2024 ENCORE SCREENING
February 27, 2025
PAMCUT / TOMORROW THEATER (Portland, Oregon)
Featuring an installation by Lenny Beach & The Patchwork Girl of Oz with a live score by SQWYRM.
Poor Ojo just wanted to do the right thing and give the patchwork girl intuition and personality, rather than live the life of a servant. Now they find themselves in a fantastic adventure through a surreal land in search of a cure for petrification. The long overlooked Patchwork Girl of Oz silent film was created by L. Frank Baum, the writer of the curiously unique Oz books. Complete with outstanding creatures, elaborate costumes, and world class acrobats, this surreal classic with gender bending aspects takes many stabs at social norms with grace & in surreal fashion. The film is illuminated respectfully by the curious hardware electronic stylings of SQWYRM, creating a whimsical sonic atmosphere for this unique film to be shown and experienced. A dream since childhood, SQWYRM visits Portland to provide us with a sonic reverie for The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914).
Short Films
At Captain Daniel David’s on the Coast 2024. Directed by Jeffrey Sundin. Runtime: 10 minutes. (Portland, OR)
,,,so thee lilac never wilt alone,,, 2023. Directed by Elijah Jamal Asani . Runtime: 14:36 minutes. (Portland, OR)
Origins 2024. Directed by Konya . Runtime: 8:09 minutes. (Olympia, WA)
Mechanical Eye 2023. Directed by Deb Sietz. Runtime: 5:30 minutes. (Portland, OR)
Oh Then Until 2024. Directed by Hawk Ferdig. Runtime: 10 minutes. (Portland, OR)
Eulogy, Elegy 2024. Directed by Lily King. Runtime: 13:12 minutes. (Portland, OR)
Siren’s Song 2024. Directed by Blue Jaye Corvidae. Runtime: 3:53 minutes. (Portland, OR)
i was never the siren 2024. Directed by Moonyeka. Runtime: 27 minutes. (Portland, OR / Seattle, WA)
Lenny Beach is a Portland based Inter-media major at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. She recontextualizes technology through her experimental video work, performances, and immersive installations. She prefers to work with physical and analog forms of technology. Often incorporating CRT’s, vintage camcorders, VHS tapes, DVD’s, and having them be a crucial part of her work. By choosing to work with digital relics, she asks the viewer to be present with the physical objects that are the frames and containers for her art.
SQWYRM is the hardware electronics project of Elm Outcault. Originally from Oakland, CA and artist active since 2010. SQWYRM builds intentional projects upon electronic sets focused on the live experience and attuned to the specific event they are unfolding in by providing a one of a kind atmosphere and approach that feels unique and evolutionary to the audience each time. Elm has been involved in a variety of multimedia projects including the surrealist performance group, Gyre V, and assisting in the analog video feedback and noise project Lingua Lucem. Elm composed the score to the full length film, In void of Reverence (2005), as well as being the co-director of the debut film by Gyre V, mistakes will be made (2024).
Short Films
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2024
(4-9pm)
Eulogy, Elegy
Lily King. Runtime: 13:12 minutes.
eulogy, elegy is intended to be understood as a private conversation between myself and the viewer. During the course of our conversation I relate stories about the loss of my mom, about finding trans-identity and about the ways that our actions make lasting meaning for the people they touch. (Portland, OR)
Melencolia: The End of the Alphabet
M Woods. Runtime: 15:36
A sadness rolls over me as I gaze into the entrails of this pandora’s box and my shadow cranks a lost appendage for the sake of ontological tangents and bewitched spaces. I want you to witness The Hallucinatory Zone of Neo-Liberal death hounds and lost gazes that expand and contract time. Made of multiply-exposed 16mm film, mostly edited in camera. Starring Zora Zajicek. (Chicago, IL)
Hemorrhage
Ruth Hays. Runtime:4:06
Animated agit-prop: against the end of Roe and the evisceration of women’s rights to choose. (Olympia, WA)
Bread & Honey
Kyndra Lee. Runtime: 8:06
What is it like to love the peace of being with someone so much that you want to live with them forever? Cole and Lux coexist in their own miniature state of existence while striving to become one. Fully embracing this goal, they decide to consume each other. Music by Vanille Onyx (Kyndra Lee), Takeshita & Minus Two. (Seattle, WA)
Gab
Hogan Seidel. Runtime: 3:19
This piece continues my exploration of nature alongside significant queer individuals in my life. Filmed across various forests, arboretums, and gardens in Seattle and Vancouver with artist and friend Gabby Follett, this film employs intricate visual layering, hand-processed film, and biofeedback sound to delve into themes of queer ecology. The work celebrates the beauty of non-hierarchical, non-binary, and non-human-centric ways of experiencing queerness in and as part of nature. (Seattle, WA)
,,,so thee lilac never wilt alone,,,
Elijah Jamal Asani. Runtime: 14:36
under every garden, lies a ritual. within this ritual, a blaq flora grieves for their long lost flowers & a desire to create forever blooms. created by elijah jamal asani & shot/edited by Jonathan Woods, ",,, so thee lilac never wilt alone ,,," is a short film accompaniment to the experimental album "ephemerals' forever(s)" by ẹ̀bà. (Portland, OR)
Woman On A Rocket
Sierra Cosmidis Grove. Runtime: 4:08
Through a turbulent transition, Woman finally embraces change. A nod to Maya Deren. My first time shooting on color film. An exploration of color, scale and play. (Olympia, WA)
Mechanical Eye
Deb Seitz. Runtime: 5:30
A representative piece about women's beauty standards. Constructing oneself to the eye of media and the need to alter ourselves to fit into societal standards. (Portland, OR)
Oh Then Until
Hawk Ferdig. Runtime: 10:00
