Preceded by short: Columbia River Redux.

Cunnamulla is veteran ethnographic filmmaker Dennis O'Rourke's (Cannibal Tours, The Good Woman of Bangkok) first film made in his native Australia. In characteristically provocative fashion, O'Rourke trains his camera on the inhabitants of Cunnamulla, a rural, racially diverse but divided Queensland town, presenting a vivid and disturbing portrait of the intersecting lives of a dozen characters. The cab driver Arthur and his garrulous wife/dispatcher Neredah, the local dogcatcher, the pierced heavy metal dj, the curmudgeonly scrap merchant, and two young teenage girls waiting to escape to the city are only some of those whose desires, frustrations, and visions of the world are exposed in this study of small–town existence. As we share in O'Rourke's conversations and dispassionate observations, we become privy to a mix of empathic, disapproving, and moralizing attitudes that the residents have toward each other and their town in this bleak but darkly humorous microcosm of social life.

Columbia River Redux (Michael Annus, U.S., 1999). Using animation, found footage, and optical printing, the beautifully crafted Columbia River Redux laments the imminent extinction of wild salmon in the Columbia River.-IL (4 mins, Color, Video, From the artist)