Pop Filter Hot Pick: Get SYNC'D Up to Local Film at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts

Reel Local: This Friday, July 1st, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts will transform its serene and artsy urban lawn into an outdoor screening space for the third installment of the SYNC'D film series.

A celebration of locally produced film and music, the mini-fest features contemporary silent shorts with live accompaniment performed by emerging Pittsburgh-based musicians.

Films selected for the program encompass a diverse range of styles, genre, media, and production techniques, including works shot on film and finished digitally, digital shorts, and 16mm projections. Primarily experimental in nature, films feature narrative, abstract, animation, and documentary elements. All films are between three and 15 minutes in length.

Featured Pittsburgh-based filmmakers include: Chris Smalley, Michele Senko, Keith Tassick, Justin Crimone, Mike Maraden, Marina Pfenning, Gretchen Neidert & Stuart Anderson, Kristen Lauth Schaeffer & Andrew Halasz, Mike Bonello, and Kyle Vannoy.

The program will also feature live accompaniment by local musicians--four-piece band Bigg Slurpp and Americana-experimental group Imperial Earth--who will perform orchestrated scores, as well improvisational elements.

Sync'd is curated by Pittsburgh Filmmakers projectionist Michael Maraden, who was inspired to develop the program locally after creating a film for a similar highly successful festival in Boston called Split Signal, which featured music by Black Yodel, The Books, Devil Music Ensemble, and Roger Miller (Alloy Orchestra, Mission to Burma), among others.

A graduate of University of Pittsburgh's Film Studies Program, Maraden has shown his work locally at the 3 Rivers Film Festival, as well as at festivals around the U.S. and U.K. His short documentary, Confederate Pennsylvania, was picked up by Current TV.

Doors open at 8 p.m. and movies begin at sundown. Rain or shine. Cost: $5. Beverages will be provided. Visitors are welcome to bring a picnic dinner.

Read all the Pop Filter picks.

Self Portrait by Chris Smalley; Afro Mood by Justine Crimone.