2018 WYO Film Fest

Arizona, 1994 – Following a fateful encounter, a seasoned con man grown-reckless with confidence begins to feel the pressure of his criminal past catching up with him. As his paranoia grows and his psyche begins to unravel, Robert Dundley must choose between the secret life he’s built, and the restitution of his neglected family.

2018 / UNITED STATES / 22 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Mike Overton
WRITTER: Mike Overton, Matthew Ramey
PRODUCER: Matthew Ramey
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Neema Sadeghi

When Kevin Davis first began running, he was overweight and out of shape. He tried, but failed to finish a 1-mile run. Now, years later, he runs 100-mile races. He uses that fitness to support his other passion – backcountry hunting. In 2017, Davis was selected to run the Hardrock 100. Two months later he attempts a backcountry mountain goat hunt in the wilds of Alaska. The film looks at the crossover between endurance sports and hunting, and the need for public lands and wild places to do both.

2018 / UNITED STATES / 13 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Erik Petersen
PRODUCER: Erik Petersen

Two young women share a moment on the subway, but will they end up on the track to true love or will they miss their connection?

2017 / United States / 5:16 Minutes

DIRCTOR: Dee Herlihy
WRITER: Anna Russell
PRODUCER: Anna Russell

Backwoods poet Joe Sawyer takes the viewers on a first person journey into a rich past, riddled with escapades, and a present that offers humor and clarity through his poetry.

2017 / UNITED STATES / 7 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Kier Atherton

France meets her son’s girlfriend for the first time. She loses control…

2017 / BELGIUM / 20 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Séverine De Streyker, Maxime Feyers
WRITER: Séverine De Streyker, Maxime Feyers
PRODUCER: Maxime Feyers
EDITOR: Mathieu Toulemonde
SOUND: Bruno Schweiguth

In a city of people trying to catch a break, one lucky man hooks into an unexpected dream that becomes the roll of a lifetime, reminding him to seize each new day as a chance to do what he loves.

2017 / UNITED STATES / 6:25 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Jake Gigliotti, Kevin Shiramizu

DIRECTOR: Gustavo Rosa
WRITER: Gustavo Rosa
PRODUCER: Edna Mateus, Brendon Kingsbury, Joao Otavio Rosa

What Cynthia thinks is a perfect first date turns out to be anything but when she finds out she is on a reality dating show.

2018 / UNITED STATES / 7:18 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Joel Jay Blacker
WRITER: Samuel Roots
PRODUCER: Joel Jay Blacker, Heather Voorhis

COWBOY TOWN is short documentary film about a roadside ghost town of a replica ghost town with decaying automatons in rural South Dakota.

2018 / UNITED STATES / 8:45 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Jennifer Boles

A stop-motion film about a man’s endless hunt for elusive energy sources in a decaying world.

2018 / UNITED STATES / 3:50 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Bismark Fernandes
WRITER: Bismark Fernandes
PRODUCER: Bismark Fernandes
CONCEPT ART: Kaisha Gwen, Deirdre Beck, Kiyomi Ong
CHARACTER DESIGNER: Stefaniya Dvoyak
ANIMATOR: Bismark Fernandes, Andrés Eduardo, Corey Householder, Paige Hurd
COSTUME DESIGNERS: Franklin Brown, Kristen Heritage
FABRICATORS: Enna Chow, Zoe Huddleston, Naomi Wiener, Paul Rabbitt, Jackie Nash, Paige Hurd, Jacklyn Meyers, Margo Glass
VISUAL EFFECTS: Mazyar Sharifian
SOUND: Abhijit Roy, Colin Andrew Grant
CO-PRODUCER: Jahnvi Shah

It’s the night before the wedding and The Groom discovers he’s made a huge mistake. With the help of his two loyal Groomsmen, can Liam fix it before disaster strikes? Or is it already too late

2018 / AUSTRALIA / 7 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Shane Emmett
WRITER: Shane Emmett
PRODUCER: Josephine Emmett
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Sam Vincent
SOUND: John Roy
MUSIC: John Roy
EDITOR: John Roy

“Long Yearning” is a cinematic exploration of the lives of Chinese factory workers and the nature of repetitive industrialized work. The film is intermixed with written excerpts of traditional Chinese poetry, creating a surreal merging between modern and ancient China.

2017 / CHINA / 25 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Elliot J. Spencer
WRITER: Elliot J. Spencer
PRODUCER: Elliot J. Spencer

An exhausted young mom on the run from an abusive home life desperately seeks a quiet moment to process all that’s happening but parenting an active, watchful toddler along the way means she needs to stay on her game.

2016 / UNITED STATES / 13:45 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Nancy Bannon
WRITER: Nancy Bannon
PRODUCER: Jeremy Skidmore

The contestants for Miss Snake Charmer are not your typical high school beauty queens. These teens must show they are more than just pretty faces—that they have the guts and grit to win America’s toughest beauty pageant. Contestants must prove their bravery by killing and skinning a rattlesnake before showcasing their talents and evening wear. The winner then spends the weekend reigning over pits of live vipers during the World’s Largest Rattlesnake Roundup.

