Miguel Alvarez: Kid

Kid

A coming-of-age ritual defines the relationship between a thirteen-year-old boy and his estranged father.

Depending when found, Miguel Alvarez is an engineer, writer, photographer, filmmaker, expatriate, or graduate student. His work has screened throughout the United States, garnering prizes and gathering critical acclaim along the way. In addition to writing and directing, he has produced short films for New York film artist Raul Castillo and recent Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award recipient Cruz Angeles. Currently pursuing an MFA in Film Production, he is the recipient of the Robert Rodriguez/Elizabeth Avellán Award and Warren Skaaren Fellowship from the University of Texas at Austin, as well as a Directors' Guild of America Student Award. Much of his time is now spent developing his first feature, Atlantic City, and finishing his latest short film, Mnemosyne Rising. He currently resides in Austin, Texas and is kept awake solely through copious amounts of Big Red.

http://www.estebandido.com

Marshall Rimmer: Color by number

Color by number
One day during class, Adam works up the courage to ask Jenny if she likes him. When his paper note engenders a seemingly positive response from Jenny, Adam decides that he is not ready for a relationship and decides to end it before it begins, but not, however, if Jenny's crush Tommy has anything to say about it.

Marshall is a filmmaker born in Fort Worth, Texas. He's graduating in May of 2009 with both a bachelors of business administration in marketing and a bachelors of science in radio-television-film. His web-series entitled The Wingmen garnered a finalist position by both South by Southwest's Greenlight Awards and College Broadcasters, Inc.'s Student Producion Awards. He is currently in the pre-production phase of his first feature film.

http://www.marshallrimmer.com

Lucas Amman: Popsicle

Popsicle

Spooky Molly would do anything to meet Jeffrey of Jeffrey's Spectacular Puppet Hour, but there's only one thing standing in her way to create the family of her dreams: her older sister.

Lucas was raised in Cypress, Texas. It was there he climbed every tree, conquered every imaginary villain and saved the universe a million times over (you’re welcome). His creative spirit crystallized during his four years in Austin where he has continued to climb trees, make movies, make music, and fight mutants.

www.lucasamann.com

Logan Strobel: The moon or bust

The moon or bust
Jet packs are an efficient and fun way to travel. A jet pack can be fashioned quickly and easily with today's modern technology. Forget Earth and all its troubles, live out a simpler and more fashionable life in space.

Logan graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in film. Interests include animating, writing, directing, and vérité.

Katja Straub: Martha

Martha shows the view on life through the eyes of an 11-years old girl that struggles to accept her family (the most embarrassing family in the world, Martha is convinced). After many recent moves, due to her father's adventurous nature, Martha and her family just moved to a small Texan town to take over a restaurant. Martha struggles to adjust to the new environment. She directs her frustration onto her little brother and finds outlets for it in vivid daydreams, where she fantasizes about how her life might otherwise be. We follow Martha into her world where reality and imagination merge into one.
Based on my own childhood memories, Martha is about coming to terms with, and eventually accepting, one's roots, blending humor and drama into a short film that combines realism and surrealism.

Katja Straub is an artist, writer, and filmmaker whose films have screened in numerous festivals and museums around the world including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Images Festival in Toronto, the Viper Basel in Switzerland and the Museo Nationale Reina Sofia in Madrid. Her short film "All White People Are French" received the Special Jury Award at the South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin in 2005.

Before moving to Texas, Katja graduated from the University of the Arts in Berlin, where she received her Master in Experimental Film. In Berlin she also held an apprenticeship as a scene painter for the German Opera and worked as a freelance art designer and painter for films and music videos.

Awarded the Homer Lindsey Bruce Fellowship and the Warren E. Skaaren Scholarship, she received her MFA in Film Production at the University of Texas at Austin in 2008, where she is currently teaching film and video production.

www.rocketfilm.de

John Moore: Refurbished

Refurbished
Whatever happened to that toy you threw away? In 1999, “Furbies” were the most in demand toy in America. However, two years later they fell by the wayside, as most trends do, and became essentially worthless. “Refurbished” tells the uplifting story of how a group of these interactive creatures found a new voice through the creativity of an Austin inventor. Their tale acts as a microcosm of the “DIY” (Do It Yourself” culture that is sweeping the nation.

John Spottswood Moore is a multi-award winning writer and director. While receiving a BA in Film from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Moore studied advanced level classes in Acting, writing, directing, and animation. His debut film, "Lemonade Stand", won multiple awards, including Best Fiction Film at the 2008 Open Apperture Film Festival and Best Comedy Film at the 2008 Scene First Film Festival. Since then he has worked in both radio and television in multiple creative positions. Moore is currently pursuing an MFA in Film Directing from the University of Texas at Austin.

Gabriela Yepes: Danzak

Danzak
Nina is a 10 year old girl whose life dramatically changes when her dying father and Scissor Dancer master asks her to fulfill his last wish. Inspired on an Andean myth and on the short story by Peruvian writer José María Arguedas, "The Agony of Rasu Ñiti".

Since her graduation in a Peruvian film school in 2003, Gaby never stopped working on films -from documentaries for the United Nations to a war film in the Balkans- and hopes she doesn't have to wait too long to complete her debut as a feature film director.