Registration is not required to browse the site, track audience buzz, and learn about the festival. If you choose to register, you can create a personal festival calendar, rate and review films, and receive updates about upcoming screenings.
It appears that your browser has JavaScript disabled or Your browser may not support JavaScript! This may cause some limitations and problems in the application work.
Films List
Here you'll find a list of all of the films at the festival. Use the drop-down controls below to help filter your selections and find what you're looking for. Roll-over any film image for more detail on the film.
Using the visual inspiration of a Rembrandt painting to evoke a moody, artistic tableau, the film juxtaposes the extravagant, pricey items offered at an auction with a non-descript, battered violin. The upscale, well-attired patrons are placed alongside a seemingly ordinary janitor. When the hidden potential is revealed it changes lives.
Office drone Helen Parks sits at her grim desk, as she does every day, processing office-supply request forms. Each one gets stamped with a big, fat "No." Helen is used to saying no. When her coworkers offer her raffle tickets, cookies, an invitation to lunch, the answer is always the same: "No." After another sorry lunch (alone, of course) Helen gazes wistfully at her coworkers eating and laughing together in the employee courtyard. She happens to notice the employee bulletin board. Odd, the words on the various layers of notices and pamphlets seem to be spelling out a message, "What...if &you &said &Yes?"On her way home Helen happens upon a homeless woman asking for spare change. It's business as usual, Helen says no. But then, a change of heart. "What &if &you &said &Yes?" And she does. And she likes it.From then on, nothing is the same. To every proposition Helen says yes, not knowing where the yes's will take her - to the bowels of crime or to the heights of regal glory. In the end she's discovered the freedom to say yes to being alive.
ZEPHYR, a dance film choreographed by Nadine Helstroffer, features a trio of sleepy, wind-ruffled blossoms in the green soul of New York City. At times giddy, at times poignant, this surreal take on spring celebrates the fluidity of being - the elusiveness of it all within the gift of each moment.Dance and environment rise together in a vision of luminous transience where the flow of the dancers, the play of the light and the touch of the wind permeate each other. Their shimmering quality yields a unique moment in the natural life of a great city - a fleeting passage reflecting our very own evanescence.The music, tranquil yet lyrical, comes from the album, The Golden Morning Breaks, by French composer Colleen (aka Cecile Schott). This piece, played only with acoustic instruments, combines playful chimes, droning guitar and keyboards into a delicate soundscape of waves and textures. The melody glistens with the light of spring time.ZEPHYR is part of a series of four shorts filmed by John Bush and choreographed by Nadine Helstroffer, each corresponding to a season, shot outdoors in NYC and environs and portraying dance as urban pilgrimage.
