Deanna Morse (Forced Perspective: Odessa) (Director) 

     When Morse visited the real steps at Odessa, she found her visit profoundly affected by memories of The Odessa Steps sequence from ‘Battleship Potemkin’ (Eisenstein, 1925). When she researched Eisenstein’s film, she found that he used three unique, cinematic design tricks. The steps have architectural elegance, and visual power. Media images have power. They shape our real-life experiences. The film considers how media images shape our real life experiences.  Forced Perspective: Odessa has been juried into a dozen festivals, and won awards in various categories including Best Documentary, Experimental/Narrative, short story.

Jeff Huston (Off Off Broadway) (Director) 

     It’s hard to spoof a spoof, but Off Off Broadway takes aim at Christopher Guest’s 1996 hit mocumentary, Waiting for Guffman, and hits the bulls . . . eye. Director/writer Jeff Huston carries his conceit even into the film’s synopsis: “Open letter to audience: I was recently convinced by a childhood friend to shoot a documentary which chronicled the making of his most current theatre production. His play, ‘Specific Conceptualism,’ is not only his contribution to avant garde theatre, but best sums up the tangled cobweb of circuits, gears, and tubes that make up his neural network.” With the way-off off Broadway stage substituting for Guest’s Midwest community theatre, Huston’s film is at least one up on its decade-old progenitor. In Huston’s film, Guffman (or, rather, his counterpart) arrives!