News

Annie Howell recently released “Small, Beautifully Moving Parts.”

That’s her most recent film and it tells the story of a woman who is going through a transitional time in life.

“She loves machines. And as she’s on the eve of this big life change, she’s about to become a parent, she’s thinking about connecting with humans and goes on a road trip to try to find her mother who is estranged and has sort of gone off the grid,” explains Howell.

She says the process of shooting and editing a film while teaching as a film professor was a big task.

“I was teaching during some of the process. The writing process certainly and some of the editing process, but its really part of my job as an OU professor, to make films and so I was happy to do that,” said Howell.

Howell co-directed the film with her partner, Lisa Robinson. She says it took the pair about a year: they wrote the script in a month, shot the film in 21 days and then spent months editing, designing the sound and scoring the feature film.

Despite the hard work, Howell says she’s already on to her next project, and this time, she’s getting $8,000 in funding from the University Research Committee.

The money will be used to make her next film, tentatively titled “Claire.”

The project explores the themes of aging, identity, expectation and loss.

“We are really in the early stages,” says Howell. “We are writing the script, but it’s a story that takes place at a university amd we hope to shoot it a year from this summer in Athens.”

There’s no set date for the release of that project.

Howell says a June 8 screening of “Small, Beautifully Moving Parts” is set to take place at the Gateway Film Center in Columbus.