EUGENE, Ore.—(April 1, 2015) — The University of Oregon’s sixth annual Cinema Pacific film festival returns to Eugene April 27–May 3 with an array of films, exhibitions, parties and performances.

Focusing on cinema from Pacific-bordering countries, this year’s festival will give special emphasis to films created in the state of Oregon. The festival’s opening night will feature the “Adrenaline Film Project,” a 72-hour film workshop in which 12 teams of aspiring Oregon filmmakers mentored by professional filmmakers pitch, write, shoot and edit a film in three days, culminating in a public screening and prize presentations.

Also being presented on opening night is the Oregon premiere of “Bad Exorcists” from former “Adrenaline Film Project” competitor and UO alumnus Kyle Steinbach. The Cinema Studies graduate’s comedic horror film had its world debut in the Cinequest Film Festival in February.

UO alumna and former track and field athlete Alexi Pappas and her partner Jeremy Teicher will present the Eugene premiere of their acclaimed feature “Tall as the Baobab Tree,” which was filmed in Africa. They will also and show an illustrated presentation on their Eugene-based work-in-progress, Tracktown. 

In addition, documentaries by Oregon filmmakers will be shown including two new films about Oregon rivers. “Mending the Line” tells the story of Umpqua River fly fisherman Frank Moore, who will join director Steve Engman at the Bijou on May 2. Environmental activist and former Oregon legislator Jason Atkinson will join co-director Jeff Martin in presenting their account of the water rights battles around the Klamath River, “A River Between Us,” on May 3. 

UO Sociology Professor Michael Dreiling will preview his work-in-progress documentary, “A Bold Peace,” on the impact of Costa Rica’s radical choice of national disarmament.  Also, UO Professor Daniel Miller will premiere a new short film inspired by James Blue’s “The March,” supplemented by a newly discovered 1950s version of “Hamlet,” which was found in the UO Libraries’ James Blue Archive. 

Other highlights of the festival this year include:

THE ARTS OF WUSHU

Cinema Pacific is joining with the UO Confucius Institute for “The Arts of Wushu” to highlight the full-contact sport derived from Chinese martial arts. The UO’s Wushu Club has partnered to bring Master Hu Jianqiang, the highest-ranking Wushu master in the West, for a special exhibition titled “Masters of Chinese Martial Arts” on May 3. In addition, following a screening of “Tai Chi Zero,” Chinese superstar Daniel Wu will join the event via Skype. Wu founded the UO’s Wushu Club while enrolled as a student and is currently in Los Angeles shooting the AMC TV series Badlands. 

Building up to that program will be a series of wuxia film milestones, beginning with King Hu’s “A Touch of Zen” (1971), on April 28. Wuxia made its biggest American splash with Ang Lee’s Academy Award-winning “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000), which will be introduced on May 1 by Appalachian State College film scholar Kin-yan Szeto.  Eric Lin, senior manager of film production for China’s Bona Film Group and an alumnus of the UO’s School of Journalism and Communication, will talk in Allen Hall about popular genre film production in China today.

FOCUS: THE PHILIPPINES

Four leading directors of Filipino cinema will have works on display at this year’s Cinema Pacific. Kidlat Tahimik will premiere his 35-year effort “Balikbayan #1 (aka Memories of Overdevelopment),” which just won the Caligari Prize at the Berlin Film Festival in February. Tahimik will also present his classic 1977 feature “The Perfumed Nightmare” and offer a live performance in the Fringe Festival on May 2.

Hannah Espia is the rising talent who made a splash last year with the Philippines’ 2013 Academy Award submission, “Transit,” which tells intertwined stories of Filipino guest workers in Israel. Filmmaker Raya Martin will be represented by “La Ultima Pelicula” and Lav Diaz by one of his relatively shorter works, the 251-minute “Norte, the End of History,” a contemporary adaptation of “Crime and Punishment.”

THE FRINGE FESTIVAL

The annual Fringe Festival includes multimedia and interactive media installations and live performances. Attendees can play new computer games designed by Portland’s Mountain Machine Studios and by animator Joanna Priestley, who will present their work in person. Attendees can see winning video remixes of the wuxia martial arts classic “A Touch of Zen,” dance and sing in the Manny Paquiao Karaoke Bar and Dance Club, and perform martial arts moves with the UO Wushu Club in the Wushu Photobooth. 

AMERICAN EXPERIMENTAL MEDIA

Cinema Pacific’s Schnitzer Cinema, the monthly series at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, has devoted this year to the history of American Experimental Media. The series has been building towards the arrival of two special attraction—the exhibition of “Frozen Film Frames: Portraits of Filmmakers” by Jonas Mekas, on view at the Schnitzer Museum through June 7, and two talks during the Cinema Pacific film festival by Scott MacDonald, the leading explicator of American avant-garde film.

Ticket information
Tickets for all shows are available online through April 24 at cinemapacific.uoregon.edu/schedule and at the UO Ticket Office, 541-346-4363.

Matinees (before 6 p.m.): students and seniors $6
General admission (after 6 p.m.): $8
Adrenaline Film Project and afterparty: students and seniors $7; general $10
Fringe Festival: students, seniors and museum members: $5; general $10