WRITER/DIRECTOR: Emilie Upczak
CREATIVE PRODUCER: John Otterbacher
GENRE: Drama
FORMAT: Short Film
STATUS: Completed

***Special Jury Award, Independent Film Festival Boston***

SYNOPSIS: A native botanist, grieving the death of a beloved aunt, travels alone to northern Mexico, where she is nourished by images of the last trip they took together traversing the Colorado River.

Emilie Upczak is an independent filmmaker, and lecturer at the University of Colorado in the Department of Cinema Studies and Moving Image Arts. Emilie holds an MFA in Film from Vermont College of Fine Arts, she is a Rotterdam Producers Lab and EAVE Producer alumni and an Andy Warhol Foundation Grant recipient. Originally from Boulder, Emilie spent ten years developing her practice while living in Trinidad and Tobago, where she also worked in the local festival and film industry. Emilie’s debut narrative feature, Moving Parts, premiered at the Denver Film Festival and is available via the films distributor, Indiepix, on Amazon. Emilie’s experimental video installations have been exhibited at PG Contemporary in Houston, AIR Gallery in Brooklyn and the Festival International Signes de Nuit in France. Her short films have played at a number of Caribbean and African Diasporic Film Festivals as well as at Clermont Ferrand and MIPTV markets. Emilie is the co-producer for, Nearest Neighbour, a documentary exploring the lives of Venezuelan migrants in Trinidad; she is also in development on her second narrative feature film, to be set in the Grand Canyon.

After graduating with both a Master in Communications and Bachelors in Film from Grand Valley State University in Michigan, John Otterbacher moved to Chicago where he splits his time between teaching and filmmaking. After completing his Master of Fine Arts in Film at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, John produced Moving Parts, his fourth narrative feature,which is now available on streaming and DVD. Otterbacher has mainly worked as a producer, cinematographer, and post-coordinator specializing in independent film, tv, and new media. As a college instructor, Otterbacher has taught at a number of institutions and is at Flashpoint Chicago where he has been teaching for over 10 years. He has worked with and been on the board of a number of not-for-profit organizations over the years including IFP Chicago and the Grand Rapids Film Festival and he is currently a member of the Education Advisory Committee for Cinema/Chicago and the Creative Cabinet for the Independent Filmmaker Association. Currently he is consulting producer on Roy’s World: Barry Gifford’s Chicago, producer on Nearest Neighbour, a documentary about Venezuelan political refugees fleeing to Trinidad, and director/producer on Officially Limited a docu-series about pop-culture art and copyright. When not teaching or filmmaking, he enjoys cross-country road trips with his family and working in photography.