Launch

"Launch" is an artistic impression of America's space program, culminating with coverage of the space shuttle's return to flight. It is a meditation on the end of an era. The film imagines a space center deserted as nature has begun to reclaim the complex. A hurricane swells and takes over. Finally, the eye of the storm arrives allowing one last rocket to escape carrying the last humans off the planet.

"Launch" has been awarded Rooftop Films 2004 Filmmakers' Fund Grant and Experimental Television Center's Finishing Funds 2006 award.
(The Experimental Television Center's Finishing Funds program is supported by the Electronic Film and Media Program at the New York State Council on the Arts.)

Launch will be shown as a single screen looped installation at the Documentair Film Platform ZONE taking place at MuHKA_media (Antwerp), Film-Plateau (Gent), and BUDA Kunstencentrum (Kortrijk), Belgium, Mar. 12-16, 2008.

The European PREMIERE was at the International Film Festival Rotterdam Jan. 23-Feb. 3, 2008. Launch competed in the Tiger Awards for Short Film Competition and screened in "Short: As Long As Takes" in the program "The Science" on Jan. 24, 10:30 PM in Lantaren 2 and Jan. 25, 2 PM in Lantaren 1.

The NY Premiere was held at Rooftop Films sold out screening of "The Show Must Go On" on July 26, 2007 at the Westbeth Artists' Community, 55 Bethune St.

"Launch" premiered at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, Seattle on June 20 in "Glassing the Landscape", a program in the Artists' Cinema Series, curated by Brian Doyle and Fionn Meade, with support from Laurent Bardèche of Annexia. The program included works by Bill Brown, Jem Cohen, Cédrick Eymenier, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, and Matt McCormick.

Production stills | Synopsis & Production notes | Trailer (1:25 min.)