2018 / UNITED STATES / 1 HOUR, 6 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Rachael Waxler, EmaLee Arroyo
PRODUCER: Rachael Waxler, EmaLee Arroyo, Brian Leong

The melancholic space odyssey of a daydreamer…

2017 / FRANCE / 5:23 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Bruno Mazzocchi
WRITER: Bruno Mazzocchi

Neltje is an 82 year old woman living just outside Sheridan, WY.

She was born Neltje Doubleday, yet for years she has used no last name and goes solely by Neltje. Her grandfather started Doubleday & McClure Company, which over the years became Doubleday Publishing.

This film is a companion to her book/memoir, North Of Crazy. It captures a schizoid upbringing where on one hand she is surrounded by wealth and art’s glitterati, but on the other hand she is farmed out to relatives, servants and boarding schools like a child in a Charles Dickens novel. Her mother was trying to make Neltje into a corporate wife and brood mare. Neltje tried to find love by pleasing her family, husbands, and lovers but none of it worked. Although the memoir states it, this film shows that she has found love in nature, beauty, art and of course, dogs.

2018 / UNITED STATES / 12:36 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Robin Layton

Public lands define us as Americans, but this unique birthright is not free from the perils of toxic politics, insatiable greed and destructive developments. Luckily, a new generation of public land warriors and scientists are diligently fighting to understand and conserve our American heritage. Our Wild is a short film that showcases the hard work of three fly fishing obsessed biologists who are dead set on better understanding mule deer migrations in Wyoming. When this trio of inspiring women are not collecting data across diverse and rugged landscapes, they can be found tenaciously chasing hungry trout and wading the waters of Wyoming’s wild public lands. This film is the epitome of a passion project and was entirely self funded. It was shot and directed by Benjamin Kraushaar and narrated by wildlife biologist, Anna Ortega.”

2017 / UNITED STATES / 5 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Benjamin Kraushaar
WRITER: Benjamin Kraushaar, Anna Ortega
PRODUCER: Benjamin Kraushaar

A 360 degree immersive documentary about artists who have used their work to protest and challenge society. From Da Vinci and the renaissance to Banksy and the street artists of the 21st century, this film lets you step inside an international history of art.

UNITED KINGDOM / 5:27 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Darren R. Reid, Brett Sanders

Patrolling the streets of Clearwater, FL in bright red spandex is a man known around the world as “Superhero”. He helps the homeless, provides charity to sick and disadvantaged children, aids stranded motorists, and patrols the streets to prevent crime. Using Godzilla, Star Trek, Superheroes and Science Fiction movies as his role models he overcomes a troubled childhood to become A Real Life Superhero.

2017 / UNITED STATES / 14:56 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Tony Armer

The residents of Louisiana never know what will attack them next: floods, hurricanes, even monstrous swamp rats. Gigantic orange-toothed nutria are eating up the coastal wetlands, destroying the landscape, and threatening the very existence of the human population. This invasive South American species breeds faster than the roving squads of hunters and trappers can control them. But the people who have lived here for generations are not the type of folks who let their land—and their livelihoods—recede into the Gulf without a fight. Meet fisherman turned bounty hunter Thomas Gonzales and a pack of colorful diehards as they defend their land, culture, and way of life against the unforgiving forces of nature. It is man vs. rodent. May the best mammal win.

2017 / UNITED STATES / 1:11 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Chris Metzler, Jeff Springer, Quinn Costello
PRODUCER: Chris Metzler, Jeff Springer, Quinn Costello
MUSIC: Lost Bayou Ramblers

Lloyd is a man in his late-20s who works as a freelance sound mixer in Kansas City, MO. Lloyd loves his job, is good at it, and has a nice, stable life… but he can’t seem to let go of an unfulfilled dream. “Room Tone” explores an artist’s conflict–the fine line that separates joy and self-doubt.

2018 / UNITED STATES / 14:59 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Morgan Cooper
WRITER: Morgan Cooper
PRODUCER: Courtney Hopkins, Johnny Starke
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Morgan Cooper

Simple Rotation is an open living system that is in entropy, moving towards equilibrium. It’s a rigid yet fluid body that maintains itself while it develops and evolves, inspired by process and progress – the essence of life.

It combines abstract, atmospheric landscapes that shift and evolve from a rigid system to an organic one, with chaotic and orderly spaces that interact with each other while breathing to the music. Form and music work together in harmony to orchestrate a powerful balance.

All the seemingly interdependent dualities of order and chaos, rigid and fluid, come together, as complementary forces.

Likewise, the music is both rigid and elastic, while the living system keeps moving and pulsing into a constantly flourishing, fluid space.

Musically, harmonies and textures unfold against a backdrop of a one-note synth/piano ostinato. John Kameel Farah is a Canadian composer-pianist. Farah now focuses primarily on his own creative hybrid of improvisation, composition and electronic music. Simultaneously using piano, synthesizer, computer, and at times harpsichord, his solo performances exist somewhere between the concert hall and an experimental DJ set, mixing forays into free improvisation, jazz, electroacoustics, middle-eastern modes, and ambient minimalism and distilling them into cohesive, imaginative surrealistic structures.

