Presque Isle USA
2008, 97min.
Prod.: James Savoca, Script/Dir.: Rob Nilsson, Dir. of Phot.: Mickey Freeman, Compos.: Kit Walker, Prod. Design: Rachel Nichols, Sound Des.: Al Nelson at the Noise Floor, Edit.: Milena Grozeva
Cast: Kieron McCartney, Kara McCartney, Michael Edo Keane- David, Robert Viharo, Carrie Paff, Elizabeth Sklar, Robert Parnell, Ray Reinhardt, Clayton Allen.
Merida leaves Danny to make a new life with Thor. Danny gets on his motorcycle and flees east to a wilderness lake island where his family spent their summers when he was a boy. He burns ID and clothes and swims out to the lake with the crumbling cabin still there under a canopy of virgin forest. Now visions come to him. Are they dreams, hallucinations, flashbacks? His mother, long dead, appears. A close friend arrives, or does he? Nothing seems certain as Danny first strives to live through the pain of present loss, and finally to reconcile with his long dead troubled family.
Production Company
Fog City Pictures
| Nilsson, Rob  Rob Nilsson (born 1939, Rhinelander, Wisconsin, USA)
San Francisco based director. Nilsson and co-director John Hanson won the Camera d’Or at Cannes for Northern Lights and Nilsson won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance FF for Heat and Sunlight. He is the first American film director to have won both awards. He is also the creator of the Direct Action style of digital filmmaking taught in the Tenderloin yGroup Actor’s Ensemble, San Francisco and featured in workshops conducted around the world. Nilsson is a pioneer in the techniques of video to film transfer which led to today’s digital revolution. In 1985 Signal 7 was the first small format video feature to be blown up to film and distributed around the world. Chalk, his first feature with the Tenderloin Action Group (now the Tenderloin yGroup) a San Francisco inner city acting workshop, was featured in the Locarno and Toronto film festivals. It was voted one of the top films of the year by the Village Voice. Seven of Nilsson’s 9 @ NIGHT film series, nine Direct Action digital features cast from the yGroup, Stroke, Singing, Scheme C6 and Need, Pan, Used and Go Togethe had their World Premieres at the Mill Valley IFF. Attitude had its World Premiere at the Hong Kong IFF in 2003 and Noise at the Virginia FF, also in 2003. In collaboration with studio Malaparte in Japan, Nilsson completed a Direct Action digital feature film shot on Sagi Island off the coast of Hiroshima. Winter Oranges had its world premiere in 2000 at the Fukuoka Film Archives in Fukuoka and its US Premiere at the Mill Valley IFF in 2000. In 2000, Nilsson shot another Direct Action digital feature (Samt) in Jordan, working with a cast of young Jordanians assembled by Zenid, a Jordanian institute for social development. Samt had its world premiere at the Mill Valley FF in 2004. In 2003 Nilsson, in conjunction with Resfest South Africa, shot Frank, a Direct Action digital feature shot in Cape Town locations with a cast selected from town and township. In 2005 the Pacific Film Archive hosted the World Premiere of Security, a Direct Action feature film produced during a Nilsson residency at the University of California, Berkeley. Security won the Audience Award at the Green Cine Internet FF. In 2006 the Kansas City Filmmaker’s Jubilee presented Opening, a Direct Action feature sponsored and produced in Kansas City by the festival, as its Opening Night film. Nilsson has directed A Town Has Turned to Dust, a feature film for the USA Channel from a script by Rod Serling. Nilsson’s film criticism has been featured on Ifilm and the Adobe Motion Channel and in a regular editorial column in RES, the world’s leading magazine on digital filmmaking. Nilsson is working on a book about film and received a Rockefeller Artist's Grant in 2002. In the recent years retrospectives of Nilsson’s work have taken place at the Pacific Film Archives, Berkeley, Chicago Institute of Art, Resfest, Seoul, Korea, Digital Talkies Festival, New Dehli, India, MOV Festival and Cinemanila, Manila, Philippines, Hong Kong IFF, and the Kansas City Filmmaker's Jubilee. Recent awards include the Ted M. Larson Award for “outstanding contributions to the film industry” from the Fargo IFF, the Indie Pioneer Award from the Kansas City Filmmaker’s Jubilee, a Filmmaker of the Year award from the Silver Lake FF, Los Angeles and the Milley Award from the city of Mill Valley for achievement in the Arts. His book of poetry, From a Refugee of Tristan Da Cunha was released in 2007 and is available at Authorhouse.com. Production on the 9 @ Night film series was completed in 2005. Pan premiered in 2006 at the Mill Valley FF while Used and Go Together, the final two feature films featured in the Mill Valley FF in 2007. The World Premiere marathon screening of all 9 feature films took place at the Harvard Film Archives in 2007. Presque Isle, a narrative feature shot on locations in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Northern Wisconsin premiered at the Mill Valley FF in 2007.
Filmography
Northern Lights (1979), Signal 7 (1985), On the Edge (1986), Heat And Sunlight (1988), The Street (1989), Words for the Dying (1990), Choosing Success (1994), Chalk (1996), A Town Has Turned to Dust (1998), Winter Oranges (2000), Singing (2000), Stroke (2000), Scheme C6 (2001), Noise (2003) Attitude (2003), Samt (2004), Frank (2004), Security (2005), Need (2005), Opening (2006), Pan (2006), Used (2007), Go Together (2007), Presque Isle (2007).
|
