In 1992 Winners were determined in 7 categories.

1992 Best of Show

Wish You Were Here
18 Mins. Narrative Short
Adam Rodgers, Owings Mills, MD

This romantic comedy follows Ben, a college student whose weekend trip to visit his long-distance girlfriend turns out to be less (and more) than he expected. Producer/Director Rodgers is a graduate student in NYU's Film Program. Produced in Baltimore, Adams's home town, the film premiered at the 1991 Chicago International Festival where it won a Certificate of Merit award.

1992 Rosebud Winners

4706 Grindon Avenue
9 Mins. Art/Experimental
Gina Gilberto, Glen Burnie, MD

Here, we meet Chuck, who, with a megaphone, pontificates from his front porch in Hamilton, a Baltimore neighborhood. Opinions and the opinionated, censorship and self-censorship are the issues. Director Gilberto is a graduate of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County where her film won first place in the 1991 Juried Film and Video Show.

Brainchild
5 Mins. Music Video
Jeff Williams, Washington, DC

Set on the streets, this fast paced music video creatively uses high tech effects to feature the socially conscious rap group Black Oriented Soul Searchers (B.O.S.S.). Producer/Director Williams has written five screenplays and is a graduate film student at Howard University; he is the recipient of a third Paul Robeson Award for Creative Excellence for this video.

Soap Opera
53 Mins. Narrative Feature
Perry Schwartz, Silver Spring, MD

Compelling performances mark this series of monologues in which a seemingly uncomplicated love triangle between two women and a man unravels into a tragedy. Producer/Director Schwartz has an MFA in Theater Directing and Filmmaking; he teaches at Montgomery College in MD. He has directed over 100 productions in the past 25 years and recently turned to narrative video.

The Doors of Perception
58 Mins. Documentary Feature
Sandra W. Bradley, Silver Spring, MD

The sheer force of human curiosity is eloquently celebrated in Bradley's stunning investigation of the many ways people seek to change their concept of reality - from obsession and addiction to transcendence and recovery. Producer/Director Bradley began making documentary and experimental films in 1964 in Washington, D.C. After earning a B.A. in film-making from U.C.L.A. she began her long association with Smithsonian World.

L.D. Stories
7 Mins. Animation
Ruth Schwartz and Students, The Lab School, Washington, DC

Using a blend of claymation and animation, the work explores the feelings of a group of learning disabled high school students. Supervising teacher Schwartz has taught animation at the Lab School since 1983.

Distrito del Quilombo (District of Chaos)
16 Mins. Documentary Short
Farzin A. Illich and Miguel Moreno, Washington, DC

You are in the center of the Mount Pleasant/Adams Morgan riot as it unfolded in May of 1991. Combining interviews and spontaneous commentary, this video takes you to the streets with uncensored and rarely-heard opinions about the causes of the disturbance. Producer Illich works with Dialogue Productions which serves non-profit and educational organizations. Director/writer Moreno is a general partner of Instant TV Productions which concentrates on Spanish language broadcasts. He received his Master's degree in film and video from American University.

Honerable Mentions

Hiding in America
8 Mins. Art/Experimental for Original Concept.
Lee Boot, Baltimore, MD

A dark humor underlies this inventive work which deals with the question, "What is the brain made of, anyway?" Before making this film, Producer Boot used video to document performance art.

Little Red
5 Mins. Narrative Short for Direction.
Clay Dehaven Valenti, and Chris Devlin, Timonium, MD

A rap interpretation of inner city adolescents' lives, adapting traditional nursery rhyms in a tale of drugs and death. Producer/Director Valenti is an account executive in a Washington, DC advertising agency and a former consultant to the Maryland Film Commission.

Rubber Queen: An AIDS Docu-diary
109 Mins. Documentary Feature to Adam Gale for Performance.
Christopher Belcher and Adam Gale (deceased), Washington, DC

With uncompromising courage, performance artist Adam Gale documents the last six months of his life in a raw and intimate portrayal that you will not forget. Independent producer Belcher collaborated with director/performer Gale on this project which was supported by DC public access TV, the D.C. Commission for the Arts and Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.

1992 Nominees

Wish you Were Here
18 Mins. Narrative Short
Adam Rodgers , Owings Mills, MD

Wish you were here tells the comic tale of Ben, an college student whose weekend trip to visit his long-distance girlfriend gradually becomes a romantic nightmare.

Soap Opera
53 Mins. Narrative Feature
Perry Schwartz, Silver Spring, MD

A video adaptation of a play by Ralph Pape, seems on the surface to be a simple love triangle between two women, Sharon and Lucy, and a man, Johnny. However, their story is strange and intriguing and they reveal themselves in a series of eleven monologues which detail the e relationship in its complexity and its tragedy.

4706 Grindon Avenue
9 Mins. Art/Experimental
Gina Gilberto, Glen Burnie, MD

Does anyone really care? Are we a threat in what we say? What we do? Do we censor what we really need to say? Want to say? Are we censored by others? Do they listen?

