THE LONG ISLANDER, THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 2004
Volume 165, Issue 48

"Peace And Consciousness" Film Fest
By Aliza Israel
aisrael@longislandernews.com

The last weeks of August are noted for their intense heat, but the
intense fervor of C.A.M.P. Festival participantes is what will make
this month memorable at the Cinema Arts Centre. Students and
professionals will pack into the Sky Room of this Huntington
establishment to learn what it takes to put alternative ideas on the
screen.

This year's theme is "Peace and Consiousness," a title fueled by its
growing need within the realms of international awareness and
relations.

"Watching the television and having all that fear and anxiety, we
wanted to break that and show what really should be on the screen,"
said Alexia Anastasio, 23 festival coordinator and Northport High
School graduate.

"I think community and education is the most important mission for the
festival. To spread the optimism that you can go out and make a film
that has alternative scenes, and is experimental."

C.A.M.P. stands for Cinema, Arts, Music and Politics, and the festival
entails six days of instructional sessions to teach filmmakers - both
established and aspiring - the ways in which to express alternative
themes.

"All the films and all the workshops will be really aimed at assisting
people who want to do documentaries about political issues," said
Charlotte Sky, co-director of the Cinema Arts Centre. "They'll be
working with people in workshops who have already done these types of
films, learning how to do them, how to promote them and how to make
them. And they'll be able to discuss the content of the films that
have already been made by the filmmakers."

Numerous film screenings, discussion periods, hands-on activities and
art and photography viewings will comprise the six days, extending
from August 22 to August 27.

Anastasio said C.A.M.P. is a traveling festival - its stops include
one in Cannes, France in May - with origins stemming back to her
senior project at the State University of New York at Purchase. "I got
together musicians ... and filmmakers that I've worked with in
distribution companies, industry speakers, artists and also people
from the Lost Film Festival," she said. "It was an all day event, and
a film festival by night."

The Cinema Arts Centre is currently offering 16 visiting industry
speakers, including Northport graduates Charles Hutcheon and William
Zachary Stipe who are presenting their 16-minute narrative, United We
Fall .

"It basically [involves] everyone watching television in America
[when], one night, the signal's interrupted, and a man starts giving a
speech about how we've sedated ourselves with television and how
ultimately our lives up until now have led to the decline of our
society," Hutcheon said. "It basically shows that television is a
powerful sedative and a dangerous tool to our society." He said Stipe,
a recent graduate of Ithaca College, contacted him for help on the
project that was originally his senior film.

"I just kind of made the movie to make a statement without having
really thought through forms for displaying it, but it's important to
have a soapbox that people can get up on and have their message
heard," Stipe said, especially if their theme is more against the
mainstream."

Anastasio said she hopes to follow the viewing with a hands-on
activity, involving two groups, two camera and three teachers. "We're
thinking a lot of younger people will attend this [short video] night,
as young as middle school to high school [students]. You just split
them up into groups and give them projects.

"It's basically how I learned in college, too."

Anastasio said she also favors the Andrea Sadler's film, entitled The
Sacred Run: The Lotus And The Feather, about an annual event started
in 1978 to strengthen Native culture; it is now an international event
involving indigenous people from Canada, the United States and Japan
who are joined by individuals from 13 countries to engage in a 4,000
kilometer run along the Sea of Japan.

Another feature film is entitled, Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential
Election - 2004 Edition and chronicles the complications involving
Florida ballots in the 200 Presidental election, while surmising
potential voter fraud in the upcoming November election.

Sky said the Cinema Arts Centre is only subsidizing transportation and
food for each presenter. "There won't be any cost for their films or
for the people who are going to be doing the presentations," she said.
"They're all giving very generously of themselves because they believe
in the project, and are hoping it will catch on and continue.

"They're hoping to attract a lot of young people, as well, and that's
why it's being done at this time of year - because a lot of people are
not in school."

Sky said this is the first C.A.M.P. Festival held at the Centre, but
she is interested in holding them annually if successful. Cinema Arts
Centre members and students will be charged $12 per day for the 2004
festival, all others will be charges $15.

Photo (Alexia and Matie at Cannes in front of Le SunSet)
caption: Alexia Anastasio and co-programmer Matie Argiropouls in
Cannes, France at C.A.M.P. Festival, May 2004.