New Hampshire Film Festival 2009

Education has traditionally been the first step towards fulfilling the American dream and escaping a life of poverty. But in the United States today, one-third of all students who enter high school do not graduate. ACCELERATING AMERICA follows a group of inner-city students fighting for their last chance to realize this dream.At the center of the film is a revolutionary school, UCAP, founded by inspiring principal Robert DeBlois. Despite his own physical limitations as a quadriplegic, he tirelessly devotes himself to saving his 130 students. His school, the only one of its kind, offers failing middle school kids confronted with poverty, drugs, gangs and jail a chance to catch-up to their peers by completing two grades in one year.Director Timothy Hotchner spends a year following Mr. DeBlois, his staff and three students, America, Yazmine and Jason, as they attempt to overcome their chaotic home lives and troubled pasts. Of the three, only two of the kids make it.With its intimate look at the complex lives of inner-city youth and their fearless principal, ACCELERATING AMERICA is a highly engaging story of survival and redemption despite the odds.

A poor, misfit New Mexico mine-worker named Power sets out to change the world through his love of drums. His problem: he's never learned to play. Power uncovers an underground subculture of air-drum fights, where men battle through some of the hardest drum parts in rock music. Carlos, an air drum trainer, prepares Power for the biggest fight soon to take place in New York City. On the eve of the fight, local miners are attacked by company police. Power`s union-leader father attempts to get the miners to stand their ground but, unarmed, they don`t stand a chance. Power finally appreciates what he has struggled for all along, understanding the most important lesson: I don`t need drums, I am drums.

American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi is a hard-hitting documentary about Condoleezza Rice, an extraordinary woman who rose out of segregated Alabama to become the most powerful woman in the world. Incisive and shocking, this is the first retrospective film on the Bush Administration. It paints a startling portrait of a woman who has changed our world but about whom most of us know very little. It overturns the popular misconception of Rice as a yes-woman to President Bush to reveal her as his chief confidante – with deeper and more enduring influence even than Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Karl Rove – and thus responsible for much of the Bush legacy.Through the form of a political, biographical documentary, our prominent interviewees tell a Faustian story of a woman whose hubris tempted her into a pursuit of power that destroyed her core values, and hurtled America into a perilous new direction. This timely film reveals Rice’s tale as a fascinating version of the American Dream, a rise as spectacular as that of Barack Obama, but far darker. It follows her step-by step quest for power, starting at the age of ten, when, on a visit to the White House, she turned to her father and said, “Daddy, I'm barred out there because of the color of my skin, but one day I'll be in that house.”40 years later, Secretary of State Rice said, ‘I want to leave office without anyone knowing where I stand on any of the issues’. To thwart that, we have exclusive interviews with Rice’s three most authoritative biographers: Marcus Mabry, an editor at the New York Times and author of Twice As Good; Glenn Kessler, diplomatic correspondent at the Washington Post and author of The Confidante; and Antonia Felix, author of The Condoleezza Rice Story. Dr Rice leads her own defense, through a series of interviews in which she speaks about her roots in racially explosive Birmingham; her short-lived music career; her fascination with Josef Stalin and Ronald Reagan; her close friendship with George W. Bush; right up to her own defense of her record in government. Supporters who speak in the film include both Presidents Bush, Gary Hart (for whom she once worked when a Democrat), Oprah Winfrey, Brent Scowcroft and Henry Kissinger.Countering these positive accounts are some explosive criticisms. Author Laura Flanders relates how she trashed affirmative action policies while Stanford University Provost, and how she was such a devoted board member for Chevron (despite its violent repression of Ogoni tribespeople in Nigeria) that they named an oil tanker after her. Her record as National Security Advisor, the gatekeeper of the nation’s safety, is devastatingly attacked by CIA Director George Tenet, Counter-Terrorism chief Richard Clarke and author Philip Shenon. They reveal how she ignored scores of warnings in the spring and summer of 2001 that an Al Qaeda attack was imminent. Commentators pinpoint 9/11 as the moment of her Faustian pact. She abandons her realism and advocacy of a humble foreign policy, to become a fully fledged neo-conservative idealist. With the winds blowing towards Baghdad, Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, says she had no qualms about pumping up the case for war (“we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”). Congressman Wexler pinpoints 56 times that Rice misled the American public. Eleanor Clift, (Editor of Newsweek) and Richard Ben Veniste (9/11 Commissioner), point to the many techniques that Rice used – wordplay, filibustering, amnesia – to avoid telling the truth. Investigating her record on race, Marcus Mabry states that it was Hurricane Katrina when black Americans realized she was not fighting their corner. Spike Lee bitterly criticizes her for going shoe shopping on Madison Avenue while the levees were breaking. Her record as Secretary of State was damaged by her handling of the 2007 massacre of 17 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater contractors in her hire. Erica Razook of Amnesty International, states that Rice acted to protect the State Dept’s $1bn contract with Blackwater by pardoning the killers and offering only $10,000 in compensation. That response inflamed Iraqi anger towards all Americans. US Congressman David Price says: “It contradicts our values. It makes us out to be hypocrites. It puts our military personnel in jeopardy. All I can see is a dereliction of duty. At virtually any level you'd want to assess this, this is a disaster for our country.”The film documents Rice’s staunch support for Guantánamo Bay as “a necessity because of the War on Terror”. President Obama’s first act on taking office was to order the suspension of military trials at the detention center; he subsequently ordered its closure within 12 months. The film’s most disturbing revelations center on Rice’s direct role as Chair of the group of ‘Principals’, that included Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The Principals’ role was to select and authorize torture techniques. Kessler says: “These enhanced interrogation methods included water-boarding, fingernail extraction, and sleep deprivation. Condi signed off on the orders to the CIA with the words, ‘This is your Baby, go do it!’” Lawrence Wilkerson, who witnessed Rice’s role in authorizing torture, states: “If Jesus Christ were speaking to Condi Rice about the idea that you’re saving tens of thousands of lives by torturing someone, he would say: ‘the one doesn’t weigh more than the other. If you do it to the least of these, you do it unto me’… I think Americans should be appalled that Dr. Rice was sitting there giving the order to water-board.” Kessler and Mabry describe a pattern in Condi’s quest for power: she identifies a man who can advance her, gets very close to him, and then moves on. This happened with Josef Korbel (whom she described as “my second father”), with Stanford Provost Gerhard Casper, then NSA Brent Scowcroft, and then both Presidents Bush. Now back at Stanford University, Rice’s next possible moves are assessed, including a possible run for the presidency in 2012.

