Blogging Dallas Video Festival: Night Two

A still from "The Pleaure of Being Robbed."

The first night of the 21st Annual Dallas Video Festival was a great success! We're so excited to be in our third decade of programming innovative, though-provoking video art in north Texas.

Everyone loved Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, which actually exceeded my wildest expectations. It deserves its title as best fan film ever made. Read more about it in the first post of this festival blog.

A huge crowd came to see Champ: The Steve Mitchell Story, which is a touching documentary about a man who overcomes serious physical handicaps to become an excellent boxer. His life story would make an excellent feature film, (he's a real-life Rocky), if only Hollywood would listen. Thankfully, local documentarians Elizabeth Spear and Mark Birnbaum have shed some light on his story for us.

I also enjoyed a compilation of German music videos. Two in particular, one for a song called "Blood Sample" and another, "Good Morning Stranger," were really cool. "Blood Sample" is, in fact, a visual-sample, a mash-up of '70s glamour ads, and a dissolution into some distant corner of the television universe. Come to think of it, even "Good Morning" is a post-modern collage of visual culture, but brilliantly enshrines YouTube videos, the clips and glimpses of which represent the thousands of ways people have chosen to say "good morning" all over the planet (we can see the music video "narrator" searching YouTube on-screen for terms like "good morning" or "waking").

Don't miss the installation pieces in the foyer outside the HBO and AMS theaters. 88 Constellations is interactive Flash art which transports the viewer through worm holes in space to arrive at fragments of knowledge, loosely connected by whimsical philosophies of fancy and linguistic curiosities. Non-linear lovers of Wikipedia, this is for you.

Tonight's program will be just as exciting, between feature A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy, and The Wrecking Crew, a documentary about backup musicians of the '60s. Don't miss our Guts 'n Glory competition, and festival-favorite The Pleasure of Being Robbed.

Related Links:
Dallas Video Festival: website and blog
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation: website
The Wrecking Crew: website
The Pleasure of Being Robbed: website

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