The Short Films of William Farley

The Stories (2005)
Like a Sufi tale, The Stories contemplates a profound situation and then undercuts it with an understated efficiency that jolts us into the moment of altered awareness. Urgently desiring an intimate connection with his dying father, a son begs his father to talk, which results in an ironic encounter with reality. 5 minutes.

broke-Redux (1995 / Remastered 2004)
A short but timeless journey into the heart of the most complex obstacle standing in the way of ending homelessness: society's growing numbness to the problem of urban poverty. Broke is anchored in the assumption that people have an innate ability to empathize with the struggles and hardships of the less fortunate, and that emotional understanding is the first step toward addressing homelessness and finding a solution. Music performed by the Kronos Quartet. 10 minutes.

Tribute (1986)
Tribute is an affirmative view of life and death. The images are almost without exception from the nineteen fifties -- a ship launching, a woman dancing, a tree falling, a train passing -- and are impersonal subjects which nonetheless are icons and metaphors for our most personal thoughts. Image after image emerge from darkeness and hurl us toward remembrances of the purity and conflict that are part of our collective experiences of being alive. Music by David Byrne. 7 minutes.

Become an Artist (1982)
A satire on television pitches and how society sees the self-importance of artists. Featuring Father Guido Sarducci from Saturday Night Live. 1 minute.

Made for Television (1981)
A dense assemblage of excerpts from television commercials juxtaposed to a soundtrack of extraordinary facts about human beings, the results of which presents a humorous and critical view of TV advertising manipulation. 5 minutes.

The Bell Rang to an Empty Sky (1977)
This film takes one of the many tradegies buried in American history which befell the American Indian and, through the voice of Dennis Banks, creates a tight and perceptive visual and aural telling and interpretation of events. The selection of images, their iconography and meaning, effectively explored through juxaposition, creates a powerful work. 6 minutes.

Being (1975)
A man sits drinking beer in front of his TV. The program that he occasionally glances at is a montage of popular culture images: old movies, commercials, and news clips. Accompanying the fleeting images is a loosely synchronous narrative on the evolution of man's belief systems. The man's behavior watching television becomes a commentary on contemporary culture - the relationship between public information and private consciousness, and the nature of reality. 10 minutes.

Sea Space (1972/remastered 1997)
Sea Space documents a conversation the filmmaker had with a fellow crew member aboard a cargo ship in the South China Sea. The story revolves around the seaman's confession regarding his involvement in the accidental sinking of a fishing boat and his complicity in leaving the fishermen to drown in the sea. 8 minutes.

Screenings

Berlin International Film Festival, Berlin, West Germany
Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah
Rotterdam International Film Festival, Rotterdam, Netherlands
San Francisco International Film Festival, San Francisco, California
35th New York Film Festival, NYC, New York
46th International Mannheim Film Festival, Mannheim, Germany
Golden Knight Film Festival, Moscow, Russia
Cleveland International Film Festival, Cleveland, Ohio
International Film Forum Arsenals, Riga, Latvia
Pacific Film Archives, University of California Berkeley, California
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Span
Chicago International Film Festival, Chicago, Illinois
25th Festival of Nations, Linz, Austria
Film Arts Festival, San Francisco, California
International Short Film Festival, Vila do Conde, Portugal
Mill Valley Film Festival, Mill Valley, California
26th International Tampere Short Film Festival, Tampere, Finland
Black Maria Film/Video Festival, Jersey City, New Jersey
Accbank Dublin Film Festival, Dublin, Ireland
Cineamatheque, San Francisco, California
Arteleku, San Sebastian, Spain
Museum of Modern Art, NYC, New York
Cleveland Cinematheque, Cleveland, Ohio
Centro Gallego de Artes de Imagen, La Coruna, Spain
Conference on Visual Anthropology, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Kijkuis World Wide Video Festival, Den Haag, Spain
Bellevue Film Festival, Bellevue, Washington
Valencia Institute of Modern Art, Valencia, Spain
Others