Music Videos
BIFF 2022 Selections
BIFF 2022 Selections
NO TICKETS WILL BE SOLD AT THE VENUES
Purchase your ticket either online or at the Box Office
Directors – Steve Geller & Felipe Torres
Music – The Pandemaniacs
OK, this one is personal. Back in April, right at the start of the panic and lockdown, I turned 69 years old. No party, no celebration, no family and friends.
Just me, Boll, the dogs and some pizza. So, I did what I usually do when feeling overwhelmed – I grabbed my guitar and started writing. I turned the little song over to my buddies in The Pandemaniacs, and here’s the result.
Rating: PG-13
Continue Reading
Most of the credit goes to these guys, who did the bulk of the heavy lifting – Joe Duraes, for his crunchy guitar and stellar Music Production skills. World’s Greatest Drummer Felipe Torres for banging out the beat, and for his incredible video editing. He took hours of raw footage, and somehow assembled it into crazy little movie. Christine Aliventi-Wagner, first for her beautiful background vocals, and second for her dance chops and her ability to teach the “girls” how to move with a modicum of convincing gracefulness. Bollie Dungan, for her camera and lighting direction, but mostly for her incredible patience and encouragement in getting a usable performance out of me.
I’m very excited that I also get to credit members of The Jimmys for their help with this production. If you don’t know – The Jimmys are one of America’s greatest Blues bands. They tour all over the Midwest, have won a boatload of awards, and have performed to sellout crowds in Europe, Central America and the Caribbean. You should check em out. On this vid we have Jimmy Voegeli on keyboards – Perry Weber, one of my all-time fave guitarists, churning it out Chicago-style – and Pete Ross giving us a powerhouse of a horn section.
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t credit Thomas and Belle Torres for their nuanced work as “The Audience”. They don’t come much cuter.
So, without further ado, I give you The Pandemaniacs’ production of “69 Blues”! Enjoy!!
Directors – Eric LaBossiere & Riel Foidart
Song – Hello Fiasco
Animator – Riel Foidart
Director Bio
Between 2016 and 2020, members of The Mailman’s Children, Justin Lacroix Band and The Mission Light teamed up to record a total of 23 original songs. In 2020, the resulting and emerging new Pop Rock band took on the name of Hello Fiasco™. The band is considered Canadian-American because four of its members currently live in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada), while lead singer and rhythm guitarist Eric LaBossiere lives in Helena, Montana (USA).
Hello Fiasco™ went on to commission Riel Foidart in producing an animated music video for their song Apples and Soda Pop. Riel is a Winnipeg based independent animator who previously worked on small projects within the community.
Despite the efforts of their parents, kids will happily devour any junk food they can get their hands on. Follow a young boy’s musical adventure through dreams of sugar, chips and chocolate while his parents remain oblivious to his efforts.
Rating: G
Director – Gavin Michael Booth
Music – SYML
Director Bio
Gavin Booth is a filmmaker hailing from Canada. He works as a writer, director, producer and editor. Booth broke new filmmaking ground teaming up with producer Jason Blum (The Purge, Get Out) to create “Fifteen”, the world’s first movie broadcast live using Twitter’s Periscope App. He also directed “The Scarehouse” (NBC/Universal) The Scarehouse is available on streaming everywhere. Booth was recently nominated for two Video of the Year awards for Country Music.
Booth’s latest, “Last Call”, is a split screen real-time feature film. No hidden cuts as the film plays out with two camera crews in different parts of a city, showing two sides of a story unfold in real-time. Last Call is currently receiving outstanding praise on the festival circuit. “Every once in a while a movie can strike an emotional chord so strongly it cannot…. and will not be ignored. Last Call is one of those movies.”
Booth has worked with some of the top entertainers in the music industry including music videos and documentary projects for Todrick Hall, SYML, Third Eye Blind, Vanessa Carlton and more. Gavin has created music videos for over 80 artists.
Director Statement
SYML music videos are short films to me. I am a storyteller and when it comes to short film based music videos, nothing inspires me more that SYML’s often bleak yet heartfelt songwriting. This is our fifth collaboration together. SYML does not like to appear in his videos so it truly is casting actors and creating a short film for me.
