Words You Can Use: The BAVC BLOG

By Wendy Levy, Director of Creative Programming at BAVC

The roster of films chosen to screen at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival was announced last week, and as always, I rushed to see who I know, who I used to know, who has worked at BAVC, and so on . . .

This year, I was thrilled to see that local boy Brett Simon has a new film, ASSASSINATION OF A HIGH SCHOOL PRESIDENT (now called The Sophmore), that will premiere at the festival. From what I’ve read, it’s a “noir mystery caper a la Chinatown” set in a Catholic High School. Michael Rappaport, Bruce Willis and his daughter Rumer, and Mischa Barton star in the film. I’ve been a fan of Brett Simon from his days as a grad student at UC Berkeley — I showed two of his short films at the Film Arts Festival of Independent Cinema in 2001, the brilliant Counterfeit Film and Switch Fish. Brett moved to LA in 2004 and became a hotter-than-hot music video director – his work includes The Reason for Hoobastank, Somebody Told Me for The Killers and I Just Wanna Live for Good Charlotte, among many more. In 2005, we showed Brett’s collected work on video at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as part of BAVC’s Digital Movies/Digital Culture series. In his short pieces, Brett’s personal visual style, vibrant use of color, dynamic framing – create really unique works-of-art. He’s gone mainstream, but he has deeply experimental roots. (more…)