Documentary Day at LIFF 2009

2009 special focus: 'Experimental Lives'
Severing the Soul Dir. by Barbara Klutinis Tues, Apr 21, 3pm at the Roxy Free admission at the door Found footage interweaves an account of Rosemary Kennedy’s lobotomy procedure in 1941 with an overview of the psychosurgery movement of the 1930’s-1960’s in the US.
Pigweed Philosopher: The Untethered Zen of Kimball Johnson Dir by Gabriel Lakey Tues, Apr 21, 3:30pm at the Roxy Free admission at the door Kimball Johnson is a non-conformist with a heart—and someone willing to lose everything to tilt at windmills. Documentary filmmaker Gabriel Lakey spent five years following this true American original. Some would call Kimball Johnson crazy, some would call him foolish, and others might call him enlightened. Pursuing your passions headlong without a harness can bear a heavy price. http://www.pigweedphilosopher.com/	Would you be willing to lose everything you owned for the feeling of having tried and lost? Is this pigweed philosopher an unconventional genius who figured out that life is best lived at the outer fringes or is he just the quintessential Don Quixote of broken dreams who never found his way home
Matchstick Traveller Dir. by Mareike Wegener Tues, Apr 21, 5:30pm at the Roxy Free admission at the door   'The Matchstick Traveller' is a documentary about the artist Al Hansen, who was everything at the same time: Beat Poet, Pop Artist, performer, Fluxus Artist, author, porn editor, actor, composer, punk band manager - an axis for all post war movements, but still the outcast. The film traces his chaotic life and questions the notion of failure. A documentary collage, which interweaves impressing archival footage with memories and evaluations of witnesses.	With appearances by Fluxus artists Ben Vautier, Alison Knowles, Larry Miller an Ben Patterson, by the Vienna Actionist Hermann Nitsch, as well as friends and family.
Life on the Grave Side dir. by Marie Billegrav Bryant Tues, Apr 21, 7pm at the Roxy Free admission at the door Abney Park Cemetery is one of the largest Victorian cemeteries in London and 'home' to more than 400,000 bodies. The gates of the remarkable site are open from dawn to dusk and over the day the deserted chapel, the benches and alleyways, memorials and monuments attract people and communities as diverse as the ones buried in the grounds since 1840. This intimate, poignant and entertaining film weaves together character-driven stories of some of the people who have “used” the cemetery for years.	Their individual stories help to build both a picture of the conflicting interests of visitors as well as of the transient nature of human life. It comes and goes, and is experienced and lived, in this film over the Spring behind the iron gates of Abney Park Cemetery.
Here's Johnny Prod. by Animal Monday Tues, Apr 21, 8:15pm at the Roxy Free admission at the door Here’s Johnny enters the surreal world of renowned graphic artist Johnny Hicklenton, who is battling against Multiple Sclerosis. Living in an increasing state of immobility and frustration, Johnny escapes the confines of his frontroom through his artwork. Through the expression of his brilliant and sometimes troubled imagination we learn about the disease that he cannot escape from.
Bigfoot: A Beast on the Run dir. by David Thayer Tues, Apr 21, 10pm at the Roxy Free admission at the door Late at night, deep in the woods of Washington State, Todd Limberg made an audio recording of some eerie howling. He thinks it might be Bigfoot. Is it? Let's ask the experts: Tom Biscardi, Bigfoot entrepreneur, says he will capture Bigfoot 'within the next 48 hours' Jeff Meldrum, Renowned Bigfoot Anthropologist, explains the mid-tarsal break. Don Monroe, The 'Indiana Jones' of Idaho, takes us into The Cave of Bigfoot. MK Davis will prove that the 1967 Patterson/Gimlin Bigfoot film footage is real.   Watch the trailer	Neal Burgstahler is in contact with the 'Invisible Bigfoot'. He has eerie photographs of 'Bigfoot Orbs' that he took himself in the forest at night.   Thom Powell 'I try to get Bigfoot to come to me.': Powell has transformed his yard into a 20-acre Bigfoot Trap; complete with everything Bigfoot could want and more: hidden cameras. Peggy Marx is the widow of reputed Bigfoot Hoaxer Ivan Marx; a longtime associate of Tom Biscardi. Did she really film Bigfoot?.