News

The Ann Arbor Film Festival celebrates its epic 53rd annual edition on March 24-29 with a colossal selection of experimental short films and features.

Feature film highlights include the documentary Speculation Nation by regular collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat, which examines the recent Spanish housing crisis; a new ethnographic doc by Ben Russell, Greetings to the Ancestors, which plunges deep into the culture of South Africa; and Jenni Olson’s grand California study The Royal Road.

Short film highlights include the much anticipated new film by Jennifer Reeder, Blood Below the Skin, a narrative following a week in the dramatic and romantic lives of three teenage girls; a new music video by Mike Olenick called Beautiful Things with music by The Wet Things; new animations by Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow, and Lewis Klahr, Mars Garden; plus new experimental work by Vanessa Renwick, Peggy Ahwesh and Zachary Epcar.

Special...

At the end of a nearly three-kilometer cable car journey in Nepal is the temple of the Goddess Bhagwati. The journey takes approximately ten minutes to complete. Each year, thousands of Hindus participate in the Manakamana Darshan, a pilgrimage to the temple to worship the Goddess and to have their wishes granted. On the surface, a film documenting this expedition could be rather tedious. But Manakamana filmmakers Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez have crafted a fascinating, observational film that far exceeds expectations (shot on the same 16mm camera that Robert Gardner used for his remarkable Forest of Bliss). >> - Jonathan Marlow...

At the end of a nearly three-kilometer cable car journey in Nepal is the temple of the Goddess Bhagwati. The journey takes approximately ten minutes to complete. Each year, thousands of Hindus participate in the Manakamana Darshan, a pilgrimage to the temple to worship the Goddess and to have their wishes granted. On the surface, a film documenting this expedition could be rather tedious. But Manakamana filmmakers Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez have crafted a fascinating, observational film that far exceeds expectations (shot on the same 16mm camera that Robert Gardner used for his remarkable Forest of Bliss). >> - Jonathan Marlow...

The great ethnographic filmmaker Robert Gardner has died at the age of 88. "Gardner’s films, including early and later masterworks like Dead Birds (1964) and Forest of Bliss (1986), are about people whose realities and stories belong to them," wrote Manohla Dargis in the New York Times in 2011. "He shares in those realities rather than trying to possess them." We survey Gardner's ideas and impact. » - David Hudson...

The great ethnographic filmmaker Robert Gardner has died at the age of 88. "Gardner’s films, including early and later masterworks like Dead Birds (1964) and Forest of Bliss (1986), are about people whose realities and stories belong to them," wrote Manohla Dargis in the New York Times in 2011. "He shares in those realities rather than trying to possess them." We survey Gardner's ideas and impact. » - David Hudson...