RESFEST graces Portland

For the first time since its creation in 1996, the RESFEST is coming to Portland and it is an event that has something for the creator in everyone. With the convergence of film, music, design, fashion and art on an independent level in the past few years, RESFEST has evolved into a cultural movement.

The festival will arrive at the Northwest Film Center’s Guild Theater this weekend, Oct. 22-24, showing this year’s best short films, music videos, animation and commercials, through a giant blender of screenings, parties, workshops and live music.

In a four-month period, after reviewing the 1,500 submissions received for the year, the festival will take place in 33 cities in 13 countries on six continents, making RESFEST the largest festival of its kind. And Portland is not the only new city to be added to the expansive list this year. The festival has extended to Austin, Boston, Zurich, Singapore, Dublin, and has added a full UK tour to the schedule, as well.

“We are excited to join Portland’s renowned creative community by adding the city to RESFEST’s annual tour,” said Jonathan Wells, the festival director for RESFEST.

“Over the past eight years, RESFEST has built a global audience for the innovative artists we showcase,” said, Karol Matesko-Fenster, the president of RES Media Group. “Significantly, our audience of international creators is taking inspiration from the festival, affecting their own creative pursuits and in many cases influencing pop culture itself!”

The festival is also collaborating locally with TAOW Productions for the presentation of Portland’s part in the Global Tour. The Portland-based TAOW provides event entertainment and management and, as an add-on to the festival programming, will be producing an opening night after-party following the Cinema Electronic screening, as well as Sunday brunch in a downtown location to be announced.

“Over the years, we’ve gotten many requests to bring the festival to the Portland area,” Wells said, “and I’m thrilled that this year it is finally happening.”

Friday, Oct. 22

8 p.m. RESFEST Shorts #1

The event kicks off with an eclectic mix of short films surveying state-of-the-art storytelling, mixing animation, live action and graphic-oriented work, giving you a unique blend of the filmmaking techniques presented by the festival.

10 p.m. Cinema Electronica

This returning seminal music video showcase gets more inventive as artists find new ways create in a precipitous drop in budgets. It includes the latest from Pleix, H5, Hexstatic, Dougal Wilson and many, many more.

11 p.m. Opening Night Party (in association with TAOW Productions) Wieden + Kennedy, 224 N.W. 13th Ave.

Saturday, Oct. 23

2 p.m. Canon XL2 Digital Camcorder Presentation (Free!)

A presentation geared towards filmmakers, this presentation shows how the new MiniDV camcorder can provide cinematographers and videographers with a completely customizable broadcast and feature film quality.

4 p.m. RESFEST Shorts #2

Striking visual trickery mixed with old-fashioned laughter and wry humor threads its way through this program, including the film “Sunday,” which suggests the volatile mixture of sex, baby-sitting and pizza. Also featured is “One Step Ahead,” the latest from Stefan Nadelman, which follows a character in pursuit of speed in a city that wants to slow him down.

6 p.m. By Design

Now in its third year, the By Design program has become the showcase for preeminent motion graphics and broadcast design work from around the world.

8 p.m. Shynola Rarities

This prolific British directing team has created some of the most amazing videos ever made, and for the likes of people like UNKLE, Radiohead, Stephen Malkmus, Quannum, Queens of the Stone Age, Lambchop, Junior Senior and Bur, and the Rapture. These rarities are straight from their own closets.

10 p.m. Bushwacked!

Just for the election year, prominent artists, activists and media-jamming filmmakers Bryan Boyce, Eric Henry, Archer & Beck, Michael Moore, Guerrilla News Network, Johan Soderberg and many more bring you a string of hilariously catastrophic and disturbing shorts.

Sunday, Oct. 24

11 a.m. Sunday Brunch (in association with TAOW Productions). Location to be announced.

1 p.m. Warp Vision

For a decade and a half, England’s visionary, experimental electronic record label Warp Records has been marrying music with dynamic visual imagery. In honor of the label’s fifteenth anniversary, the RESFEST presents a special program surveying Warp’s groundbreaking contributions to the field of music video and to the directors for such bands as Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher, Pleix and LynnFox, most never before commercially released.

3 p.m. Videos That Rock

A survey of rock-oriented projects with a number of animated videos.

5 p.m. RESFEST Shorts #3

A flimsy divide between reality and fantasy figures strongly in this, the third installment of RESFEST’s short film programs. Why focus on borders or boundaries? The point here is how the filmmakers show us the world with a mix of breathtaking imagery, humor and design chops.

7 p.m. Jonathan Glazer Retrospective

The RESFEST director retrospective program has chosen to focus on the exceptional work of this British director whose music videos include “Street Spirit” for Radiohead, “Rabbit in Your Headlights” for UNKLE, and award-winning commercials for Guinness and Levis, and his debut feature film, “Sexy Beast.” The program traces Glazer’s career to date, with commercials, music videos, trailers and rarely screened behind-the-scenes footage. Glazer’s second feature film, “Birth,” starring Nicole Kidman, is due out later this year.

8 p.m. Feature Film “Sprout”

Directed and produced by Thomas Cambell, Sprout is his second feature-length surfing documentary, following his 1999 portrait of the California longboard surfing community, “The Seeding.” The film offers an additional animation sequence by Geoff McFetridge, features appearances from numerous surfing icons and tops it off with a soundtrack including Tortoise, Will Oldham, Calexico, Sons of Rest, Sprout House Band, Brokeback, Doug Scharin, Hampton Hawes and many others.