I can’t explain where ideas come from for music videos – I don’t know exactly what a boy building a time machine has to do with this song but it hit instantly the first time I heard the song. I knew the building sadness in the song would evoke a strong response as the story unfolds and we learn what his mission is.
I love making music videos as much as I love making traditional films. I believe they have so much potential to tell interesting stories and capture music fans attention in a whole new way from the song itself.
That combined with the fact that this as independent as it could be with a budget of $100.00 and a four hour production schedule. Sometimes we are best when we strip away everything and create from nothing.
Marshall, 10 years old, obsessed with seeing his deceased mother again, builds a device in his family garage hoping to gain back the time cancer took from him.
Rating: PG
Director – Stimson Snead
Music – Fellow Robot
Director Bio
Award-winning director, illustrator, and ten-year veteran of the indie scene. With multiple stage musicals, short stories and comic strips also to his name.
Some describe him as an open-minded team leader who lends his signature style to projects with grace and good humor while still respecting the ethos that informs the source material. Although others have described him as a ticking time bomb of insanity and social anxiety, ready to go screaming off the deep end at any-
Director Statement
There is a particular lyric in the song “Golden Man” that has stayed under my skin since I first heard it, “And I still believe, everything I need isn’t far”.
It is a hard time to be optimist. Fear, pessimism and hate seem to permeate everything these days and to be hopeful in spite of it feels to many, understandingly naïve. But it truth, I DO still believe. Everything I need isn’t far. Who I want to be shouldn’t make you cry.
The video the band and I created takes the most extreme conceivable version of despair, the post apocalyptic wasteland so common to media that you can imagine it without any aid from me- but uses it instead as the setting of a family… just being a family. The problems of siblings fighting and yet loving each other. Enjoying a meal together and indulging in a little fandom. To us it is a post apocalypse, but to them. It’s a life, and a good one.
That simple loves, simple joys, and yes even a love of a particular can persist in spite of horror and that optimism still has a place is a message a lot of people need.
I certainly do.
-Stimson Snead
Even when the world is burning, the nuclear family continues unchanged. A brother and sister fight, and reconcile in this heartfelt music video, featuring the work of of the band Fellow Robot.
Rating: PG-13
Director – Paul Trillo
Music – James Mercer, The Shins
Director Bio
Paul Trillo is a Los Angeles based commercial and music video director who focuses on craft when experimenting with storytelling and visual techniques.
He has been featured in a variety of outlets including Creator’s Project, Gizmodo, GQ and Scientific American. Paul has been listed as one of D&AD’s Next Directors and has won “The One Show’s One To Watch” and “30 Under 30 Film Festival’s Director to Watch” awards.
Paul has also participated in various panel discussions including SXSW and Northside Festival.
Director Statement
For me, “The Great Divide” is about coming to this turning point. A point of no return. The theme of the song speaks to this palpable rift we’re all feeling right now. I wanted to place the current state of things, this “Great Divide” we’re going through, within the larger context of the universe to show how it’s all connected. The hope was to create something both timely and timeless. The song has this entrancing quality that lulls you in further and further. When I first started experimenting with the visuals, that driving quality of the song synced up nicely with this continuous, uninterrupted motion. The song has a grand scale that I wanted to match visually, something that is both wildly surreal but resonates on a human level. Initially, it felt like not being to do a traditional live shoot was going to be a huge constraint. However, that constraint opened the door to a whole world of possibilities with visual effects and animation that the artists at Hunters House help bring to life.
The great divide takes us on an unwavering reverse-zoom journey through the big bang into the creation of life to a distant future all in one continuous camera move. The video has gained almost 3M views on YouTube on The Shins official channel shortly after its release and received coverage from reputable media sources such as The Rolling Stone, Animation World Network, Shots, Uproxx, and many others.
Rating: N/A
Synopsis Continued
There is a palpable rift in our country, our world, our reality. “How could this be real?” we ask ourselves on a daily basis. “The New Normal” is constantly redefined. “Are we living in the darkest timeline?” We wonder. “The simulation is glitching.” We muse. The great divide is happening between humans, between the planet, between the universe. Take a step back and reflect on where we came from and where we’re going.
