Hello Kitty

The MadCat Film Festival is a highly acclaimed international festival that exhibits independent and experimental films and videos from around the world. Nothing too unusual there. The thing that sets MadCat apart, however, is that all the filmmakers involved are women. For seven years, the Bay Area-based, female-focussed festival has been searching out inventive and original voices. The festival screens throughout the month of September at an assortment of San Francisco and Berkeley venues. The following winter and spring, the festival goes on tour, touching down at more than 20 museums, art houses, universities and microcinemas around the country.

This Friday and Saturday, May 7 and 8, MadCat will be coming to the Guild Cinema in Albuquerque's Nob Hill. Specially selected for Albuquerque is a program of short films from the festival, collectively known as “Cut Snip Ooze.” The seven films being showcased are all animated films that “investigate unsolved crimes and medical mysteries.” The films come from America, Germany, Argentina, Mexico and the United Kingdom and provide an excellent cross-section of the work being done by contemporary female animators—from Sarah Jane Lapp's hand-drawn “Chronicle of an Asthmatic Stripper” to Celia Galan Julvie's stop-motion-animated “Historia del Desierto.”

This special event is co-sponsored by local film arts organization Basement Films with a special thanks to UNM Media Arts and the College of Fine Arts outreach program. Tickets are $7 for general admission and $5 for students and seniors. Call the Guild at 255-1848 or log on to www.madcatfilmfestival.org for more info.