Oh Then Until is a short film that depicts a candid moment of the film maker becoming grounded in her own body through material connection, queer heritage, and a much needed bath. The audience is allowed into an otherwise private moment of bathing, exploration and relaxation where Hawk Ferdig is able to find the absurdity of queer materials, her own body, and historical context. This work is simultaneously a powerful means of portraying her own identity, as well as demonstrating the dissociative self objectification required to exist within her body on a day to day basis. (Portland, OR)
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2024 (7-9pm)
Tripsitters
Al Granstrom, Lucas Montgomery. Runtime: 16:04
When two drug-babysitters bicker on the job, their shroom-tripping client jumps off a balcony, and runs off into the woods, forcing them to go find him. (Chimacum, WA)
At Captain Daniel David's on the Coast
Jeffrey Sundin. Runtimee: 10m
The Never Ending Passion Boys Crew present songs from their debut release. (Portland, OR)
Origins
Konya. Runtime: 8:09
This project studies the non-linear odyssey of shadow tending through embodied movement. (Olympia, WA)
Wishfulweed (INTERNATIONAL SHORT)
Laura Iancu. Runtime: 2:00, Romani
A short film about the botanical lore of Wishfulweed.
Resting Place (INTERNATIONAL SHORT)
Brittney Appleby. Runtime: 2:55, Vancouver, BC
For those living with invisible illness we often find ourselves repetitively returning to rest. Resting Place captures the filmmaker returning to bed, reflecting on their experience living with chronic illness.The work utilizes multiple exposures to illustrate the ritual of rest. For many living with chronic illness we bide our time waiting in bed. The bed offers a safe space. A space that is sacred – a place of recovery and rest. Although the bed can offer a place of healing, it simultaneously isolates us. The loneliness of being bed bound leaves us longing. The relief of return contrasted with hindrance to stay. The hours away fluctuate with each passing day, but my return is imminent. The ritual is inevitable. Shot on 16mm film & hand processed. All exposures are done in camera.
Siren's Song
Blue Jaye Corvidae. Runtime: 3:53
The siren ponders the fish in the aquarium.
Like the fish existing in their tank as though it was the wild, existing in their tank as though they are existing how they would in the wild, the siren performs authenticity. The siren performs intimacy like the fish looking out as we look in. Do they see us? Do we see them? The fish perform naturalness as the siren does; in voyeuristic proximity the expectation of performance is apparent as the expectation of the natural to lack performativity is also apparent. The fish perform wildness as the siren does, perceived as uncaged yet sensing the weight of gaze. The siren sees themself within. (Portland, OR)
i was never the siren
Moonyeka. Runtime: 27m
This film is the first installment of the overarching audio-visual performance work, Harana for the Aswang. Harana is a Filipinx serenade form rooted in courtship and grief rituals. The project reimagines and centralizes the narratives of Aswang—an umbrella term for various shapeshifting, mythological, animist, folkloric, “evil” spirits and creatures in Filipino folklore—through the lens of their queer and trans descendants. This excerpt in particular challenges and re-myths the Siren archetype, creating a polyphonic experience of voice, aspects of harana, poetic-intimacy, wrath, and states of kilig. This film is in honor of the sacred transsexuality and queerness through all timelines, a place for us to be swooned. To be seen in the defiant (im)possibilities of love and all that died in order for it to exist.(Seattle, WA)
120,000 lumins
Scott Oshima. Runtime: 12:44
At risk of erasure, Los Angeles' Little Tokyo community fought to build a permanent home for its Japanese American arts and culture. The Center opened its doors in 1980. Four decades later, in the quiet of the pandemic, "120,000 lumens" observes the time and memory embodied. (Seattle, WA)
Heavy Water
Victor Anthony Martin. Runtime: 11:13
A man attempts to escape the dark recesses of his mind after a revealing inward look at himself and his own self doubt.
*Warning - This film contains heavy strobing effects. (Seattle, WA)
American Hypocrite
Brittney Cash. Runtime: 1:51
An exploration of our nation's hypocritical beliefs on what we should fear, rage, and love. Entirely created from archival materials found in the Prelinger Archive. (Seattle, WA)
Infinite Resignation and Wallowing in your Own Filth
Don Haugen. Runtime: 4:40
"Infinite Resignation and Wallowing in your Own Filth" is a darkly satirical short film that explores the suffocating routines of modern life through a collage of public domain educational and advertising clips. These vintage segments are repurposed to reflect the absurdity of consumer culture and societal expectations, juxtaposed against the protagonist's spiraling existential crisis. The film uses these clips as a surreal backdrop, amplifying the themes of detachment and sexuality, while shining a light on the hollow promises of a life dictated by commercialism and social conformity. (Eugene, OR)
November at the Beach
Eric Acosta. Runtime: 10:21
Amy Hirayama creates fermented poems while Rodrigo Sanchez takes photos. (Seattle, WA)
Divine Intervention (INTERNATIONAL SHORT)
Yun Jieh Wu. Runtime: 20:26, Taiwan
Divine Intervention explores the journey of a woman tormented by the entanglement of her hair, seeking solace through a spiritual guide. Together, they employ a unique technique to enter her consciousness, aiming to uncover the root of her distress. The Yuan Shen Palace, also known as the House of the Mind, is depicted as a virtual world constructed by the brain. If it truly exists, it might function like a vast organic hard drive, recording the intricate details of one's life. The film strives to rationalize magic and symbolize the process of spiritual healing.
