ROLF BELGUM
since 1965
2023
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RE-RELEASE/NATIONAL TOUR DRIVER 23 and
THE ATLAS MOTH on BLU-RAY
FOUNDFOOTAGEFEST.COM
in the wake of a second cook - 2016
Running time 70 min 14 sec Color HD Video. 1:85 stereo
The cook retreats to a small storage closet where there is approximately 60 minutes of air remaining. Fifty–eight miles from shore in the confines of his closet/incubator he cycles through the life-death continuum experiencing indisputable hallucinations of his baby girl’s birth, growth and his own death, burial and rebirth. He visualizes his daughter’s efforts up through age five, as the air runs out he becomes a mid-wife to the “home-movies” he will never see. This is a vision which only film can allow. What began as documentary ends as fiction. What began as fiction becomes a study of nature.
This film is an ecological narrative. in the wake of a second cook, explores the uncanny symmetry between our unconscious and the natural world. Woven from wildly disparate elements; the film seamlessly ties nature, documentary, and fiction into a new filmic experience.
As a tanker is caught in a storm and capsizing; a second-cook on board receives a voice mail from his wife that he is father to a baby girl. The cook retreats to a small storage closet where there is approximately 60 minutes of air remaining. Fifty–eight miles from shore in the confines of this closet he experiences impossibly authentic hallucinations of his baby girl’s birth, growth and his own funeral and burial. As the air runs out he becomes a mid-wife to the memories he will never experience. What begins as documentary ends as fiction. What began as fiction becomes a study of nature.
She Unfolds By Day - 2008
Running time 71 min Color Video. 1:85 stereo
She Unfolds by Day explores the afternoon in which a frustrated middle-aged son tries to manage his misanthropic 80-year-old mother. Along with his dog, they cope with signs of Alzheimer’s, while her wandering draws her to nearby woods where the forms and rhythms of the eco-systems shape their story. A series of disjointed loops melds fiction, documentary and nature film elements into a strange mixture of heightened reality and unconscious imagery. She Unfolds by Day taps into the potential for filmmaking to reintroduce life forms as inseparable from our story. I wove the visuals of tiny creatures from my backyard, animated motions of my terrier and the sublime expressions of wolf life with the antics of my forgetful 80-year- old mother. What began as documentary ends as fiction. What began as fiction becomes a study of nature.
Driver 23 - 1998
Running time 72 min Color Video. 1:85 stereo
The Atlas Moth - 2001Running time 72 min ColorVideo.1:85stereo
Driver 23 is the lowest budget feature ever bought by a major Network. Shot for $750 it played on the Sundance Channel for two years.
As an antidote for the bloated, manufactured rock stars of the MTV generation, these films are packed with stranger-than-fiction human comedy and down to earth realism. Driver 23 and The Atlas Moth document seven years in the life of Dan Cleveland, a Minneapolis-based rock guitarist/deliveryman and his band, Dark Horse. In spite of (or because of) a complex obsessive compulsive disorder, Dan is driven by an existential need to simply accomplish. An intense optimist, he meets all obstacles to his musical ambitions with uncanny determination, amazing perseverance, and strange "inventions" which visualize frustrations and make tangible the workings of his mind. Winner of 9 National/International Film Awards.
The Atlas Moth completes the seven year story Dan Cleveland and Dark Horse first CD, "Guts Before Glory“.