Microcinema DVDs - Wholphin Issue Five

The fifth issue of Wholphin features an adaptation of Michael Chabon's short story "House Hunting," starring Paul Rudd and Zoey Deschanel; the world champion, one-handed, blind-folded Rubik's Cube master; the ancient art of tree-hanging; an Oscar-nominated animated short; an infuriating expose of the U.S. governments arm twisting, horse thieving assault on two Shoshone Indian grannies; giant paper airplanes; drunk bees; meat puppets; and a short film about Darfuri rebels literally smuggled out of Sudan in the back of a horse cart.

12 films. 155 minutes.

Further Information:

Liner Notes:
Ray Tintori

Ray Tintori is a 24-year-old director from Brooklyn. "Death to the Tinman" was his undergraduate thesis film for Wesleyan University's Film Studies program. The film premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it received an Honorable Mention for Short Filmmaking. It also played in the South by Southwest Film Festival and New York Film Festival, among others. His previous film "Jettison Your Loved Ones" premiered at the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival. Mr. Tintori currently resides in New York where he is writing his next film, as well as writing scripts for other people's major motion pictures, and directing music videos for pop groups like MGMT.
www.raytintori.com

Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski

Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski recently completed their first professional film, Madame Tutli-Putli, produced by the National Film Board of Canada. In addition to their role as filmmakers, Chris and Maciek wear many hats-as animators, sculptors, collage artists, screenplay writers, and art directors. In 1997 they founded Clyde Henry Productions, a Montreal-based film and production company specializing in multimedia, stop-motion animation and visual effects. They have received acclaim for their award-winning illustrations, music videos and broadcast design, and provoked a cult following for The Untold Tales of Yuri Gagarin, a serial comic strip published in Vice magazine.
www.clydehenry.com

Amy Lippman

Amy Lippman was raised in Los Angeles and San Francisco. After graduating from Harvard College, she won the Mademoiselle Magazine fiction award, and began writing and producing for television. She co-created the long-running FOX television drama "Party of Five", as well as the series "Time of Your Life" and "Significant Others". Her short film, "House Hunting", based on the story by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and screened at festivals all over the world. She most recently wrote and produced the HBO series "In Treatment" and wrote an adaptation of Galt Neiderhoffer's novel "A Taxonomy of Barnacles" for Revolution Studios.

Westside Filmworks

West Side Filmworks provides specialized instruction in filmmaking for students ages 15 through 19. We are located in the Saul Zaentz Media Center in Berkeley. Our small summer workshops focus on documentary filmmaking. Students work alongside Academy Award winning producers and directors to create focused content for reels, college applications, and festivals. West Side Filmworks was created by Jeff Castle and Jigar Mehta. Jeff is currently the Program Director of Video and Broadcast Production at Albany High School in the East Bay. Jigar, a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, is a video producer for the New York Times.
For more info visit:
www.WestSideFilm.com
www.AHSVideoPro.com

Sachi Schuricht is a student at Colgate University in central New York, studying Psychology, Philosophy, and Film. She is excited by the fact that she has no idea what she will pursue after college-perhaps academia (just kidding), perhaps filmmaking, perhaps professional speedcubing.

Emma Thatcher is a senior at Carondelet High School in Concord, California. She is planning on majoring in film production in college with the hopes of pursuing a career in the film industry. In her spare time she enjoys watching movies, camping and playing guitar.

Grace Rathbone-Webber is a student at UC Santa Cruz planning on majoring in film. She hopes to follow this path to a career in the film industry.

Isaiah Allekotte is currently studying film production at Chapman University in Orange, California. His best time for solving the 3X3 cube is 7 minutes, 28 seconds (while using the little instruction booklet). Since making this film, Isaiah has gained new admiration for puzzle-solvers of all kinds.

David Martinez and Shane Bauer

David Martinez lives in San Francisco where he makes movies, writes and plays music. His most recent film is called 500 Miles To Babylon about Iraqi civilians and independent journalists in occupied Baghdad. www.graffitifilms.com, or simply

Shane Bauer is a freelance journalist, photographer, and Arabic speaker living in Oakland, California. His work has been published in the US, UK, Canada, and the Middle East in publications such as The Nation, The San Francisco Chronicle, Aljazeera.net, and others. He can be contacted at

George and Beth Gage

Beginning in the 1970's, George and Beth Gage, as director and producer respectively, made hundreds of television commercials, including two honored in the U.S. CLIO Hall of Fame. During that time, they also produced and directed two theatrical feature films, "Skateboard" and "Fear in a Handful of Dust." In the 1990's they moved themselves and their company, Gage & Gage Productions, from Los Angeles, California, to Telluride, Colorado, to focus their energies on films with a social conscience. Since then, working together, they have produced six documentaries, including most recently, "American Outrage".

Serge Labesque

Serge Labesque, originally from France, was a meteorologist before moving to California. He now lives in Glen Ellen, CA, and is a Technical Director with Kreysler and Associates, a manufacturer of composite products. As a passionate beekeeper, Serge maintains bee colonies in Sonoma County. His goal is to maintain bee colonies by relying on the natural strength of local strains of bees, by completely eliminating the need for antibiotics or chemical compounds for pest and disease control, and through techniques that allow beekeepers to be self-sufficient practitioners. Serge is an active member of the Sonoma County Beekeepers' Association and was the recipient of the Western Apicultural Society 2006 Thurber Award for Inventiveness.

César Velasco Broca and Cormac Regan

The author of an unsettling work, César Velasco Broca made his debut as a director with Footsie, a multi-awarded short that garnered him recognition in the Spanish underground scene. Currently, as part of his work with Cormac Regan at Regan & Velasco Inc., he combines his cinematographic work with the production of advertising spots for some of the most prominent Spanish agencies. He also finds the time to manage the electroacoustic music label Batan Bruits. Velasco Broca's main obsessions are Spanish folklore, extraterrestrials and fetishism.

Cormac Regan obtained a journalism degree at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid and worked in the field for several years. Regan has also founded Setpoint, a cinematographic locations and production services company which has worked in campaigns by Nike, Playstation, Vogue, Redbull, Atlético de Madrid, etc. And finally, he is the associate producer of Nacho Vigalondo's first feature film - Los cronocrimenes (Timecrimes).
www.reganvelasco.com

Carson Mell

Arizona native Carson Mell currently lives in Hollywood, California. His short films have been screened at Sundance, CineVegas, and the Los Angeles Film Festival. You can see more of his work at www.carsonmell.com.

Dan Vest

Dan Vest studied Logic and Philosophy of Language for several years in graduate school before he realized that he couldn't care less about the problem of meaning for demonstrative expressions, and that he didn't give a shit about the soundness or completeness of so much as a single algorithm. So, filmmaking is him doing something that he gives a shit about.

William Lamson

William Lamson is a Brooklyn based artist who works in video, photography, performance and sculpture. He received his MFA from Bard in 2006 and his work has been shown at P.S.1, The Brooklyn Museum, Pierogi Gallery and the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe among others.
www.williamlamson.com

Tom Dale

Tom Dale was born on the edge of the English lake district in 1974. He is an artist who reluctantly became involved with film making when he was offered a job editing promos for an American film channel after he had finished a 2 year arts scholarship in Warsaw, Poland. Currently, he works with both objects and film, and is never more satisfied than when these mediums conspire to both complement and undermine one another. His videos, sculptures and installations have been shown through out the UK, Europe and most recently in the U.S.A. at the Getty Museum, in the show "Reckless Behavior." His work is held in a number of public and private collections.
www.daletom.com