2024 ODDS & ENDS

PROGRAM

PART I

Jade Fish, Gifted 1992 by Alyce Yang, 2023 (2:19) color, sound

A couple holds between their bodies two ancient Chinese objects: a jade fish gifted by the woman's father at her wedding, and a warrior figurine inherited after his death.

Public Surfaces by Gillian Waldo, 2023 (11:57) color, sound

In 1964, Baltimore became the second city in the country to pass a 1% for Art law, allocating one percent of the construction budget for any public building to commissioning a new piece of art, and by 2016, it was revealed that many of the pieces had gone missing. Through landscapes of the city and depictions of the sculptures, the film explores the history of the program, the failures of modernism, the neglect of the school system, and asks who public art can really serve.

a film with sound (take three) by Josh Weissbach, 2023 (2:57) color, sound

A father and daughter make a new movie after the daughter requests to make a film with sound after making a silent one the previous year.

Glitter for Girls by Federica Foglia, 2023 (3:54) color, sound

Glitter for Girls is a handmade tattoo film that utilizes a camera-less direct-on-film animation approach to collage multiple layers of water tattoos (commonly used by children.

Spit It Out by Melina Kiyomi Coumas, 2023 (3:32) color, sound

Utilizing visuals of nature, interiors and the body, Spit It Out explores the filmmaker's struggle growing up with a speech impediment. Shot in super 8mm film.

Your Best and Worst by Domenick Fini, 2023 (2:05) black and white, silent

"Your Best and Worst" highlights how we pick ourselves apart. Our best and our worst are on the cutting table, ready to be scrutinized.

Hamskifte by Eiril Matilde Paulsen Linge, 2023 (7:09) black and white, sound

Hamskifte means molting or to molt. It is an experimental hand drawn film about death. It consists of partly rotoscoped and partly improvised animation, accompanied by a monolog- a consciousness or stream of thoughts. Which, in the wake of another's death, is becoming conscious about her own. And through grief, learning to live alongside death.

for Zigadine by Michele Rose Seippel, 2023 (6:49) color, sound

A new parent's inner monologue on those first turbulent months. Filled with questioning, reconciling reemerging memories, isolation, insecurities, and a newfound adaptation for surviving parenthood.

peak by Lindsey Arturo and Kaitlyn Paston, 2023 (1:15) color, sound

Swish swash swhoosh. Experiments with air, hair, and wind on the mountain.

The Hungry Ghost & The Earthshaker by Takahiro Suzuki, 2024 (7:00) color, sound

The Hungry Ghost & The Earthshaker is a brief meditation on greed. The film pulls from the Buddhist figure of the Hungry Ghost, the Japanese myth of the Namazu, and the retelling of a dream the filmmaker had.

Ventana by Edgar Jorge Baralt, 2020 (10:30) color, sound

A retrieved picture of a window elicits memories and the impulse to recreate a lost site. By this same window, an eight year old child feels the cold air on his face and imagines the future.

Adhan by Kamyar Mohsenin, 2023 (5:12) color, sound

Adhan abstractly explores the multifaceted relationships between the African diaspora, Islam, and selfhood. The film interprets the Adhan, the Islamic public call to prayer, as a religious tool of testament, spiritual bridge between existences, and an apparatus to deepen one's connection with the divine and self.

Direction of the Road by Janelle VanderKelen, 2023 (7:42) color, sound

As a tree muses on their role in the Order of Things, this being (which humans normally think of as immobile) reveals the speed, agility, and finesse integral to their experience of the world. Adapted from a short story written by Ursula LeGuin, this decidedly inhuman filmic narrative uses the overlapping cyan and scarlet of anaglyph stereoscopic 3D imaging to speculate how a tree (which responds more acutely to light waves in the red and blue portions of the spectrum) might perceive the world visually.

crestline, crestline grey by Kevin Jerome Everson, 2024 (2:36) color, silent (16mm print)

Tre’ Gamble looks for the perfect grey tone. 

Cut & by Di Liang, 2023 (1:47) color, sound

A visual thesis on scissors as a metaphor for personal feelings of disconnection and doubt. The scissor, an instrument of detachment, also sparks the flame of transformation.

Light, Noise, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke by Tomonari Nishikawa, 2023 (6:23) color, sound

The visual shows the alternation of the shots of fireworks filmed at a summer festival in Japan, producing a distinctive yet organic rhythm, as well as a gap in time between the visual and sound, both of which are produced by the photographic images on the 16mm filmstrip.

On the Outs by Kelly Emmrich, 2023 (3:30) color, sound

An experimental 2D animated short film about a young seamstress, who finds herself in a repetitive moment, creating the same little black dress over and over. She chases a more exciting prospect, a dandelion fluff, into a lush forest.

Perception by Amanda Finn, Laura Rogers, Jessica Breed, 2023 (5:41) color, sound

An avant-garde experiment that invites audiences on an immersive journey into the uncharted realms of perception. Set against the backdrop of a dada dinner party, the film challenges the conventional boundaries of sensory experience, weaving together a tapestry of sights, sounds, tastes, and textures in a mesmerizing exploration of the human sensorium.

Dinner Building by Carter Hiett, 2023 (1:52) black and white, sound

A flurry of whisks, spoons, and other kitchen gadgets dance on screen.

// Current state = true; by Laura Iancu, 2021 (3:00) color, sound

Short: 

Some memories are password protected. Others always run without asking.

a fence is a fence but the clouds move freely by Curtis Miller, 2023 (8:08) color, sound

A brief essay on the origin of four small towns in rural Kansas and Oklahoma, told through each town’s respective water tower. Tall tales, public memorials, and roadside signage present in a region shadowed with settler-colonialism, imperial pursuits, identity fictions, and the threat of severe weather.