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 | WOO WOO | World Premiere |
Cast: | Paige Smith, Martin Pfefferkorn, Zoey Mae Dillon, Giverny Petitmermet, Jason Altman | Crew: | Executive Producers: Nicki Manchisi - Screenwriters: Nicki Manchisi - Cinematographer: Renny Mccauley - Editor: Renny Mccauley - Composer: Brian Flood
| Email: | nicki.manchisi gmail.com | web: | woowoothefilm.org |
synopsis Woo Woo tells the story of a young girl named Louise and an injured veteran in the summer of 1961. After WWI, Woo Woo can only mutter the words, 'woo woo,' and the neighborhood children play games that mock his condition. Louise asks her older sister Eileen about Woo Woo's past. After Eileen fabricates a story about what happened to Woo Woo, Louise finds herself terrified of the injured veteran. However, when Louise confronts her fears she discovers they are not so different after all.
director Nicki Manchisi is a writer, director and producer who lives in New York City. In 2003, Nicki co-directed and produced her first documentary about the political controversy that surrounded the exportation of Bolivia's natural gas while studying abroad in Cochabamba. El gas no se vende takes an in-depth look at the controversy and corruption of the Bolivian government in their decision to exploit one of the nation's most important natural resources.
Her second documentary, Flea Diaries, received honorable mention at the Vermont International Film Festival in 2005. Flea Diaries examined the people, the products, and the vendors that personify a New York City flea market. After working for Nickelodeon for a couple years she moved out West to receive her Master of Fine Arts in Cinema Studies at San Francisco State University.
While out West, she completed several narrative shorts leading up to her most recent film, Woo Woo. She also began experimenting with animation. Some of her recent work includes Wolf Woman, an experimental animation completed in 2011. The animation is based on a fable told in the extinct Alaskan Inuit language, Eyak. This was part of an artist residency grant on Governor's Island. Website Filmography
filmmaker's note Most of my work is surrounded by the themes of memory, nostalgia and the subjectivity of children. The films I produce and write are inspired by stories that place me in another time. My film, Woo Woo, was largely influenced by these ideas. Louise and Woo Woo reflect a time that is distant yet connected to the present. They are the voice of a child, an outsider and an adult. Louise and Woo Woo share an emphatic moment that defies the boundaries of time, age, gender, and prejudice. One of the major themes in Woo Woo is empathy. The foundation of the film is built by small moments that lead to the final confrontation where the characters rise above society and change for the better. In their final encounter we see Woo Woo, a wounded soul, transform into a child and we watch Louise, a timid little girl, become an adult.
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