Program & Film Info
Documentary Feature

Church Forest,

Ethiopia, 75’, NY Premiere
Directed/Produced by:

Peter Eliot Buntaine & Greg Vander Veer

Church Forest uncovers the rich heritage and troubled future of the sacred forests of the Ethiopian Highlands. In these mysterious groves, the viewer encounters a unique cast of devout monks and eccentric scientists. Personal histories, religious scriptures and scientific hypotheses combine in this kaleidoscopic reverie of man and nature.

Kingston Crossroads

Jamaica, 73’, NY Premiere
Directed/Produced by:

Oliver Becker, Jonas Schaul

Kingston, the capital of Jamaica is one of the most diverse and controversial cities in the world. This documentary is a captivating and personal ramble through Kingston's contemporary Roots Reggae scene which currently experiences an impressive and increasingly noticed revitalization of Rastafari culture. At the same time Kingston Crossroads discovers moving personal life stories driven by various challenges. Such as the touching life story of Taxi driver Leroy aka Jah B which reflects the destiny of many other Jamaicans, too.

Magadan – City Built on Bones

Russia, 77’, US Premiere
Directed/Produced by:

Christian Zipfel, Nikolaas Meinshausen

During the time of the Soviet Union Magadan used to be the northeastern-most transit camp of the Gulag. Countless innocent people were deported to Siberia and died in the freezing labor camps. Only a few of those so called “Seki” survived and are still living in the secluded Siberian cities near the former labor camps. This film is about the people of Magadan, their painful memories of the Gulag and their personal approach to freedom.

Uri in the Sky

Israel, 53’, NY Premiere
Directed/Produced by:

Amir Har-Gil, Udi Kalinsky

Uri Gil is an amazing figurative painter; he paints nude pictures with exactitude in classic art style. In addition he is the oldest combat pilot in the world (Guinness record), Uri Gil is one of the battle-hardened combat aces of the Israeli Air Force. (The same Air Force that has recently become the most controversial in the world) .Yet, he is a humanist and an extraordinary painter who opens his heart with surprising candor and engages in self-examination about the price of his combats actions.

Documentary Short:
Ana Ismi Carol

Morocco, 27’, USA Premiere
Directed/Produced by:

Anna Molins

"Ana Ismi Cárol" is a love story between Cárol and Morocco. A story forged by its people and her memories.

Boom Boom Girls

USA, 18’, NY Premiere
Directed/Produced by:

JesseVeverka

Traditionally, making and shooting fireworks has been a male-dominated activity, but recently more and more women around the world have been getting in on the explosive fun!

Trained as an aerospace engineer, writer/director Jesse Veverka was a financial analyst on Wall Street before co-founding his own media production company, Veverka Bros. Productions LLC, with his brother Jeremy.  He has worked and lived throughout Asia, including Japan, Korea, China and Indonesia. His award-winning films have been screened at dozens of film festivals worldwide and his articles have appeared in various publications including CNN Travel, Japan’s Metropolis Magazine, and China’s Global Times. He was reunited with his childhood passion for fireworks while on assignment in Liuyang, China in 2012 and Passfire was the result. He was born in Ithaca, NY.

Boom Town

USA, 17’, NY Premiere
Directed/Produced by:

Robert Bryant, J. David LeCompte

The Washington Post called Battle Mountain, Nevada the 'armpit of America.' What would inspire an attorney and an electrical engineer to abandon comfortable city lives for such a locale? An inextinguishable passion for consumer fireworks. Meet Steve and Earl Cassorla. Friends and family questioned their sanity, but never their spirit. Add an abandoned Subway franchise, endless Interstate traffic and you've got a recipe for the American Dream-come-true. Their store serves countless customers from around the world and from every walk of life, all fueled by a love of family, friends, freedom, and anything with a fuse. Despite a dizzying selection of items, Steve insists they're in the 'the memory business.' And business is booming.

Nuke Nation: A Visual Retrospective

USA, 10’, World Premiere
Directed/Produced by

Chris Knight

Between 1945 and 1990 the U.S. manufactured more than 70,000 nuclear warheads. While the science of atomic energy was in it’s infancy at the time, hundreds of propaganda films were produced by the U.S. government to justify nuclear armament to military leaders, politicians, and the public. Today, 72 years after the destruction of Hiroshima, the failure of the nuclear powers to disarm perpetuates the threat of nuclear Armageddon. Through poetic montage spanning decades of declassified military archival footage, this experimental documentary explores the visual tactics used by the U.S. government during the cold war era to shed light on the mythical origins of our national nuclear obsession.

Student / Local:
Being Hear

USA, 9’, Ithaca Premiere
Directed/Produced by:

Palmer Morse, Matthew​ ​Mikkelsen​

For most of his life, Gordon Hempton has been in pursuit of nature’s myriad and multi-faceted soundscapes as an Emmy-winning acoustic ecologist. During that time, he has become a master of a skill that is inarguably a dying art: listening. In Being Hear, he shares insights on the constant and nuanced communications of nature, the alarming extinction of places unaffected by human activity, the way quiet can open our eyes to the larger picture and the benefits of simply paying attention to place. Silence, as he puts it, “is the think tank of the soul.”