Director – Jason Zarnowski
Director – Rob Tomaro
Music – Rob Tomaro
A young boy wakes up on Christmas morning and thinks that the spirit of Christmas has passed him by.
Rating: N/A
Directors – Kenneth Ferrone
Music and Lyrics – Nat Zegree & Eric Holmes
Director Bio
Kenneth Ferrone’s credits encompass television, film, Broadway theater, and dance. With a passion for storytelling, he is committed to the creative development and production of dynamic and engaging new works across a variety of mediums. Kenneth Co-Produced the Emmy Award winning GREASE LIVE on Fox, including the show’s live behind-the-scenes content, which captured roughly 2.2 million viewers and over 1.6 million social actions across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, making GREASE LIVE the highest socially engaged live musical performance to date.
For NBC, Kenneth Associate Produced the television series, RISE (Universal TV, TrueJack, Seller-Suarez), as well as Steven Spielberg’s musical series, SMASH (Universal TV, Storyline, Amblin.) Additional credits include DECEPTION (Universal TV, BermanBraun) and IRONSIDE (Universal TV, Davis Entertainment, Yellow Brick Road), as well as Theresa Rebeck’s feature film, POOR BEHAVIOR, and BROADWAY 4D, a 3D film attraction directed by Bryan Singer. For the stage, Kenneth Associate Directed the current Broadway production of SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS for Nickelodeon and Sony Music.
The Production earned 12 Tony Nominations, including Best New Musical. He collaborated with Jerry Seinfeld and Colin Quinn as the Associate Director of COLIN QUINN: THE NEW YORK STORY, which earned rave reviews Off-Broadway, was named a 2015 “Critic’s Pick” by the New York Times, and was filmed for Netflix. He directed the Off-Broadway premiere of LUCIE POHL: HI HITLER at the Cherry Lane Theatre as well as the long-running Off-Broadway hit, SISTAS; now in its seventh sold-out year, the production aired nationwide on BET Television and is distributed by RLJ/Image Entertainment. Currently, Kenneth is developing THE WANDERER, based on the life and music of Rock and Roll artist, Dion DiMucci.
He Associate Directed the critically acclaimed Broadway revival of LOVE LETTERS, the world premiere of WATERFALL, by Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire, and the Broadway premiere of WONDERLAND. Other recent stage credits include productions at the 5th Ave Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Pasadena Playhouse, Primary Stages, Alley Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Goodspeed Musicals, and Bay Street Theatre. Kenneth began his career at International Creative Management. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and the Producers Guild of America.
It’s just another workday for Ashley and her ride-or-dies until the interruption of, yet again, some unwanted attention off the streets of NYC. Follow Ashley on a brassy musical journey of the shit she has to take from men daily in the concrete jungle… or does she? With a spunky original pop song from award-winning composing team Nat Zegree and Eric Holmes comes a fresh contemporary comedy about FEMALE POWER!
Rating: PG
Additional Credits
Cast
Directors – Nina McNeely
Music – black midi
Director Bio
Nina McNeely is an L.A based choreographer, director, visual artist and creative director whose work feels like a living lucid dream. Seductive and repulsive, caring and sadistic, manipulated and manipulating, absurd and surreal, possession in McNeely’s work is never simple self-expression. It extracts attention. She enjoys searching for what she feels is missing in the world and applies it to her work and is drawn to dancers/performers with a downright magic within. She’s collaborated with artists and directors such as Gaspar Noé, Floria Sigismondi, Andrew Thomas Huang, Björk, Rihanna, The Weekend, Sam Smith, and Black Midi to name a few.
An absurdist dance and animation extravaganza about when cult followers turn on their leader.
Rating: PG-13
Additional Credits
Director – Leonardo Fiorito
Director – Bruno Levinson
Rating: N/A
Director – Yash Musabji
Music – Yash Musabji
Director Bio
Yash Musabji was born in Kanodar, a small village in India. He and his mother came to the United States while he was at the young age of 2. Chicago, Illinois was their destination since his mother had family connections in the city. While in Chicago, Yash was introduced to his grandfather’s cameras.
Since a very young age, Yash was fiddling around with his grandfather’s equipment. The curiosity amongst him for these cameras was overbearing, he could not leave them alone. His whole family never knew exactly why Yash had this connection for the camera equipment, but it appeared to be the very beginning of something special.
