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First here’s a quick recap on what this is all about, for those who missed last week’s announcement:

The 2014 Sundance Film Festival titles have been announced in the various categories, and so we now know who made the cut. But what about those many thousands who submitted their films and didn’t get in? If you’re one of them, here’s a chance for you to let us know who you are.

For the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, 118 feature-length films were selected, representing 37 countries and 54 first-time filmmakers, including 34 in competition. These films were selected from 12,218 submissions (72 more than for 2013), including 4,057 feature-length films and 8,161 short films. Of the feature film submissions, 2,014 were from the U.S. and 2,043 were international. 97 feature films at the Festival will be world premieres.

So really somewhere between 1% and 3% of total submissions were selected. Those are minuscule numbers. So that also means that there are roughly 97% of you remaining, with projects that didn’t get into the festival. And YOU are the folks we want to hear from!

Of interest to those of us on this blog (see the name and tagline of the blog at the top of page if you’re new here) are films by and/or about people of African descent. So, if you or your film fit the bill, we’d love to hear from you!

At the very least, it’ll be great just to know you exist, so that we can become familiar with you and your work, and track from here-on.

So, if you agree, feel free to send me an email to obensont@gmail.com, with all the vitals about you and your film, and we’ll go from there.

We posted the above last week, and since then, I’ve received several emails in response, which I began highlighting earlier this week (see the first piece HERE; and the second HERE).

Today’s submission comes from another San Francisco Bay area-based producer/director, Maria Judice, and here’s what she had to share in her email to me:

moonless – Rejected from Sundance

moonless, a science fiction short-film, has a heavily ethereal quality. The film focuses on a female space traveler’s predetermined circumstance as her hosts return her home. She fights against settling under the looming shadow of Earth. The film draws inspiration from fashion videos and NASA’s space footage. It flips the old cliche on its head – “home is where the heart is.” The main characters heart is in space and there is where she wants to stay. moonless will mix formats by shooting on 35mm, 16mm, and still medium format. Filming will be on Mt. Davidson in San Francisco, CA.

Intrigued? I was, so I kept reading, as you should too if you are as well…

moonless is the first film in a series of shorts titled, in this world. The series questions one’s responsibility to Earth (moonless), to yourself (space__d) and to others (orbiters). The presence of a spaceship lingers in the background of each film reminding us to see beyond ourselves and our struggling own existence.

Per her bio, Judice, playing in, and incorporating a variety of artistic mediums in her work, received her MFA from Calarts in Film/Video. She also received the Adrienne Shelly Award for excellence in directing for her short Palm Trees Down 3rd St. She serves on the leadership team for the San Francisco Women in Film Institute. She can be found in San Francisco kicking around the fog, as she states.

Ah yes, the San Fran fog. I remember it quite vividly, after having lived there for some 5 years in the early 2000s – a place I still very much have a fondness for.

I checked out her website (HERE), and liked a lot of what I saw, with regards to the available still and moving images. I always appreciate filmmakers seemingly thinking and working outside of the proverbial box, exploring the more fantastical genres; and I’m certainly curious to see where this career leads.

Judice is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise finishing funds for the above film series – $2475. Thus far, with 15 days to go, she’s raised $675. Check out the teasers below of moonless and the pitch for spaced___d. And if you’re sold on what you see, head on over to the project’s Kickstarter page HERE to make a contribution.

First, here’s the moonless teaser (I haven’t seen the full film, which she submitted to Sundance and which was rejected, so can’t offer any informed commentary on it just yet. But I’ll update this post with my thoughts whenever I do):

moonless Trailer from Maria Judice on Vimeo.

And here’s the pitch for spaced___d:

Maria Judice

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