FEATURED IN THE LOBBY OF THE FORUM: the work of Lenny Beach
Lenny Beach is a Portland based Intermedia major at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. She recontextualizes technology through her experimental video work, performances, and immersive installations. She prefers to work with physical and analog forms of technology. Often incorporating CRT's, vintage camcorders, VHS tapes, DVD's, and having them be a crucial part of her work. By choosing to work with digital relics, she asks the viewer to be present with the physical objects that are the frames and containers for her art.
Tyler Hubby made his feature directing debut with Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present. His subversive and irreverent short films detailing fetishism, co-dependency and bodily mutations have screened internationally and are featured in the book Cinema Contra Cinema by British author Jack Sargeant. He continues to develop feature projects while making experimental short films in collaboration with renowned musicians. He has edited over 30 documentaries including The Devil and Daniel Johnston, a picaresque biography of mentally ill artist/musician Daniel Johnston; Desolation Center, which documented groundbreaking concerts presented in the Mojave desert; Participant Media's The Great Invisible, which won the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW 2014; Drafthouse Films' The Final Member, about the Icelandic Phallological Museum’s quest for a human specimen; the HBO documentary A Small Act; For My County, the Peabody Award winning television special about Latinos in the US military; and Double Take, Belgian artist Johan Grimonprez’s metaphysical essay on the murder of Alfred Hitchcock by his own double. He edited and co-produced Lost Angels about the denizens of Los Angeles’ Skid Row and the punk rock documentary Bad Brains: Band in DC. He served as an additional editor on the Oscar nominated The Garden and HBO’s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. He is a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute where he studied film and photography.
Ceremonial Abyss is an aleatoric tape artist, curator and writer based in the Pacific Northwest. He has toured the U.S. extensively in support of his releases 23, Betrayal, and Tape Study for Four Variants. Along the way, he has performed with musicians and authors such as Pete Swanson (Yellow Swans), Jennifer Soong, Zan da Perry, Vi Khi Nao, DIIV, and Will Alexander.
Tony Conrad (1940-2016) was a multidisciplinary artist known for his groundbreaking art, music, films, and videos, although his work doesn’t fit comfortably within any of these disciplines. He eschewed categorization and actively sought to challenge the constraints of media forms, their modes of production, and the relationships of power embedded within them. Conrad was an early member of the Theatre of Eternal Music, along with La Monte Young, John Cale, Angus Maclise, and Marian Zazeela.
The Flicker is a 1966 American experimental film by Tony Conrad. The film consists of only 5 different frames: a warning frame, two title frames, a black frame, and a white frame. It changes the rate at which it switches between black and white frames to produce stroboscopic effects.
Conrad spent several months designing the film before shooting it in a matter of days. He produced and distributed The Flicker with the help of Jonas Mekas. The film is now recognized as a key work of structural filmmaking.
2024 South Sound Experimental Film Fest
November 23 & 24, 2024
Feature Film: Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present
Directed by Tyler Hubby, US, 2016, 96 min, in English
From performing in Jack Smith’s legendary Flaming Creatures to creating a series of groundbreaking experimental films to playing a pivotal role in the formation of The Velvet Underground, Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present, twenty-two years in the making, examines the pioneering life and work of artist, musician, and educator, Tony Conrad.
&
CEREMONIAL ABYSS PLAYS TONY CONRAD FEAT. THE FLICKER, 1966
A live collaboration based around an unknown, found mixtape of Tony Conrad’s work. Transcending the fixed constraint of the medium, the cassette is acting as a Present Source, (e.g. as an instrument in the room), by way of generative modular processing from the performer. The performer (Abyss) is responding to the tape with additional live electronics as a secondary musician in an improvisational setting, letting the ghost of Tony Conrad completely lead the way.
Short Films
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2023
(4-9pm)
Amulet
Ruth Hayes. Runtime: 2:17
The bells, or koudounia, that goats and sheep in Crete traditionally wore served as amulets to ward off evil spirits. Still in use, they also help shepherds know where their flocks are and what they are doing. Animated to a track composed of koudounia samples, this film’s abstract imagery originated in cameraless techniques that include stencil and bleach on 16mm color stock, and cyanotype. (Olympia, WA)
Nimueh
Abigail Hendrix. Runtime: 14:59
Nimueh is a hybrid 16mm and digital experimental film that explores the mythologizing of the body after violence and death.
Konstantin
Hogan Seidel. Runtime: 3:13
Konstantin is an experimental film shot on high-contrast black and white 16mm film using a single 100ft reel. The film is an in-camera edit with triple exposures, creating a layered and complex visual language. Through this aesthetic, the piece explores themes of queer love and queer ecology. It invites the viewer to enter a unique and poetic world, where the boundaries between the human and natural realms blur and merge. Pushing against human exceptionalism and into a world where there is no ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural.’