Around the age of 9 years old, Yash and his family left the big city of Chicago and moved to a small family welcoming town named Belvidere. Growing up in Belvidere made him realize that he was nothing like most kids, he had a difficult time fitting in. After years and years of failing to fit in, Yash decided to embrace his boldness and his uniqueness. He stopped caring about what people thought about him and simply just followed his passions.
Around the time of his Sophomore year of high school, he got his first iPhone. Using his new phone, he filmed and edited numerous highlight videos of the high school basketball team. The students loved watching his highlight videos, especially all of the players. Little did he know that soon, this would be his calling.
Over time, his love and passion for telling a story through multiple mediums lead him to create his company, ICON, a visual and music production company. Through his company, he was able to direct and executively produce numerous projects, quenching this thirst for storytelling.
Mental is a music video which portrays the suffering caused by holding on to painful memories for too long. In this video, the main protagonist, Yash Musabji, can’t seem to stop thinking about his past lover, thus causing him excruciating pain, anxiety attacks, and manic episodes. This music video is a short portion from Yash Musabji’s longer cinematic hip-hop musical experience, Prelude to L1F3.
Additional Credits
Director – Daniel Moshel
Music – August Schram sings ‘Una furtiva lagrima’
Director Bio
Daniel Moshel was born in Germany. Currently he lives as a writer/director in Vienna, Austria. “Login2Life” (2011) was his first feature length documentary. After the premiere on the German ZDF broadcast station, and a successful festival circuit. He is one of 4 directors creating the 2014 ZDF TV-show named ‘House of Love’.
The project “Metube” started as a homage to thousands of ambitious YouTube users and video bloggers. It was the most successful short Daniel accomplished. Consequently the sequel MeTube 2 followed. Both MeTubes were screened on more than 600 festivals (including two nominations on Sundance 2013 & 2016), received more than 60 awards, and gathered over 4 Million web views. MeTube 3 just launched its career online and is going to be release to the festival circuit. Currently Daniel works with his Team of writers on features and tv shows.
The third part of the internationally award-winning MeTube short film series. This time the intergalactic music nerds August and Elfi conquer the opera stage and orchestrate their final adventure in an opulent manner.
Rating: N/A
Additional Credits
Director – Yash Musabji
Music – Enrique Calle
Director Bio
Yash Musabji was born in Kanodar, a small village in India. He and his mother came to the United States while he was at the young age of 2. Chicago, Illinois was their destination since his mother had family connections in the city. While in Chicago, Yash was introduced to his grandfather’s cameras. Since a very young age, Yash was fiddling around with his grandfather’s equipment.
The curiosity amongst him for these cameras was overbearing, he could not leave them alone. His whole family never knew exactly why Yash had this connection for the camera equipment, but it appeared to be the very beginning of something special. Around the age of 9 years old, Yash and his family left the big city of Chicago and moved to a small family welcoming town named Belvidere.
Growing up in Belvidere made him realize that he was nothing like most kids, he had a difficult time fitting in. After years and years of failing to fit in, Yash decided to embrace his boldness and his uniqueness. He stopped caring about what people thought about him and simply just followed his passions. Around the time of his Sophomore year of high school, he got his first iPhone. Using his new phone, he filmed and edited numerous highlight videos of the high school basketball team.
The students loved watching his highlight videos, especially all of the players. Little did he know that soon, this would be his calling. Over time, his love and passion for telling a story through multiple mediums lead him to create his company, ICON, a visual and music production company. Through his company, he was able to direct and executively produce numerous projects, quenching this thirst for storytelling.
Preso O Muerto is a music video based off of a true Rockford story. Enrique Calle, the musical artist in the video, portrays his close friend, who was betrayed by a comrade, and then later shot by the police department 7 times. Thankfully he’s still alive. The part which makes this video so special is that the phone call in the song is an actual voice recording of Enrique Calle’s close friend from prison. This music video is more than a cinematic journey, or a musical movement, it’s a true Rockford story.
