SAN DIEGO, CA.- On Thursday, August 27, 2009 from 7-10 pm, San Diego's premier short-film showcase, alt.pictureshows, shakes things up by moving to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego's downtown location (1100 & 1001 Kettner Blvd.). MCASD is proud to present the seventh annual alt.pictureshows featuring a fresh selection of smart, provocative short films guaranteed to delight, engage, and challenge moviegoers. The one-night-only event is $5 general admission and free to MCASD Members.

Part happening, part film installation, the always surprising alt.pictureshows will transform portions of MCASD's downtown gallery spaces and outside plazas into a wonderfully diverse, cinematic funhouse where Museum-goers are free to dip in and out of rooms at will to sample everything from quirky comedies to thoughtful documentaries. Each room in alt.pictureshows offers an offbeat cross-section of short films linked either by a common theme, sensibility, or both in what promises to be a marvelous evening of micro-cinema where "physical channel surfing" is encouraged.

The diversity of short films will be looped throughout the galleries allowing MCASD visitors to traverse the Museum, soaking up the light-hearted, dark and disturbing, and all points in between with a range of cinematic visions created by progressive-minded film artists. The event's founder, filmmaker, and MCASD's Film Curator, Neil Kendricks, spent the past year gathering the films, and states that this year's line-up offers a range of themes from the misadventures of a would-be magician and a series of unlikely erotic encounters to a self-help guru's satirical words of advice for our tough economic times. The popular annual event will also unleash the animated mayhem by such animation auteurs as Bill Plympton and Don Hertzfeldt, among others. The evening's eclectic program includes experimental music videos, critically acclaimed art-world darlings Raymond Pettibon and Marilyn Minter's respective video-art projects, and a room devoted to Reynold Reynolds' short films.

The event will feature more than 20 short films, including several shorts that have been featured at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Please be advised that many of the program's short films have adult content and have not been rated.

Although the range of work is deliberately eclectic, the intent behind the seventh annual presentation of alt.pictureshows is to introduce the public to innovative artists making exciting, artistically daring, and original short films with something to say. What also binds the work of this band of cinematic outsiders is their resilient and often irreverent indie spirit and eagerness to tackle unusual choices of content by any creative means necessary.

ALT.PICTURESHOWS 2009: Breakdown of Rooms and Film Titles

'Toon Town Troublemakers' Detention (for Immature Audiences)
Raymond Pettibon, "Sunday Night and Saturday Morning" (2005)

Raymond Pettibon, "Repeater Pencil" (2004)
Smith & Foulkes, "This Way Up" (2008)*
Don Hertzfeldt, "I Am So Proud of You" (2008)
Bill Plympton, "Hot Dog" (2008)*
PES, "Western Spaghetti" (2008)
Jeremy Clapin, "Skhizein" (2008)

Funny Boneyard IV: Drama Queens and Global Village Idiots Unite (Again)
Cheryl Kanekar, "Kraczinsky's Krash Kourses in Success" (2009)
Patrick Eklund, "Instead of Abracadabra" (2008)

Welcome to the Pleasuredome: Buzzcocks & the New Flesh
Justin Newell, "Acting for the Camera" (2009)
Dmitry Povolotsky, "PAL/SECAM" (2008)
Sam Taylor-Wood, "Love You More" (2008)

The Tragic Kingdom of Reynold Reynolds
Reynold Reynolds, "Six Apartments" (2007)
Reynold Reynolds, "Secret Life" (2008)
Reynold Reynolds, "Secret Machine" (2009)

Beggar's Banquet and Other Meal Tickets
Dumb Bunny, "Abbie Cancelled" (2009)*
Nadejda Koseva, "Omelette" (2008)

Mini-Docs R' Us V
Eva Weber, "Steel Homes" (2008)*
Kimi Takesue, "Suspended" (2009)*
David Mollering, "Tandem" (2009)

The Wailing Wall, Disc IV
Neil Kendricks, "Untitled Project" (2009)
Nathan Gulick, "Swamp Thing" (2004)
Marilyn Minter, "Green Pink Caviar" (2009)