Can a walk in the forest, a kiss between lovers, a roll of film, the touch of lichen, liberate ourselves from these hierarchies? (Seattle, WA)
Signal
Heather Hindes. Runtime: 7:52
Isolated in the desert, something is created out of nothing. Signal was made in research between the creative habit and the elemental symbol of fire and its many images. We burn away our bonds from old forms and ideals and stagnancy due to a global pandemic. This film is a spell cast to help us all break our self limiting bonds and remember to lean on each other, and continue to inspire each other to keep walking forward. To keep burning. (Portland, OR)
She’s Watching
Ruby Lee. Runtime: 2:59)
You are your own worst critic.
When she wakes up trapped in a nightmare, she must find a way out by facing her biggest fear: herself. (Seattle, WA)
moto baby
Awa Moon. Runtime: 3:37)
A love letter magnifying the intersection of transgender identity, nature and motorcycles. (Seattle, WA)
Home
Sonam Tshedzom Tingkhye. Runtime: 11:05
A Tibetan refugee shares his story growing up as part of the first wave of Tibetans to settle in India as his daughter responds and connects through narrative movement. She dances with gesture, expansion, and carves through her childhood home while recognizing the adaptive nature of the Tibetan identity across generations. As the story progresses, the camera expands on movement with match cut editing, shifting perspective, and magnifying expression. Metaphors reveal themselves and the father recalls returning to his homeland after 50 years.
Dance, camera, and story merge as Home creatively unveils the Tibetan resilience by uniting both immigrant and first-generation voices. (Seattle, WA)
1000 Waters (Oceans & Friends)
Julie Perini. Runtime: 4:14
When I feel disconnected from myself, loved ones, or the Earth, I find it helpful to remember that water is relentless in its efforts to connect. Water is in constant motion, changing and transforming, linking everything to everything else on this planet and beyond.
1000 Waters (Oceans & Friends) is part of the 1000 Waters series; video meditations on the element of water. All of the shots in 1000 Waters are culled from my archive of daily video shooting with a consumer camera, a Flip camera or iPhone. Since April 1, 2011, I have been shooting a single-take, 60-second video each day, called a Minute Movie. I recently organized the Minute Movies into a massive database of over 5000 shots. About 20% of the shots in the archive contain water in the form of streams, lakes, the ocean, fountains, waterfalls, bath tubs, sinks, rain, hot springs, and more. (Portland, OR)
66 Motel
Jalen Thompson. Runtime: 12:51)
66 Motel explores the misconnections, the unspoken thoughts, and the delusions we experience in our digitally connected world. (Eugene, OR)
Cameras are clocks for seeing
Chelsea Werner-Jatzke. Runtime: 3:30
Drawing on Roland Barthes, Cameras are clocks for seeing incorporates text fragments from Barthes as stanzas interspersed into personal meditations on landscape photographs taken by my beloved as a teenager. As a curator of Good Symptom (3rd Thing Press, 2023), a serial publication of time-based literature, I have been spending a lot of time with Barthes’s Camera Lucida, the source material for the title of the publication. During this time, I discovered these photographs in my husband’s childhood dresser and was inspired to meditate on how Seattle (the city where we met) and the time that we have spent there (together and apart) has shaped how we experience place, identity, and our relationship. (Seattle, WA)
Bubblegum
Celestine Ocean. Runtime: 12:00
Star and Cleo – two siblings from a small town – have to choose between personal gain or honest sacrifice when they stumble upon a life-changing reward. (Seattle, WA)
unwavering/unfettered
Rana San. Runtime: 2:34)
Hammered into 16mm found footage of a police propaganda film, subtext emerges letter for letter from the redundancy of repeated text—a reclamation of bodily autonomy from those who pose as protectors. (Seattle, WA)
Septunia Rising
Meriden Vitale. Runtime: 7:30)
In the depths of far away places, what do we discover that stirs the smile, entices the light, that lures the fish? What else could but mingle beastly desires with such innocence? Spetunia is ready to find out. (Quilcene, WA)
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2023 (7-9pm)
Annie Schultz- “Waiting”
Nick Roetemeyer. Runtime: 4:15
Official Music Video for “Waiting” by Annie Schultz from Trailing Twelve Records.(Olympia, WA)
Cortex
Wesley Adam Klingele. Runtime: 2:30
The human memory and the invention of the camera converge in an impossible new change. (Kent, WA)
Ayethowe
Jay Anthony Baker. Runtime: 3:50
An experimental film about senses of place and journeys of emotional locatedness.
Made with help from Val Chang, and dance from Shane Scopatz & Ayelet Nadav. (Corvallis, OR)
little blue clown
blue jaye corvidae. Runtime:2:30
An experimental, traumacore short film written and directed by blue jaye corvidae, shot by buq corvidae-schulte.
