(1999) 110 minutes
video sales, Facets Multimedia, 800-331-6197

Fifteen short films by tomorrow's filmmakers make up THE LOFT TAPES: STUDENT FILMS FROM NOTRE DAME, a unique collection released on video by Facets Video. Long famous for sports and other academic achievements, THE LOFT TAPES points to the possibility that one day soon the University of Notre Dame will be as well known for the achievements of its young independent filmmakers as for the yardage of its end receivers. Jill Godmilow, the award-winning filmmaker (Antonia: Portrait of a Woman, Far from Poland, Waiting for the Moon, Roy Cohn/Jack Smith, What Farocki Taught), and supervising faculty on these films says, "Each of the films offers ideas and experiences that I haven't met in the cinema before. Because they are young films, yet serious attempts to get at some truths in new ways, there are special opportunities here for study about film form, film practice, and film pleasure."

The fifteen films in THE LOFT TAPES collection were all made between 1993 and 1997 by two-person student teams. Remarkably, each was made for about $900 in just 8 weeks -- from treatment to mix -- in undergraduate film courses. Covering a broad cross-section of themes, the films collectively display a search for a cinema that sits at the intersection of the personal and the political. The emphasis is on experimentation; the films display an astonishing originality and offer alternative, tough insights. THE LOFT TAPES were produced by Jill Godmilow and Ted Mandell for the Department of Film, Television and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame.