OUR GOALS:

The chief goal of the Z Fest was to sustain an annual short film and video festival in Chicago, showcasing the work of makers from around the world. Our commitment to true independent cinema held strong. It was our primary mission to present the works of artists who have complete creative control over all aspects of the film or video making process. Often those works were unsettling, terrifying, beautiful, experimental, insightful, political, strange, perverse, or even just plain obscene. We supported the spirit of unique and autonomous vision in whatever genre, style, or subject matter it expressed itself. Our secondary goal was the creation of additional more intimate screenings in theaters and alternative venues throughout the United States and abroad, designed to bring these and similar works to as large an audience as possible.

OUR HISTORY:

In 2000, our first year of operation, the Z Film Festival teamed up with the Euro Underground Film Festival and neokino.com to showcase mostly local works. Works on both film and video were projected before a lively audience of more than 100 people at the Heaven Gallery in Wicker Park. In 2001 the Z Film Festival screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center in downtown Chicago, to a crowd of over 300 people. For year three, we returned to the Heaven Gallery, screening for standing-room-only attendance over the span of two evenings of movies and live performances.

Since initiating our call for entries worldwide in 2001, we have received between 150 and 250 submissions each year from Canada, France, England, Poland, Netherlands, Austria, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, as well as every major city in the United States.

At the beginning of our third year, we began to expand the festival to include a traveling program that played in Oakland, California in January 2002, and shorter more intimate shows like our October 2002 video showcase at the Hideout in Chicago. Our side program titled “The Sleaze Z Fest”, which screened at the Heaven Gallery in June 2003, attracted approximately 200 audience members.

The 4th Annual Z Film Festival, with the theme of "aggression," was another sucessful program, playing once again before an enthusiastic standing-room-only crowd at the Heaven Gallery. The 4th year saw many amazing local movie makers emerging from the dark corners of Chi-town. Summer 2004 was an active time for the fest with the new "Audiophilia" program, and the return of the popular "Sleaze Z Fest."

In 2004 & 2005 we found eagar European audiences in venues in Berlin and London.

OUR MANAGEMENT TEAM:

The Z Film Festival is managed by Usama and Kristie Alshaibi, a husband and wife team. Both are film and video makers, and have been programming various film and video screenings for more than six years.

Festival Director Usama Alshaibi was one of the three co-founders of the Undershorts Film Festival, and has programmed Projections in Heaven and various other film and video shows that have received critical accolades. Usama earned a degree in film from Columbia College in 1998, and works as the film and audio archivist at the Chicago Historical Society. There he is known as writer and historian Studs Terkel’s “demon engineer, who like an alchemist transmuted my slovenly, drossy tapes into gold."(Studs Terkel, Will the Circle Be Unbroken?, page xiii). He is also a working partner in Artvamp, LLC, a video production and design company, and freelances as a video editor and independent producer for various regional multi-media businesses. Usama is the recipient of the 2003 Chicago Underground Film Fund Grant.

Program Director Kristie Alshaibi recently earned her MFA in film and video from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was granted a full merit scholarship. She is the recipient of a number of grants and awards, including the 1998 Princess Grace Award, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Grand Marnier Video Fellowship in 2000. From 1997 - 1998 Kristie ran a weekly video showcase entitled Sister Secret Sandwich Presents, after which she continued curating special one night short film events, such as 29th Frame, Inebreality, and PLUG in various alternative venues throughout the Midwest. In addition, she spearheaded the formation of the successful 72 Hour Feature Project, which drew sold-out crowds to the Gene Siskel Film Center in June 2003, and showcased works by filmmakers from the U.S., Canada, and France created exclusively for the festival. Kristie is the founding partner of Artvamp, LLC.

Collectively, the Alshaibi’s have made more than 40 shorts, and completed three feature length films. Both have shown their work in festivals across the United States, as well as in Europe, India, and Australia. A major retrospective of both of their short films took place in December 2001 at the Chamber of Pop Culture in London, England.

Juila Gilman was the newest addition to our management team. She was a valued juror and organizer over the last two years.

Also key to the success of the Z Film Festival are a few very dedicated interns and volunteers, including Brian Klein, Samer Alshaibi, Whitney Gaylord, and Sarah Sullivan Alshaibi.

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