Rating: N/A
Additional Credits
Director – Jon Hanusa
Music – Devils Teeth
Director Bio
Jon Hanusa is a filmmaker and commercial producer based in Milwaukee, WI. Jon is inspired by Dario Argento, cheeseburgers, garage rock, kung fu movies, surf music, Schlitz, Herschell Gordon Lewis, dill pickles, black t-shirts, exotica, Lucio Fulci, and chorizo.
Director Statement
We didn’t set out to record a concept record based on fan fiction surrounding a villain from the 80’s martial arts film “Bloodsport”, but when we did, we let loose and had a lot of fun with it. This music video is a culmination of that creativity, whether it’s through the style giving a nod to shadow puppetry or the wild and crazy narrative we started developing for our lead character.
Ride of the Devils Teeth is one of those rare songs for us that took a LONG time to write. We went through a few iterations over the course of many months, but once it clicked it immediately fit into the Chong Li world that we were envisioning. The galloping drums immediately conjured images of a gang of thieves on horseback riding through the desert in the moonlight.
Rating: N/A
Synopsis Continued
Made with no budget, the video follows along with that thought of galloping horses. Having loosely talked about a Chong Li storyline for the album, this video represents ‘Chong’ as an unstoppable force of violent intensity and punches to the face. Overall, we wanted to convey a fun, hallucinogenic series of images that invoke the likes of the old west, feudal japan, post-apocalyptic hellscapes, and mythological monsters.
Additional Credits
Director – Julia Joseph
Music –
Director Bio
Julie Joseph is an animation film director, illustrator and art director based in Brussels. She realized music videos and recently, commercial movies for brands and TV channel including Van Cleef & Arpels and FX Networks. Her illustrations are also published in the press (Le Monde, L’Obs..) and she create set designs for window shops, posters and illustrate books for publishers (Gallimard Jeunesse). She loves to play with surrealism and poetry to transcend reality and create powerful visual images to impress the retina. Her universe is inspired by tales, folklore of ancient civilizations, portraits of primitive almonds, the collective unconscious and its archetypes.
In a ghost town as if from the past, the night is suspended. The world of dreams unfolds and reveals mysterious and poetic characters. In this futuristic city where the sun never rises, revolt is near.
Rating: N/A
Director – Jason Zarnowski
Music – Rob Tomaro
A woman realizes that she has the power to become her own super hero.
Rating: N/A
Directors – Jim Hendricks & Katie Theriault
Music – Kaitlin Jacobson & Jim Hendricks
Director Bio
Jim Hendricks is Professor of Music at Chicago State University. He is artistically involved as a music composer/arranger, stage and small film actor, and novelist. He recently undertook film production as a vehicle for visual and musical expression.
Director Statement
This version of Suite: Judy Blue Eyes explores the inner turmoil and emotional progression of a young woman as she clings to the last strands of a failed relationship.
This is the first music video of Suite: Judy Blue eyes with a female vocal soloist that contains a storyline and acting scenes.
Rating: G
Directors – Ari Gold
Music – Yumi So Cute
Director Bio
Ari Gold is an award-winning director whose films include “The Song of Sway Lake,” starring Robert Sheehan, the cult comedy “Adventures of Power,” and the student-Oscar-winning “Helicopter”, which is being expanded after an assignment from Alejandro Jodorowsky. And… Ari has a Guinness World Record for air drumming.
Director Statement
This version of Suite: Judy Blue Eyes explores the inner turmoil and emotional progression of a young woman as she clings to the last strands of a failed relationship.
I was biking past a parking lot in Venice and saw a makeshift punk show by a homeless future star named http://YumiSoCute.com, who was living in her car since she’d come out from from New Orleans. I was super inspired by her, and offered to make her a music video. I hope it brings you energy.
Synopsis Continued
Yumi: “My aspiration is to wake people up to their power. My music is the anthem, and my existence is the proof that it’s possible to be free. I want to bring punk back to black. Being an alternative woman of color everyone looked at me funny, but respected me because I was true to myself. I want to be that role model, that icon, who creates personal freedom for those listen, through my music and my energy.”
Say hey if you want to get on the Yumi train. Made by an amazing team: DP Stash Slionski, editor Soren James, producer Michelle Stratton, featuring Yumi’s peeps plus Venice icon Greg Cipes.