This shorts program is home to the latest visions that contemporary experimental and avant-garde cinema have to offer. If it’s here, it is most assuredly off the beaten path.
IN-PERSON: Sunday 9/19 at 1:00 PM in Theater #2
ONLINE: Available Friday, 9/17 from 7:00 PM through Sunday, 9/19, 9:00 PM
*The filmmakers of How Loving U Changed the World and Chapter 9 are expected to be present for a discussion following the in-person screening.
How Loving U Changed the World
5 mins | US | Color | Experimental, Art | 🍊🦩 🏆
A short experimental film taken on a cheap point-and-shoot camcorder, run analog through a video mixer and collaged both electronically and manually.
by Haley McCormick
Haley is an artist working with a multitude of media including fiber, clay, analog video, and various conceptual strategies. Layers of texture and organic movement tie her body of work together.
Out in the Desert
5 mins | US | Color | Experimental, Art | 🏆
A physical and psychological journey, discovering the Self. Shot on 16mm film and hand-processed, this experimental short explores the mystical terrain of Joshua Tree through the medium of pure cinema.
by Natalia Fentisova
Natalia was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She moved to Finland at the age of 16 where she started to paint. Later she moved to Milan to study painting & contemporary art in the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera. After graduating she moved to Berlin in 2010 to continue her studies in art and media in Berlin Academy of Fine Arts. Since then she has been working with film, video installations and audiovisual performances. In her work she explores psychological and physical transformations, questions of cultural, social and gender identities. Her approach is intuitive rather than rational, the style is surreal and expressive.
Death Valley
11 mins | US | Color | Experimental, Art | 🏆
It’s New Years’ Eve 2080 and Earth is uninhabited. A new age radiologist travels from outer space to practice yoga in front of a desert sunset when an earthquake hurls her from a cliff.
by Grace Sloan
As a filmmaker, her experimental documentaries and found footage pieces use analog mediums (celluloid, VHS, et al) to explore nostalgia, kitsch, and the occult. They’ve premiered at festivals including Telluride, Maryland, Montreal Underground, and Alchemy. In 2018, all of her films to date screened as part of Microscope Gallery’s YES: Emerging Artists series in Brooklyn. Her first narrative short, Death Valley, premiered at 2021’s Fantasia Film Festival.
Nursery Rhymes
10 mins | Singapore | In Chinese, English, Japanese | Color | 🏆
1940’s colonial Singapore. A Chinese girl has to play a nursery game among English children and is reminded of her place. Another Chinese girl has to sing a Japanese nursery song for an official while her true voice remains silenced.
by Michael Kam
Michael completed a post-graduate course in filmmaking from Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore, and currently teaches in its film programme. An avid short filmmaker, Michael’s works have travelled to numerous international film festivals, such as Berlin, Uppsala, Cork, Palm Springs, Encounters and Curta Cinema, among others. His films have received festival accolades such as the Best Fiction award at Tampere, the ARTE short film award at Hamburg and the Best Director award in Singapore.
Arachne
5 mins | US | Color | Experimental, Performance | 🏆
“Her hair, touched by the poison, fell off, and with it both nose and ears; and the head shrank up; her whole body also was small; the slender fingers clung to her side as legs; the rest was belly. Still from this she ever spins a thread; and now, as a spider, she exercises her old-time weaver-art.” -Ovid, Metamorphoses
by Adam Kritzer
Adam is a filmmaker and teaching artist. His work has screened at international festivals, won awards and received limited theatrical distribution. In 2016, he founded the Art Detectives, a program which helps neurodivergent artists in upstate New York work towards life goals through explorations of their artistic interests.
Chapter 9
28 mins | US | B&W | Experimental, Horror | 🍊🦩🏆 🎬
Caught in the clutches of a nefarious island, Edward Prendick crosses a terrifying Thing that soon wreaks upon him a flood of endless torment. With one treacherous turn after another, Prendick must make his way through this world or suffer the end of his own. Inspired and creative, the film features an original score and was captured entirely on Super 8 film at Northwest Florida state and local parks.
by Jake Brown
Jake was born in Northwest Florida. He developed an affinity for films at an early age while watching home movies on his family’s VCR. After producing numerous local commercials for his hometown news station, he is now the writer, director, cinematographer, and editor of his first motion picture, Chapter 9.