Brainchild
6 Mins. Music Video
Jeff Williams, Washington, DC

Brainchild is a music video featuring the socially conscious rap group Black Oriented Soul Searchers (B.O.S.S.)

L.D. Stories
7 Mins. Animation
Ruth Schwartz, Lab School of Washington, Washington, DC

L.D. Stories was created by a group of high school students. Through the medium of animation, they explored some of their feelings and fantasies about being learning disabled - L.D.

Doors of Perception
58 Mins. Documentary Feature
Sandra W. Bradley, Silver Spring, MD

"The Doors of Perception" investigates the many ways people seek to change their concept of reality - from obsession and addiction to transcendence and recovery. Featured in the program are a look at the history of America's relationship with cocaine; meditative, charismatic, and contemplative religious practices; classical ballet and Balinese dance of Indonesia; artists and the interactive man/machine concept known as "virtual reality".

District of Chaos
16 Mins. Documentary Short
Farzin A. Illich, Washington, DC

This video is an uncensored documentation of the disturbances which occurred in May 1991 in the Mount Pleasant/Adams Morgan Neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Combining on-the-street interviews and commentary from community members with images from the streets, it explores the circumstances surrounding Washington, D.C.'s most explosive case of civil unrest since the late 1960's.

Hiding in America
8 Mins. Art/Experimental
Lee Boot, Baltimore, MD

This is an experimental short dealing formally with layering of audio and visual information. Conceptually it is a kind of video self portrait.

Little Red
5 Mins. Narrative Short
Dehaven Valenti, Timonium, MD

A look at inner-city high school students and the alterior lives they live on the streets, dealing drugs and surrounded by death

Rubber Queen
109 Mins. Documentary Feature
Director: Adam Gale , Producer: Christopher Belcher, Co-Director: Franklin Wassmer, Washington, DC

The video is a documentary diary of Adam Gale, a performance artist, during the last six months of his life. The focus is on living with AIDS. [NR "A raw and intimate portrayal"]

Do You Wanna Dance
3 Mins. Animation
Beatrice Dunkel, Kensington, MD

My first experiment with claymation - a comedy- Not an advocation of violence and cannibalism.

Channel 3
4 Mins. Music Video
Joe Hansard, Washington, DC

Channel 3, performed by local songwriter/guitarist, Pete Kennedy, is unusual in concept in that it borrows from its very medium to illustrate its message. Told in flashback, it reveals the story of a tortured video producer who controls a lost love through video manipulation.

Run of the House
106 Mins. Narrative Feature
James M. Felter, Washington, DC

A social commentary thinly veiled as a dark romantic comedy, introduces the dysfunctional Felchbaum family, who are about to go through a psychosexual renaissance. The unlikely catalyst for this rebirth is Sady, a street-wise drag queen.

Forest Dream Code
9 Mins. Art/Experimental
Vin Grabill , Catonsville, MD

This video collage presents some of the distractions of a hectic society and sets them against the woods, serving here as a backdrop and elemental starting point. Accompanied by passages from Thoreau and Octavio Paz, rhythmic visual passages derived from amusement parks, bank machines and television provide the hectic extreme counter balance against a natural world that is still barely there.

The Living Art: Neo-Post Minimalism
29 Mins. Narrative Short
Al Underwood, Arlington, VA

The Living Art Episode #5 - Neo-Post-Minimalism; introducing today's newest art movement. Narrated by Darien Debris.

Profile of Pacita Abad
8 Mins. Documentary Short
Lloyd "Raki" Jones, Silver Spring, MD

Produced for Studio 9, WUSA-TV, this profile of Pacita Abad features the artist at work on her immigration trapunto art series. The video vignette highlights the multi-cultural perspective and aesthetics that inform and inspire her work.

Travels of a Dollar Bill
6 Mins Animation
Phil McKenney, Montross, VA

A crumpled up old dollar bill tells the story of his long and eventful life (through flashback) to his grandchildren, a nickel and a penny.

Wake-Up A Profile of Positive Force
9 Mins. Documentary Short
David Weinstein, Hyattsville, MD

A documentary about Positive Force, a loosely organized group of young people working for social change. P.F. members volunteer in the Washington DC community and promote benefit rock concerts for a wide variety of groups. They also try to live according to a set of humane values.

Canary Man
84 Mins. Narrative Feature
Mark Schwartzbard, Arlington, VA

Canary Man combats the evil Wienermeister, a hot dog mogul gone bad who plans to conquer the world through subliminal messages in music advising worldwide dissent against parking ticket payment.

I'm Gonna B the One
4 Mins. Music Video
Keith Lawson and Billie Woodruff, Washington, DC

I'm Gonna B The 1 is an intimate love song that details the feelings of a man who is prepared to fulfill one woman's fantasy of the perfect man. The woman is bound with roses and thorns - the thorns represent the harshness of the world. As the song and the story unfold, the thorns magically fall away to reveal the couple's love in full bloom.