For Immediate Release

Contact: April Gatling
212-650-7235

Cityvisions Film & Video Showcase to Feature Provocative and Culturally Diverse Cinema
New Documentary and Short Fiction Films Created by Filmmakers From 11 Countries Attending City College’s MFA in Media Arts Production Program

Sigourney Weaver to give Keynote AddressMay 17 2004 – New York NY Compelling stories of a chance encounter between a soldier and a woman the night before he ships out to Iraq; a woman’s search to bring closure to her love affair with a self-destructive man; a black comedy about a man whose plan to end his life in a blaze of glory goes strangely awry; an examination of the Iranian institution of "temporary marriage", are just four of the 13 diverse stories that will hit the screen at the sixth annual Cityvisions Film & Video Showcase beginning on June 2, 2004.

The two-day festival (Wednesday June 2 and Thursday June3; 6:00PM – 9:30PM) which will premiere the fiction and documentary work from the MFA graduating class of 2004 from City College’s MFA in Media Arts Production, takes place at The Clearview 62nd and Broadway Theater in Manhattan. Multiple Oscar nominee Sigourney Weaver, (Aliens, Gorillas in the Mist, Ghostbusters, The Year of Living Dangerously, Working Girl, The Ice Storm) will give the keynote address on Tuesday night.
According to MFA Director and Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker Dave Davidson, "Our MFA is a global program. This year’s Cityvisions highlights the fact that City College and New York are magnets for emerging media arts talent from around the world. Many of our students shot in locations outside of the US, including Iran, Guatemala and 3 different regions of Mexico. Almost half of the projects are produced in the native language of our filmmakers and subtitled in English. It is refreshing and welcome span of genre, technique and cultural point-of-view".

The juried event offers 11 awards from such sponsors at Eastman Kodak, New Line Cinema and Public Media Inc. This year’s judges are Ian Bricke, Manager, Film Programming for Sundance Channel; Dorothy Thigpen, Executive Director of Third World Newsreel and Producer, Rick Smigielski. The event is open to the public with an admission price of $5.00.
For more information on Cityvisions visit: http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/cityvisions/
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