aiff_program09_interior.xp 3/2/09 3:55 PM Page 42
features
Throughout the festival, audience members vote on all
films in competition to determine audience award
winners. Winning films in all categories are announced at
the Awards Celebration Sunday, April 5 (p9). Juried and
Audience award-winning features will have additional
screenings on Monday, April 6. Tickets are on sale now!
Awards
Children of Invention
Juried Best Feature
86 minutes a73 2009 a73 USA a73 In Competition
Best Cinematography/The Gerald Hirschfeld A.S.C.
Award: Feature
Thursday 6:10p
a73
Friday 9:10p
a73
Saturday 3:10p
Sunday 9:40a
a73
Monday 3:10p
Juried Best Acting Ensemble: Feature
John C. Schweiger Audience Award: Dramatic Feature
Plays with: Steel Homes (p37)
tures
Director/Screenwriter: Tze Chun a73 Executive Producer: Dan Cogan a73 Producers: Mynette
Jurors – Best Feature Louie, Trevor Sagan a73 Cinematographer: Chris Teague a73 Editor: Anna Boden a73 Composer: T.
Griffin a73 Principal Cast: Michael Chen, Cindy Cheung, Crystal Chiu a73
childrenofinvention.com
f
e
a
RICHARD BEER is the Artistic Director of Film
Action Oregon and the Hollywood Theatre
Project, where he oversees all of their exhibition,
After being evicted from their home, the Cheng family finds
production and education programs. He has
that times are tighter than ever. Hardworking single mom Elaine
spent more than 20 years working in the film
tries desperately to find the means to support her young
exhibition and distribution business and with
children, Raymond and Tina. They squat in a model apartment
film festivals around the world.
in an unfinished building outside Boston, but try to maintain a
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normal life. Elaine juggles a number of jobs, including working
STAN HALL is a Portland freelance writer
for a questionable pyramid scheme.
currently writing for The Oregonian. In
Meanwhile, Raymond and Tina become latch-key kids and find
addition to standalone film reviews, he writes
a weekly column, beyond the multiplex, which
amusement in building childish inventions. In an unexpected
gives attention to independent, foreign and
test of resourcefulness, they are left to fend for themselves
documentary offerings at Portland’s indie
when their mother disappears. Based on Tze Chun’s own
movie houses.
award-winning short film Windowbreaker, Children of Invention
is a drama about the influence of an adult world on children,
BARRY SABATH is Senior Lecturer/Senior Men-
the immigrant mentality, and shortcuts to the American dream.
tor at the American Film Institute Conser vatory.
His feature film development experience in-
Tze Chun
cludes work with 20th Century Fox and Colum-
Director’s Statement
bia Pictures. He is producing a horror film project
at MGM and serves as a mentor for the Korean From the time I was eight till I turned
Film Council Filmmakers Development Lab.
fourteen, my sister and I followed my
mother to countless seminars and
Additional Acting Ensemble Juror
conventions. Most of the time we got out
before we lost money. Sometimes we didn’t.
TY BURRELL is an actor in film (Fur, Friends
When I wrote the film, I was writing a
with Money), television (Out of Practice, Back to
personal story about the world I grew up in—a subculture of
You) and theatre (Burn This, Richard III). He
Americans trying to get-rich-quick in order to get themselves
wrote and produced Babble in NY and is a
out of a financial hole. I didn’t foresee the current financial
graduate of Southern Oregon University and
the Penn State Theatre Arts MFA program.
crisis. But with the economy tanking now and foreclosures
going through the roof, it seems like everyone’s living through
some version of what the Chengs go through in the film.
Juror – Best Cinematography
I hope this film can be a reminder that we’ve had bad times
GERALD HIRSCHFELD A.S.C, is the D.P. of
before, individually and as a country, but we’ve always made it
45+ films including Fail-Safe and Young
out fine. America’s a melting pot. It’s made up of immigrants
Frankenstein. He is the author of Image Control
who are, by the nature of their journey here, survivors. It’s what
and is a member of the Academy of Motion
we’re best at, and it’s what we’ll continue to do.
Picture Arts and Sciences. He received the
A.S.C.’s Presidents Award and the AIFF’s Filmography: Back to the Front, Document, The Long Wave Goodbye, Pink and Blue/Two
Lifetime Achievement Award (2004). Histories and a Summer, Windowbreaker
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