A twenty-something African-American single mom struggles to make ends meet in a small Texas town. When cops arrest her in a drug sweep, she insists on her innocence. Refusing a plea bargain that would allow her to avoid jail time, Roberts stands up against a corrupt law enforcement and judicial system.

Ana’s Playground is an allegory about how a child's soul is affected by the violence of war. This film is being used to raise awareness about war-affected children and the organizations working to improve their lives. Production was made possible entirely through charitable donations.

A 2009 New Hampshire 48 Hour Film Project. Winner Audience Choice Award. A discussion on the origins of Arbor Day develops into a wild series of assumptions that lead to the conclusion that Arbor Day rules!

Jury Award Winner, New Hampshire High School Short Film Festival “Art Speaks” is a short documentary diving into the culture and world of graffiti and its writers.

When Anna, a struggling Brazilian immigrant, appeals to her only son’s estranged father for monetary support, she encounters three Russian thugs demanding stolen money, leaving her the sole interpreter and ultimately the determining factor between her son’s future and the life of the man she loves.

After truck driver, Roy Tidrow, cuts off a random car on the freeway (Joe O’Neil’s,) a complaint is phoned in and Roy is immediately fired, sending him into a violent tailspin. Roy threatens his wife (Valerie,) who works reception at the trucking company, forcing her to supply him with the name of the complainer. Days later...Valerie realizes she's made a horrible mistake. Not only has Roy murdered the man who Valerie identified (Andrew Williams,) but she mistakenly supplied the wrong information and a completely “innocent” person was killed. When Valerie confronts Roy, he attacks her and gets the correct identity of the complainer (Joe O’Neil.) However, this time Valerie calls to warn the stranger… Joe O'Neill, a straight-laced, nine-to-fiver, is filled with paranoia and fear. He buys a gun to protect himself and is forced into using it when Roy Tidrow attacks him in his home. In a strange twist of fate, it is Roy who is shot and killed. In the end, Valerie, as the sole beneficiary of her husband Roy’s life insurance policy, collects a large settlement. Joe O’Neil is questioned by the police and forever scarred. And Andrew Williams’ widow, Margaret, receives an envelope of cash, leading us to believe that Valerie may have orchestrated this bizarre collision of lives, whereby no one is a beneficiary.