Camden

USA, Installation, Festival World Premiere
Directed/Produced by:

Mac Gugerty, James Manton

A poetic documentary about the small coastal town of Camden, Maine. A triptych presented in an unconventional 4:1 aspect ratio, the film showcases the stunning landscapes of this beautiful harbor town before breaking those landscapes down into detailed fragments that explore shape, texture, and color.


Coddington Trail

USA, 26’, Ithaca Premiere
Directed/Produced by:

Hannah Basciano, Jesse Veverka

A small town in New York is conflicted over the creation of a bike trail on an abandoned railway. As part of the national “Rails to Trails” campaign, the proposed route would divide properties and the community. The local government claims they have the rights to build, while the homeowners fight to save their privacy, livelihoods, and unpolluted land. The question remains as to who really has the right to land, and whether or not democracy will prevail in the country’s smallest division of government.


Finger Lakes Fife & Drum Corps

USA, 3’, Ithaca Premiere
Directed/Produced by

Katie Jones, Matt Ristaino, Sophie Johnson

The Fife and Drum Corps in Ithaca, New York, takes a new approach to enjoying music. Students of all ages come together to learn about revolutionary-era music, and even play instruments from that time period. The Fife and Drum Corps revisits American history, and invokes feelings of a time when the United States struggled to gain it’s independence. 

How to use a Kamra-e-Faoree

Afghanistan, 8’, USA Premiere
Directed/Produced By:

Lukas Brik, Sean Foley

In this video, Qalam Nabi, one of the last two remaining box camera photographers in Kabul demonstrates how to use his camera. Afghanistan is one of the last places on earth where photographers used a simple type of instant camera called the kamra-e-faoree for means of making a living. The hand-made wooden camera is both camera and darkroom in one and generations of Afghans have had their portraits taken with it, usually for identity photographs. At one stage it was even outlawed when former rulers of Afghanistan, the Taliban, banned photography, forcing photographers to hide or destroy their tools.

SAFSTOR

USA, 15’, NY Premiere
Directed/Produced By:

Adam Diller

SAFSTOR contrasts the physical presence of the Three Mile Island power plant with the memories of local residents of the partial meltdown on March 28, 1979. The film explores archival materials and the contemporary landscape around the plant to provoke reflections on the unintended consequences of our infrastructure. The film leads the audience to consider what role nuclear power plants have in our lives, what the plants will become as they are decommissioned, and how our thinking has changed since the 1979 accident.

The Black Smith

Ukraine, 30’, USA Premiere
Directed/Produced By:

Ivan Andrianov, Nina Gudme, Tatyana Andrianova

The closed, rich and worldwide unknown culture of Ukraine is explored, revealing its essence of strength and resistance. In a typical old village located nearby Kiew, Sergii, a Ukrainian blacksmith, presents in a monologue through his work a philosophical and spiritual view of life and his country history, based upon the famous Ukrainian philosopher Grygory Skovoroda concept. In the film is shown a documentary  reporting piece shot in Kiev (Ukraine) on  the 1st February 2017 of a funerals of one of the Ukrainian Army commanders, killed while committing his military mission in the East Ukraine – Donbass, Avdeevka area, Leonid Derkach, 38.

Outside the

In a world where niche and special interest film festivals

have become common-place, counter-culture has

become mainstream, and documentary languishes in

formulaic presentations of engaging but familiar subject

matter, Outer Docs is an awards festival designed to celebrate

documentaries that live outside the norm. 

Outer Docs is a one-day film festival held from 2PM-10:30PM on October 8, 2017 at Cinemapolis in Ithaca, NY. We are proud to have the event catered with local Ithaca Beer and Americana Americana Wine by the Ithaca Ale House at Cinemapolis! Later in the evening, join us for an after-party at The Range at 119 State Street! 

Outside the box.   

Outer Docs is Sponsored By:

SCHEDULE of EVENTS  Download as PDF

Lobby Installation
Camden 

USA Student + Local Continuous

Block 1:

Formerly Soviet
2 PM - 4:05 PM    2:04:50
How to use a Kamra-e-Faoree Afghanistan Student 0:07:50
The Blacksmith Ukraine Student/Cannes 2017 0:30:00
Magadan - City Built on Bones Russia Student 1:17:00

Block 2:

Things That Go Boom
4:10 PM - 6:00 PM    Total 1:50:39
Finger Lakes Fife & Drum Corps USA Student + Local 0:03:00
Nuke Nation: A Visual Retrospective USA Local 0:10:00
Boom Town USA 0:16:50
Boom Boom Girls USA Local 0:17:49
Uri in The Sky Israel 0:53:00

Block 3:

Environmentally Sound
6:05 PM - 7:55 PM     Total 1:48:52
SAFSTOR USA Student 0:14:52
Being Hear USA Student + Local 0:09:00
Church Forest Ethiopia Pan African Film Festival 1:15:00

Block 4

Life at the Crossroads
8:00 PM - 10:30 PM     Total 2:21:10

Ana Ismi Carol Morocco 0:27:20
Coddington Trail USA Student + Local 0:26:13
Kingston Crossroads Jamaica 1:12:37
Awards Ceremony 0:10:00

After Party

After Party at The Range
10:45 PM - ??

119 E. State St., Ithaca, NY

 mainstream.