Film buffs who aren't still squinting from the New York Film Festival are sitting in on ResFest, which ends its 1998 tour this weekend in New York.
The two-day digital film festival is a descendent of now-defunct Low Res Film Festival. It arrives at the Directors Guild of America on 16 October after stops in London, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Not only does ResFest showcase an eclectic array of independent and experimental films, the festival functions as a nexus of digital film information. Besides the screening of five long and 24 short films, ResFest offers panel discussions, interactive exhibits, and demonstrations of new, affordable equipment.
While Bennett Miller's The Cruise is getting a lot of ink as the first feature-length digital film to get commercial distribution, other films are wowing audiences as well.
ResFest director Jonathan Wells noted some festival favorites: __Bob Sabiston and Tommy Pallotta's Roadhead, an animated road movie-documentary in which the filmmakers interviewed subjects on their move from New York to Austin. They digitized video footage, then animated it with proprietary software Sabiston developed.
Dean Mermell's Modern Life, a short silent film inspired by a Buster Keaton flick, chronicles a day in the hectic life of an urban couple.
Greg Fadell, Peter Wardowski, and Matt Zacharias have delighted ResFest audiences with Max, a short starring several GI Joe dolls.
The Smell of Horror is a computer-animated black-and-white noir film about a handy man's visit to a dark old house. The film and animator Mitch Butler are cult figures.
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"While we are one of the only film festivals of its kind, we know that in the future many traditional film festivals will begin screening a lot more digital work," Wells said. "So the type of work that we are showing is not defined by just being produced digitally. Our shorts program is very dynamic and more experimental than the type of films usually screened at traditional film festivals."
