“Montclair Underdog Film Festival” Features Marathon Screening of Oscar-nominated Short Films

For those looking to see as many Academy Award-nominated films before the big awards show broadcast on February 26, the Montclair Underdog Film Festival is just the ticket.  Now in its third year, the popular daylong festival will feature a marathon showing of the 2012 Oscar-nominated short films in the Documentary, Live Action, and Animated categories. Co-sponsored by the Filmmaking Program at Montclair State University, the festival will take place on Saturday, February 25, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the state-of-the-art screening room 1070 in University Hall on the Montclair State campus.

“The Filmmaking Program here at Montclair State University is thrilled to be able to co-sponsor the Montclair Underdog Film Festival and give our students and the public a chance to see these wonderful and rarely seen films honored by the Academy,” says Susan Skoog, a faculty member in the Filmmaking Program.

Included in the program is a special screening of Poetry of Resilience, a documentary by Academy Award-nominated director, Katja Esson, about six poets who individually survived Hiroshima, the Holocaust, China’s Cultural Revolution, the Kurdish Genocide in Iraq, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Iranian Revolution. The film, co-produced by Montclair resident Corinna Sager, won Best Short Documentary at the 2011 Woodstock Film Festival Awards.

Tickets are $12 for the morning session, $15 for the afternoon session, or $22 for the whole day. Afternoon and full-day tickets include the price for the Poetry of Resilience showing. Montclair State University students, faculty, and staff attend free with valid ID.

For tickets and additional information visit Montclair Underdog Film Festival

Montclair Underdog Festival Film Festival
(Films listed in alphabetical order, not order of screening)

Animated Shorts (10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.)
A Morning Stroll (Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe)
Dimanche/Sunday (Patrick Doyon)
La Luna (Enrico Casarosa)
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg)
Wild Life (Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby)

Live Action Shorts (1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.)
Pentecost (Peter McDonald and Eimear O’Kane)
Raju (Max Zähle and Stefan Gieren)
The Shore (Terry George and Oorlagh George)
Time Freak (Andrew Bowler and Gigi Causey)
Tuba Atlantic (Hallvar Witzø)

Documentary Shorts (3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.)
Incident in New Baghdad (James Spione)
Saving Face (Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy)
The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement (Robin Fryday and Gail Dolgin)
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom (Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen)

Special Screening (5:00 p.m.)
Poetry of Resilience (Katja Esson and Corinna Sager)