Port Townsend Film Festival 2008

1000 JOURNALS is a film about people (including some in Port Townsend) whose lives are touched by 1000 traveling journals. These blank journals were released into the world in the summer of 2000 by a San Francisco-based artist who identified himself as “Someguy,” Some people found a journal, or got it from a friend or stranger. Some signed up on the web and received it in the mail. Some wrote in them, others doodled, pasted in photographs, or added artworks. Some kept them. Some passed them on. There are no rules, and no one really monitors these journals and their movements. And yet, they are connecting tens of thousands of people worldwide, provoking and inspiring them. In September 2003, one of the 1000, number 526, returned to Someguy, filled. What happened to the other 999? This film tells their stories. 1000 Journals shares the experience of their worldwide journeys, and chronicles the self-governed collaboration of thousands of random people who have added to this global "message in a bottle."

At a time when more women than ever are getting breast implants, fewer voices seem to be asking “Why?” And fewer still are asking “Are they safe?” This film explores the ongoing debate of the safety of breast implants and the role of beauty in our culture. At its heart, the film is driven by the experience of the filmmaker’s own mother. After a double mastectomy with silicone-implant reconstruction surgery, she suffered severe complications. Ultimately, the film is the story of everyday women who find themselves and their breasts in the tangled and confusing intersection of health, money, science, and beauty. Advisory: graphic images.

In the midst of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal gave 202 destitute Midwestern farm families a chance to start over—in Alaska. This is the story of a bold government experiment, and the families who found themselves thrust into the national spotlight. Print Source: Juster Hill Productions Email:jhppaulhill@yahoo.com

Bloodied, barefoot, and branded like cattle, a mysterious woman comes to town with an aim to kill the man that done her wrong. Print Source: Foe Killer Films Email: foekillerfilms@mac.com

As compelling as any fictional drama, this film follows Jewell Praying Wolf James and 17 others from Washington State to the Pentagon, wrestling with inner and outer demons in an attempt to carve and transport a 10-ton totem pole as a memorial to 9/11. Print Source: Chariot Wheel Productions Email: janeldavis@yahoo.com

Returning home was the choice she made. Letting go was the choice she inspired. A young Native American and her mother must both come to terms with her illness. Her pain ignites her mother's gift for storytelling, ultimately paving a path of magical transformation. Print Source: kalaniqueypo@gmail.com

A train to Auschwitz was not what Sven had in mind when he signed up for work in a youth hostel to fulfil his German civil service obligation. Once at the former Nazi concentration camp’s hostel, his main job is to care for a cranky 85-year-old former camp inmate who never left and now spends his days as a living witness. The old man also repairs camp victim’s suitcases, a job that the camp management tries to take away from him. Sven develops a relationship with a bilingual camp tour guide his age and the three interact with differing generational intensities. Awards: 2007 New Berlin Film Award: Special Prize for Production