Video opens on the [Projected Soul Impression] of the [Audience]’s anticipation and expectation of the [Performer]. The [Performer] enters the stage dressed as a [Ghost of Themself], projected upon with the [Audience]’s memory of prior performance, the [Performer] as [Ghost of Themself] begins to perform. Struggling to maintain the pressure of performance and expectation, the [Performer As Ghost of Themself] is distorted by panic, pulled into [Panic Attack], unable to maintain [Self], they excavate, dissociate, disappear into a small terrified inner place, seeing you, seeing them. (Portland, OR)
Spit It Out
Melina Kiyomi Coumas. Runtime:3:30
An experimental short exploring the filmmaker’s lifelong struggle with a speech impediment. Shot on super 8mm film.(Portland, OR)
Polly, Paulina, Pauline
Misty Shipman. Runtime: 10:44
When ballet dancer Polly wakes up in a fugue state, she is haunted by hallucinations and visions of her best friend, whose tragic death haunts her. (Newport, WA)
gatekeeper
Eric Michael Acosta. Runtime: 16:06)
The negotiation on moving through.(Seattle, WA)
Peisinoe
Mary Evans. Runtime: 5:05)
The title Peisinoe is the name of a Greek siren. I imagine Caroline’s character luring in her victims with mystery and innocent wonder. Not to drown them in the ocean, but to trap them in an in-between state of consciousness.(Eugene, OR)
Creolese Curry
Zoë Gamell Brown. Runtime: 5:20
Creolese Curry is an homage to diasporic connectivity through poor images and hyperreal extensions of geographies from the Caribbean to the States. The intention behind this video was to hear more about my mother’s childhood in Guyana and her experience growing up on the farm. The story turned into how my mother uses food to physically and mentally heal herself while recognizing her tense relationship with food.
In 2020, my mom had two strokes, requiring her to wear light-sensitive glasses and be even more cautious about her health. My mother and I have dreamt of creating a Guyanese American cookbook for years, and this recent scare reminded us that life doesn’t wait for opportunities as sweet as these to occur. The video occasionally glitches and sits out of sync, reflecting our imperfect but functioning relationships centered around food, medicine, and stories.
As a queer Boviander Guyanese American practicing placemaking from the Caribbean to the Gulf and now the Northwest, I grapple with how my mother and I can often connect through paralleling laughter and disconnect through distance over ideas of life. Invoking Legacy Rusell’s Glitch Feminism, my video also celebrates Hito Stereyl’s poor image, Sky Hopinka’s vignettes of home, and Duval Timothy’s integrative form of sharing diasporic knowing. (Eugene, OR)
Germination
Sean Waple. Runtime: 6:04
Germination is a formal and temporal reinterpretation of vegetative life cycles.
Score written and performed by Victoria Jordanova.(Seattle, WA)
Disfigured Flames
Sepia Katsoolis. Runtime: 5:00
Disfigured Flames is an analog 16mm experimental short film about a cyborg rebirth. The transsexual body is branded inhuman for its transformation, for transcending sex, it becomes an object; can it become more than human? How have we created a separation of transgender and cisgender bodies along the false lines of “genetics” and “biology?” A white pigeon is sacrificed for the transformation. A transmasc couple rises from a claw-foot bathtub filled with homemade soy milk; the film itself is eco-processed in homemade soy milk, creating a dreamy, sparkling texture on the film. The characteristic white liquid is reminiscent of artificial beings and cyborgs in dystopian Sci-Fi: bridging the gap between natural and constructed or human and artificial. Using direct filmmaking, I scratch-wave rows of lines and shapes into the emulsion of the film itself using a drypoint needle, drawing and painting directly on the film with India Ink. The flame or root-like white shapes are the surviving headlines and newspaper clippings from around the PNW about Robert Gaffney (1872-1916), a Transmasc who lived as a man openly for 20 years in Seattle, screen printed directly onto clear film leader. (Seattle, WA)
Twin Seas
Hali Autumn. Runtime: 30m
Began fierce and tender. Waves coming toward each other in flesh and in water. Interruptions of rock formations. Intertwining spirals formed by the body crawling across the sand…
Featuring Vanessa Skantze; presented with a live score by To End It All
2023 South Sound Experimental Film Fest
November 25 & 26, 2023
Feature Film: Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros
Directed by Daniel Weintraub, US, 2023, 117 min, in English
Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros tells the story of the composer, performer, teacher, philosopher, technological innovator and humanitarian Pauline Oliveros. She was one of the world’s original electronic musicians, one of the few women amongst notable post-war American composers, a master accordion player, a teacher and mentor to musicians, a gateway to music and sound for non-musicians and a technical innovator who helped develop everything from tools that allow musicians to play together while in different countries to software that enables people with physical limitations to create beautiful music. On the vanguard of contemporary American music for six decades, her story illuminates the pathway to how we got where we are and where the future will take us in the worlds of music, the philosophy of sound, and the art of listening.
Produced in collaboration with executive producer Ione, Oliveros’s partner in life and work, and the Ministry of Maåt, Inc., the film combines rare archival footage, live performances, and unreleased music with appearances by Terry Riley, Anna Halprin, Ione, Linda Montano, Laurie Anderson, Thurston Moore, Alvin Lucier, Claire Chase, Miya Masaoka, Morton Subotnick, Tony Martin, Ramon Sender and many more ground-breaking artists.
