Shelf Life
Directed by Don Bernier

* NY Premiere *
29 min - 2008 - USA - English - Color

Shelf Life is a short documentary exploring one man's passion for collecting. Since his youth, Raymond Bandar, retired high school science teacher and long-time volunteer Field Associate for the California Academy of Sciences, has been collecting bones of all kinds.

Today, Bandar has more than 7,000 cataloged specimens tightly stored in his home - mostly skulls of marine mammals that he's personally salvaged for both scientific data and personal pleasure. His wife of 50 years, artist Alkmene Bandar, has only one rule: no skulls in the bedroom.

Woodpecker
Directed by Alex Karpovsky
87 min - 2008 - USA - English - Color

Fanatical birdwatchers have descended upon a small town in the Arkansas bayou in hopes of finding the celebrated Ivory Billed Woodpecker. Declared extinct in the 1940’s, the bird has apparently been spotted by numerous experts.

Enter amateur birder and poet Johnny Neander, who has convinced his taciturn sidekick that he will be the one to find the elusive woodpecker. The ensuing chaos divides the small town between believers and non-believers, rabid environmentalist and opportunistic entrepreneurs.

Much like the bird itself, Woodpecker explores the intersection of fact and fiction, manipulating our notions of documentary and narrative techniques within a tragic comedy about hope, perception, and some very very strange birds.