC-661, 2006
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To coincide with the theatrical release of THE PIANO TUNER OF EARTHQUAKES, Zeitgeist Films presents a thirteen-film retrospective of shorts by famed twin animators the Quay Brothers. Two of the world's most original filmmakers, identical twins... more >
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Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, The
MC-673, 2005
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The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes is the breathtakingly beautiful and long-awaited second feature film from the Quay Brothers. On the eve of her wedding, the beautiful opera singer Malvina is mysteriously "killed" and abducted by the malevolent Dr.... more >
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Slant Volume 1
MC-728, 2007
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The Best of Slant Vol 1 features a collection of short films culled from seven years of Aurora Picture Show's annual Slant: Bold Asian American Images festival. The Slant festival annually showcases the best in emerging Asian American cinema. Since... more >
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The Woodmans
MC-1295, 2011
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Francesca Woodman's haunting B&W images, many of them nude self-portraits, now reside in the
pantheon of great photography from the late 20th century. The daughter of artists Betty and
Charles Woodman (she a ceramicist and he a... more >
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