Festivals and Screenings

WORM, experimental film and music venue
Rotterdam, Netherlands
April 6th, 2006
European Premiere!
WORM

Orcas Arts Center
Orcas Island, WA
March 10, 2006
Orcas Arts Center

The Northwest Film Forum
One week theatrical run
October 14th-19th, 2005
12 screenings!
Northwest Film Forum

The Smithsonian Institute
Museum of American History
Reel Surprises from North American Festivals
Fri., April 1, 8; May 6, 7 p.m.

North America is home to some of the finest film festivals in the world. Some of the films receive a theatrical release, but there are always a few gems that only festivalgoers could get to see ... until now.

Several extraordinary offerings from top film festivals in the United States and Canada are presented in this special series. Be sure to get tickets now—chances are they won’t be coming to a theater near you anytime soon.

APR 1 Buffalo Bill’s Defunct: Stories from the New West
(USA, 2004, 84 min., dir. Eliza Fox and Matt Wilkins)
Official Selection, Seattle International Film Festival
When aging Grandpa Bill backs his old pickup right through the garage door, his scheme to cover up the accident winds up involving the entire family—and uncovering old family tensions.

http://residentassociates.org/otoapr/surprises.asp

"...a well rounded portrait of a family passing lessons down from generation to generation, for better and for worse."
-Andy Spletzer, SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAM

http://www.seattlefilm.com/film/detail.aspx?id=341

Two Portland Screenings

Saturday, November 5th, 5pm
Guild Theater
AND

OCT 15 FRI 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM VISITING ARTIST
NORTHWEST TRACKING
BUFFALO BILL'S DEFUNCT
DIRECTOR: MATT WILKINS
A hit at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival, BUFFALO BILL'S DEFUNCT is an intergenerational study of the various messes family members make when they attempt to deconstruct the walls that separate them. Bill, the patriarch of a Washington family, accidentally drives his car through the garage. In an effort to hide the accident, he decides to embark on an epic effort to demolish the building, bringing in his entire extended family to help. From this seed, a tangled web of family stories emerges, painting a touching and funny, but stubbornly unsentimental portrait of a rural northwestern clan. Improvised from a detailed treatment, the film focuses on bringing authentic human behavior to the screen. This the third film to emerge from the innovative Start To Finish program at Seattle's Northwest Film Forum, a project which partners nonprofit organizations with for-profit investors to finance and produce feature films. (84 mins.)

http://www.nwfilm.org/31nwfest/sat6.html

BUFFALO BILL'S DEFUNCT: stories from the new west
Filmmaker Present to Introduce Film

On a fading old photograph from the forties, taken out in the country, Bill and his wife are labeled as "Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane"; the young couple looks very happy. But in the present, Bill's wife is dead and the grass growing on Bill's Pacific Northwest farm seems like it will overtake everything. Bill is almost unable to care for himself, and has impulsively decided to tear down a wooden barn on his land. As the old structure gradually comes down, his extended family gathers together for one of the last times on their childhood farm. A happy, interesting group - Bill's family represents a range of ages and personalities - facing childhood, first love, marriage, child-rearing and death. As they are living and laughing, so has Bill done; as he is loving and dying, so will they do. Buffalo Bill's Defunct is the work of two masterful storytellers: Eliza Fox and Matt Wilkins. Improvisational, subtle, and documentary-like, Buffalo Bill's Defunct is sentimental while avoiding sentimentality, and nostalgic while remaining immediate. It will make you want to laugh because you're sad and cry because you're happy.

"Innovative, subtle, and documentary-like, this Seattle film about family relationships is sentimental while avoiding sentimentality, nostalgic but immediate; it will make you want to laugh because you're sad and cry because you're happy."
-Todd Hansen, Central Standard Film Festival Program (Minneapolis)

http://www.ifpmsp.org/cs_schedule04.htm#buff

WigglyWorld's 7th Annual Local Sightings
In partnership with Altoids, the Curiously Strong Mints
October 8-15
at Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, Seattle

Buffalo Bill's Defunct
Saturday, Oct 9, 9pm

Buffalo Bill's Defunct
(Matt Wilkins, 2004, DV, 84min.)
"When aging Grandpa Bill backs his old pickup right through the garage door, he covers up the accident with a spontaneous project: He razes the old shed and the entire family gets in on the haphazard demolition derby."
-Sean Axmaker, Seattle P-I

Buffalo Bill rallies his sissy-fied clan to the old-fashioned task of pulling down their dilapidated shed with a winch and 100' of cable--a half-baked decision influenced heavily by the fact that he accidentally blasted through the garage door with his truck. As Bill's daughter and grandchildren prepare the shed for razing, they excavate rusted family artifacts, uncovering interfamilial tensions. In their own words, Bill's ensemble gossips about each other, most of the time revealing more about the person talking than the subject. The film spills the guts of this American family through stories of Bill's seeds floating through the world on their own unique, but parallel narratives. Buffalo Bill's Defunct is a poem to the entanglement of family, casting a vigil light on inheritance. The relationships are cluttered, muddled and imperfect, but perfectly functional.

http://www.nwfilmforum.org/localsight/show6.shtml

5:00pm: BUFFALO'S BILL'S DEFUNCT directed by Matt Wilkins.
Buffalo Bill rallies his sissy-fied clan to the old-fashioned task of pulling down their dilapidated shed with a winch and 100' of cable— a half-baked decision influenced heavily by the fact that he accidentally blasted through the garage door with his truck. As Bill's daughter and grandchildren prepare the shed for razing, they excavate rusted family artifacts, uncovering interfamilial tensions. In their own words, Bill's ensemble gossips about each other, most of the time revealing more about the person talking than the subject. The film spills the guts of this American family through stories of Bill's seeds floating through the world on their own unique, but parallel narratives. "Buffalo Bill's Defunct" is a poem to the entanglement of family, casting a vigil light on inheritance. The relationships are cluttered, muddled and imperfect, but perfectly functional.

Rural Route Film Festival, Brooklyn NY
Honorable Mention

King County TV and SCAN broadcasts, Ongoing since November 1st, 2005