Revelation Film Festival 2009

An animated version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw.

Santinho is a young man considered to be a saint after performing a miracle following his mother's suicide, in a riverside community in the Alto Amazonas.

In his quest to become the world's greatest air-drummer, a small-town dreamer must overcome obstacles and ridicule to save the day.

It's the 30th anniversary of the Rolling Stones' disastrous concert at Altamont. Deep inside an abandoned nuclear missile silo in the middle of the California desert, indie rock legend turned recluse Richard Havoc and his band of alt-rock misfits sequester themselves 15 stories underground as a giant F-U to "The Man." When a mysteriously square journalist infiltrates the gratingly endless parade of "Alternative Nation" posturing and lame angst-y whining, all Hell breaks loose. Can the power of rock save Havoc and the world from nuclear devastation? Or will Havoc wreak havoc, taking half the country with im in his effort to find something (anything) to rebel against? A comedic slice of Indie Rock Apocalypse, Altamont Now is a biting satire of how the "alternative" youth culture of America lifts its rebellion from the past. Borrowing the form of the Maysles' Gimme Shelter that documented the Rolling Stones' tragic Altamont concert, Altamont Now presents a unique reversioning of 1960s rock-sploitation films, Black Panther-style revolutionary rhetoric, and cinema verite to portray an eerily emblematic group of youth who have nothing worth rebelling for. Altamont Now is a uniquely humorous and critical meditation on the state of youth rebellion in America today.

Told in three segments ranging from satirical to tragic, the film is a wildly original look at American manners, prejudices, and family dynamics.

In the near future laws against smoking have increased to the point where you must live in a certain part of town called the Smoking Section if want to smoke cigarettes. Once you have passed the line of demarcation you just know you've crossed the tracks because things get a little grimier, a little more industrial. The sky is a little blacker. The mood is heavier. Someone might get hurt. Cigarettes now cost $63.49 a pack, yet the money derived from this tax obviously isn't going toward this dystopian corner of the city. If you travel there to smoke or to buy (because it is also illegal to buy on the 'clean' side of town) there are several options, but the main place is the Vice Club. There you will find old fashion Cigarette Girls like our heroine with no name. The Vice Club was actually a cigarette factory built in 1935 and designed by the very best deco influenced architects. The original owners even installed a giant 50 foot long Iron cigarette on top of the building that tipped into an gigantic ashtray. One hundred years later that cigarette is cancer coated with rust but still tilts back and forth - if the wind is strong enough, making a horrible squeak on it's axis that is heard through out the city. Cigarette Girl becomes an angel of death when she stops smoking and starts killing on the third day to alleviate her acute psychological withdrawal manifested primarily by the ghost of a cowboy who is always on her back to keep smoking. Cigarette Girl would rather kill than smoke.

two star cross'd lovers plunge into the neon KX night chasing a happy ending.

A ski vacation turns horrific for a group of medical students, as they find themselves confronted by an unimaginable menace: Nazi zombies.

A look at the relationship between a lonely introverted girl and a young video store clerk vying for her attention.

Henry has been acting the human chameleon all his life - a pale reflection of other people's expectations. One day Henry's best friend Jon talks him into opening a restaurant with him in Spain. Before leaving Henry is caught up in a maelstrom of bizarre events. In order to get control over his life Henry needs to stop being a pale copy and transform himself to the sparkling original he really is. A journey, which requires both a passport and trip into his own twisted mind. And a journey which lay bare the path to love in the most unexpected places.

In 1920s Los Angeles, a bedridden patient in a hospital captivates a young girl with a fantastic tale of heroes, myths, and villains on a desert island.

A futuristic story about a man and his clone.

Alexander Pearce, Australia's notorious convict, escaped Macquarie Harbour in 1822, finding the harsh Australian wilderness and abandoning hope in the harsh Australian wilderness.

After a bad gambling bet, a schoolteacher is marooned in a town full of crazy, drunk, violent men who threaten to make him just as crazy, drunk, and violent.

Chronicles the rise and fall of 1970s New York City nightclub Plato's Retreat.

A documentary on the iconography of Che Guevara.

Faubourg Treme documents the enduring legacy of one of the United States' oldest African American communities, an area just outside the French Quarter of New Orleans.

Artist Brion Gysin developed the Dream Machine. The device has in its core a 100-watt light bulb, which is surrounded by a spinning open column with windows to allow the light to shine through. To be experienced with ones eyes closed, the Dream Machine has a flickering effect of light and dark, much like a strobe light. The experience has been described as hypnotic or hallucinogenic. Some have called the Dream Machine a drug-less high. Gysin, through archival interviews, many of the Dream Machine's users, some of whom are friends of Gysin, and scientists tell of their experiences with the machine and speculate on its physiological effects.

April 1994, on a quiet road in Kigali a group of neighbors was filmed. But this was the opening days of the Rwandan Genocide. This documentary re-visits the scene following the cameraman, victims, survivors, killers and witnesses. But all they were unaware that they were filmed, that this moment unlike a dream can be replayed, each character watches the footage, each has a very different interest and emotion. From the original footage the story follows a thread of revelation, so many souls lost in the mist of ethnic hatred, they came together for one terrible hour on a quiet road.

In Mexico there is a cult that is rapidly growing- the cult of Saint Death. This female grim reaper, considered a saint by followers but Satanic by the Catholic Church, is worshiped by people whose lives are filled with danger and/or who don't feel accepted by the church- criminals and gang members, sick people, drug addicts, gays and transsexuals and families living in rough neighborhoods. Narrated by Gael García Bernal, "La Santa Muerte" examines the origins of the cult and takes us on a tour of the altars, jails, and neighborhoods in Mexico where the saint's most devoted followers can be found.

A documentary about composer/producer/performer J.G. Thirlwell and his musical alter-egos, including Foetus, Steroid Maximus and Manorexia.

Jack Kerouac escapes from post "On The Road" fame to his dream of an isolated retreat in a cabin at Big Sur, where he searches for inner peace. His road comes full circle with this self-exploration, resulting in an alcohol-fueled paranoia and a plunge into madness.

A filmed account of the Zaire 74 soul music festival, originally intended to be in concert with the famous Rumble in the Jungle bout in Kinshasa, Zaire in 1974.

The End reveals the bloody history and confessions of the cockney gangster.

The epic tale of David Fandila's quest to become the world's top-ranked bullfighter.