Q&A with Daniel Weintraub, Brenda Hutchinson, and Anastasia Clarke, moderated by Mara Barenbaum
The panel is composed of several voices from different backgrounds and perspectives:
Documentary filmmaker Daniel Weintraub, the genius who brought this film to fruition
Music educator Brenda Hutchinson, a longtime peer and friend of Pauline’s
Composer, sound technologist, archivist and Pauline superfan Anastasia Clarke
Electronic musician Mara Barenbaum, who records under the name Group Rhoda, will moderate the panel
poster art by Ellyse Egan
Short Films
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2022
(4-9pm)
Miracles
Mary Evans. Runtime: 3:18 min
Stara, a teen-witch-pop-star performs MIRACLES. Miracles is a type of mantra and a manifestation using pop frequency for positivity. Anything is possible if you believe in M-I-R-A-C-L-E-S.(Eugene, OR)
Aquí
Melina Kiyomi Coumas. Runtime: 4:09 min, in Spanish with English subtitles)
Aquí is an experimental 16mm short film exploring what home means to a multicultural young woman living in Oregon. (Portland, OR)
Clamorseeking
Connie Fu. Runtime: 15:15 min
Clamorseeking is an audiovisual project made over the course of two months living in a tiny house in Poulsbo on the Kitsap Peninsula. Many of the percussive sounds in the music came from field recordings of shells, stones, wood, and water that were encountered and played with on daily walks. I wanted to create an audiovisual object that embodies the experience of introspection aligning with freedom and creativity. (Seattle, WA)
The Tetrahedron
Jonah Barrett. Runtime: 19:07 min
In an alternate reality, a team of scientists provoke an ancient inter-dimensional deity known as THE TETRAHEDRON. What started as a scientific exploration turns into a fight for survival as several team members find themselves hopping through various dimensions. (Olympia, WA)
Ogre Hole
Echo Chambers. Runtime: 5 min
A magical potion and mysterious glory hole suddenly appear to transform a group of bored babes into their truest and most uninhibited forms. Shot by an entirely trans and non-binary cast and crew, Ogre Hole, is a light-hearted exploration of transness.(Olympia, WA)
moto baby
Miles Sprietsma. Runtime: 2:53 min
A concrete reproduction of a distant neolithic past meets the infrastructure of a green future amidst an ethereal desiccated landscape. (Portland, OR)
12 Months First Love
Ruby Mullen. Runtime: 9:29 min
Each segment of 12 Months First Love was constructed under restrictions: they could only be made from videos, photos, and music created during the month which they represent. Created chronologically throughout 2019, these video collage pieces were then compiled together. The film “documents” the first year of a relationship which becomes long-distance, the death of a childhood pet, and the travels between home and not-home.(Portland, OR)
Inhale/Exhale
Neely Goniodsky. Runtime: 1 min
An attempt to follow a breathing exercise which turns into a nightmare. (Seattle, WA)
Monstres en Mer (Somewhere at Sea)
Elizabeth Chamberlain. Runtime: 6:02 min
A new melody for an ancient song whose voice has been lost – pilgrims on a still sea plunge into fear when a powerful storm pulls them out farther and farther, until suddenly an eerie calm creeps in and a giant sea serpent appears, ready to fight. “Le Voyage de saint Brendan” is recounted in the medieval insular dialect of Old French and accompanied with an English translation reflecting the 12th century metric and rhyme scheme. (Olympia, WA)
Secret Place
Ryan Zemke. Runtime: 9 min
Lost in Barcelona, Alicia tries to find the place that she used to visit as a child. (Seattle, WA)
Lima’s Place
Hailey Bunn. Runtime: 10:45 min
In response to scc’s experimental theater showcase prompt “Origins: True Tales of the American Immigrant Experience.(Seattle, WA)
Day Dreamin
Alice Grendon. Runtime: 8:34 min
Day Dreamin’ takes place between the bed and scenes along the Salish Sea, and forest. The film tells the story of a person struggling to get out of bed, preferring the excitement of the semi-lucid morning dream space to the presumed monotony awaiting in the day ahead.(Seattle, WA)
The Walls that Were Violet
Jenn Sova. Runtime: 7:19 min
A meditation on interiors, exteriors, and the shadows between them. (Portland, OR)
Ranger Danger
Meriden Vitale. Runtime: 6:42 min
During the summers of 2020 and 2021, I worked as a fire lookout for the US Forest Service on the Willamette National Forest in the foothills of the Cascades. I lived alone with my dog at Warner Lookout and was responsible for tracking weather and new fire starts. This film is a compilation of images from my time at work as well as video poems I curated and filmed in my off hours. (Port Townsend, WA)
After Katie
M. Diana d’Arc. Runtime: 7:51 min
When an unexpected tragedy occurs, how can one family navigate the aftermath? A tribute to a young girl who died before her time and what happened after through the memories of her family. This work in progress concerns topics of child death and grief. Support this work by becoming a patron at patreon.com/Mistress_Diana_Darc. (Olympia, WA)
T’shuvah
Roz Stranger. Runtime: 2:53 min
T’shuvah is an experimental film exploring the ways we repeatedly return to self through love and loss. In Jewish practice t’shuvah is a process of spiritual accountability, a time of realignment with personal and collective healing and transformation. The sonic landscape is composed of the amalgamation of six separate poems that lead into one cohesive piece, to which improvised movement is paired. T’shuvah documents the gesticulation of poetics. This is a dance between poetry and movement; traversing the nuance of beginnings and endings, tenderness and anger, pain and joy. (Portland, OR)
Mental Soirée
Alberto Arellano, Spain. Runtime: 5:14 min