2017 / GERMANY / 4:08 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Sahar Homami
COMPOSER: John Kameel Farah

When the ultimate tragedy happens to Summers Moore and her family, she turns to art and the outdoors to turn grief into hope. Summers creates an amazing community along her journey of grieving.

2018 / UNITED STATES / 14:23 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Meredith McKee
WRITER: Meredith McKee
PRODUCER: Meredith McKee

Set amidst the rugged mountains of Northern California, THE END OF WEED, is a short homage to a passing California way of life, that of the independent dope grower. Fires, heavy rains, and endless physical toil fill the days of the small grower over the agrarian year in which filmmaker and farmer document his crop. Spanning backwards from winter to spring, the result is ruminative and close to the ground.

January 1st marked the beginning of a new era of cannabis legalization in California. While much reporting about the political and social implications of this shift has been done, little attention has been given to the people and communities who created the existing weed landscape and how they will be affected. The enormous shift of power and economics full legalization will bring impacts far beyond cannabis itself. It remains to be seen how such rural economies will be transformed by the “gold rush fever” grabbing of land, seed patents, and water rights.

This is a film about marijuana as a once-powerful engine of iconoclastic, land-based homesteading in an era in which it is increasingly a slickly-marketed, corporate investment opportunity. As such it is as much a meditation on the beauty of life in the mountains, in the garden, and on the edges of society and economy. A view from the garden rather than a detached story of economics and change.

2017 / UNITED STATES / 15 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
PRODUCER: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan

Old lonely Owl dreams of having his own family. In his travels he comes upon a large skulk of foxes playing together. Owl thinks they are beautiful and he watches over them for many days and nights. He wishes he could have such a beautiful family. One fox is different, she notices Owl and watches him. Owl flies down to meet her and showing off his charms, becomes a part of the skulk. Foxx and Owl fall in love, but their love is met with contention driving Foxx and Owl away to try to find happiness together.

This is a true legend based on a love story between a Native Canadian woman and a non-Native man, taking place sometime between 1867-1985 when the Indian Act of Canada suppressed the rights of Indigenous women married to a non-Native.

2017 / CANADA / 10:39 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Tara Audibert
WRITER: Tara Audibert
PRODUCER: Tara Audibert

A short experimental film that serves as an adaptation of Mexico’s famed female writer, Rosario Castellano’s novel, “The Book of Lamentations.” The Stag’s Mirror is a construct of interlaced imagery and text that establishes a break with progressive documentary text and how it is represented. The film is both a story and a critique of traditional ethnographic film. Animations/glitches in the film serve to veil and redefine the presentation of cultural presentation.

2019 / UNITED STATES / 16 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Robin Starbuck
WRITER: Robin Starbuck
FIRST CAMERA: Scott Duce, Robin Starbuck
SECOND CAMERA: Jeremiah Davis, Tori Himes, Hannah Rifkin
ORIGINAL MUSIC: John Yannelli
FIELD PRODUCER: Scott Duce

When bride-to-be Mae hits a wall writing a song for her future husband, she solicits the guidance of her musician friend Johnnie, who helps her find the inspiration she was lacking.

2017 / UNITED STATES / 13:43 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Thia Schuessler, Rex New
WRITER: Thia Schuessler, Rex New
PRODUCER: Thia Schuessler, Rex New

Lift is important for thunderstorm formation, and where the Rockies meet the Great Plains, the most common source of lift is called upslope flow. Easterly winds bump into the mountains and moist air gets forced upwards. Storms are formed and pushed out onto the plains where they may become supercells producing all kinds of severe weather: strong winds, large hail, flooding, and tornadoes. This time lapse film, titled “Upslope Flow,” is the culmination of months of chasing these storms across the Northern Plains, with 5,000 miles driven across 4 states. Jaw-dropping storm structure, awesome displays of power and beauty, and incredible sunsets are some of the things I was blessed to see and capture. A few shots from the previous 2 years were included, but 2018 has been a much more active season for chasing this area. I love the challenge of learning as much as I can about these storms, and attempting to be in the right place at the right time to see them. As the season was waning, I still lacked the tornado shot I needed to finish up the film. But at the end of June, I finally had the chance to time lapse a photogenic tornado, which I’ve been seeking for many years.

2018 / UNITED STATES / 4:45 MINUTES

MUSIC: James Everingham

The life of a man through his hands and the ones around him…

2018 / FRANCE / 3:40 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: Michaël Barocas
WRITER: Michaël Barocas
PRODUCER: Michaël Barocas

In 2011, Russia’s largest meat producer, Miratorg, began recruiting American cowboys to help restart a national beef industry that had been destroyed during the Soviet era.

Wrangling Russia follows four of these American cowboys as they attempt to train their Russian counterparts and create new lives for themselves and their families in this new unexpected Russian frontier.

2017 / UNITED STATES / 11 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: ilie mitaru
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Flemming Laursen
EDITOR: Ilie Mitaru