A Manual for a correct study of Telepathy in 3 steps leads the story through an evocative universe in which the characters are immersed. The mind is like a shipwreck, which always leaves remains on the beach…a story depicted in colors, shapes and symbols. Mental Soirée tells the story of two shipwrecked people who meet in an unique soirée. (Spain) INTERNATIONAL HONORABLE MENTION
Eyes and Horns
Chaerin Im. Runtime: 6:15 min
Exploration of masculinity begins with the Minotaur, a mythical creature Picasso used to portray himself in his etching print series. The Minotaur goes through a violent struggle between being male and female. Finally, lines blur and boundaries of sexes disappear. (Korea) INTERNATIONAL HONORABLE MENTION
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2022 (7-9pm)
Apocryphal Tome
Miles Sprietsma. Runtime: 6:09 min
Inspired by the kinetic-sculpture films of Marcel Duchamp, the animated mandalas of Jordan Belson, and 70’s grind-house theater intros, Apocryphal Tome utilizes a readymade-assist, (assembled from a lamp-shade, turn-table, and multi-colored light-bulbs) triple-exposed on 200ft of 16mm film, resulting in a hypnotizing kaleidoscope of colors. Set to a contemporary psych-rock track from Portland’s Lunar Grave. (Portland, OR)
Window Circumstances
Sierra Grove. Runtime: 3 min
Window Circumstance creates a parallel between windows, vision and the cinema screen: a framed, chanced-based light show. (Olympia, WA)
SAYOR
Kathryn Ramey. Runtime: 10 min
An acronym for swimming at your own risk, SAYOR refers to a forum without a moderator. Three years in the lives of three AMAB (assigned male at birth) children with a parent/observer. What does it mean to be male in the 21st century? (Olympia,WA)
A Report of Ongoing Research into Cosmic Intrusions upon the Paradigm of Fatherhood
Noah Weisel. Runtime 4:35 min
This four-part film conducts a survey of Material Cinema techniques, composed almost entirely from hand-manipulated 16mm and 8mm celluloid, including archival and newly shot footage, as well as direct animation. A quick, feverish examination of the psychological horror which accompanies the fathering of twins. (Seattle, WA)
A Series of Shorts by Inga Markstrom
Inga Markstrom. Runtime: 6:06 min
A collection of short films made out of collage with mixed media paper, puppets, and background. (Brookings, OR)
Summertime Blues
Jalen Christopher. Runtime: 22:26 min
Summertime blues is a reflection on unresolved and unreciprocated love through a series of visual poems. (Eugene, OR)
Harmonium
Miles Sprietsma. Runtime: 4:15 min
A document of the ethereal features surrounding oceanic bodies, the recycling of life and death through the constant flux of coastline. (Portland, OR)
Thoughts On Time & Lessons Learned
Victor Anthony Martin. Runtime: 8:31 min
An experimental audio/visual diary consisting of a group of people discussing their thoughts regarding time, aging, and lessons learned. (Seattle, WA)
The Knots We Tie
Khali Watson. Runtime: 5:02 min
Intertwined in a web of memories, two strangers explore a newly developed love. (Seattle, WA)
N-tor.6
Seth Nehil. Runtime: 3:45 min
Two friends find unique ways to send messages through time and space. A quasi-narrative music video. (Portland, OR)
Mary Olson Farm
Neely Goniodsky. Runtime: 3 min
This film was created during an artist residency at the Mary Olson Farm. It’s an animated documentary portraying the history of the farm and the Olson family through animated objects found on site.(Seattle, WA)
Call Me Back
Melina Kiyomi Coumas. Runtime: 2:37 min
Originally made just for family, the filmmaker uses the last voicemail left on her phone by her Grandmother in this experimental short that becomes a meditation on loss and haunted spaces. Footage was shot on Super 8mm film one summer upon returning home to Hawaii, a few years after her Grandmother’s passing. (Portland, OR)
Thaw
HMFF. Runtime: 11:20 min
Thaw is one of an ongoing series of audiovisual works that explore the digital mediation of natural phenomena. This immersive film is meant to simulate the experience of losing oneself in the contemplation of shifting bodies of water. Ideally, our film will generate the same feelings of calm and meditative introspection; and potentially help urban-dwelling humans feel less alienated from their natural origins. (Seattle, WA)
We Are Not the Same
Dame Goya. Runtime: 3:14 min
A girl is woken up in the middle of the night by strange noises to discover a clone of herself in her house. The confusion deepens upon interacting with her double. (Olympia, WA)
Zealot
Kendall Yoder. Runtime: 8:25 min
Solomon tries to appease his God, and is willing to go to whatever extent in order to do so. Shot as a modern black and white silent film. (Ellensburg, WA)
Viaduct
Dave Harvey. Runtime: 27:11 min
12 trips over Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct the day before it was torn down, shot on Super 8mm film, edited together and slowed down, with original synth and drums soundtrack. (Olympia, WA)
The Moon Rises During the Day (Sound Sculpture)
Na Li. Runtime: 3:13 min
The 2D abstract hand-drawn animation comes from Na Li’s improvisational drawings inspired by a piece of music. She visualized the sound through automatic drawing, creating the film in a semi-conscious state. Na drew symbols to represent the sounds and instruments she heard, using abstract drawings to translate a poem. (China)
INTERNATIONAL HONORABLE MENTION
futile/gestures
Yolanda Tianyi-Shao 韶天怡 & Aaron Holmes. Runtime: 7:44 min
Two dancers entangled—conversation to conflict to dissolution. / A hand-drawn animated film for which all the frames were drawn simultaneously by 100 people over the course of a 30-minute performance.(Los Angeles, CA) HONORABLE MENTION
2022 South Sound Experimental Film Fest
November 26 & 27, 2022
Feature Artist: PIANO RAIN
Piano Rain visits from Denver, Colorado. She revisits archaic synthesizer techniques to design and sculpt sound into texture and memory.
Inspired by sounds in nature and classical / futuristic approached to composition, her music exists as a crossroads of many worlds and times. From cathedrals to raves to forests to yurts and now to the Northwest Film Forum, the musical form she creates is always followed by the function of the space. With hope we can all surrender to the waveforms and bend time while relaxing the body, mind, and spirit.
Visual Projections by Hali Autumn - 8mm cyanotypes
poster art by Shirley Anne Urman
Short Films
Wet Mouth
Duncan Dickerson. Runtime: 4:20 min
An inventory specialist at a weed shop gets asked to try a newly engineered product before it goes on sale. (Seattle, WA)
Theia Unfurling
Sierra Grove. Runtime: 3 min
In the camera-roll (in-camera edit) film, Theia plays their magical camera machine, gathering light, and unfurling through time. Fatigue grows until Light’s power consumes them completely. (Olympia, WA)
Afloat
Oliver Vy Le Nguyen. Runtime: 5:19 min
A viet kieu’s visceral dreamscape weaving in between realms of memory and inner dialogue surrounding his mother, Vietnamese upbringing, and belonging.(the traditional lands of Cahuilla, Duwamish, Nisqually, Puyallup & Squaxin peoples)
Into The Depths
Inga Markstrom. Runtime: 6:10 min
The sea fairies have been summoned by an unknown force to visit and protect mother ocean from future harm but how will they prevent the humans from destroying their own planet? (Olympia, WA)
ONE
Hali Autumn. Runtime: 28:29 min
A poetic short film tracing echoes between a past and present.(Olympia, WA)
Underwater Phone Sex
Gabriella Arrastia. Runtime: 4 min
A platinum-haired mermaid runs a hotline for those who are unlucky in relationships or can’t stop falling in love with strangers. To reach them, one only needs to dial a rotary phone and a body of water. (Occupied Duwamish Land (Seattle, WA)
Shadow Boxing
Tatiana Garmendia. Runtime: 3:26 min
Hand-drawn animation as a kind of ritual, paralleling the tedium of drawing each individual cell with the daily battle against the Othering our bodies are subject to. (Brier, WA)
Tacoma Avenue From End to End
Donovan Wilson. Runtime: 6:08 min
Through the lens of a camera, Tacoma Avenue becomes a microcosm of our culture. (Tacoma, WA)
Bagboy
Nick Roetemeyer. Runtime: 4:57 min
An unsent letter about coming to grips with an unspoken love. (Olympia, WA)
Petit Pains
Thomas Hadley. Runtime: 10:27 min
A short film about depression and bread.(Seattle, WA)
Alert
Ahmad White. Runtime: 2:40 min
Alert is a call to action to make new connections rooted in the physical world. (Seattle, WA)
All That Was New Is Old Again
Jason Biehner. Runtime: 7:15 min
An experimental film making use of outdated technology to explore the impact of our tech-heavy lifestyle on the rest of the world. (Tacoma, WA)
The Unraveling
Vanessa Skantze with Osteo Parliament and dancers. Runtime: 27:46 min
A quartet of dancers encased in carapaces: the binds of the past, the anguish of ancestors and histories – they tear at these shuddering with relentless grief; opening them to reveal fragments of dreams, memories and dances; shadows of unborn works their bodies contain. (Port Townsend, WA)
Border Crossing
Tatiana Garmendia. Runtime: 2:31 min
The human body becomes contested territory in Border Crossing as a spotlight tracks movement across the body, revealing international visas stamped on her skin while a spoken litany creates a disorienting intonation. (Brier, WA)
My Most Toxic Trait
Audrey Linehan. Runtime: 5:10 min
A traumedy dive into an obsession with love. (Olympia, WA)
Protection Spell
Maren Moreno. Runtime: 7:31 min
A pair of suburban witches band together to soothe a mysterious vaginal ailment. (Olympia, WA)
Temple of Reclamation
Daniel Chang. Runtime: 1:42 min
A spiritual tribute to queer, Black, and brown femme bodies
This film contains graphic nudity. (Seattle, WA)
Come When She Calls
Nightmayor (Percy James, Stella R.S, and Joey Schmitt. Runtime: 3:27 min
Any room becomes scary if you stay there long enough. (Olympia, WA)
It’s Only Us
Nick Roetemeyer, Runtime: 5:07 min
A mixed-media reflection on familial mental illness and the impact it has had on a young man’s life. (Olympia, WA)
Lists
(Oscar Kryzanauskas. Runtime: 11:30 min
A dreamer wakes up and is given a music box with a special message by a clairvoyant in their basement.(Olympia, WA / Nisqually & Squaxin Island traditional land)
I Miss Seeing You
Sierra Grove. Runtime: 6:31 min
Completed during March of 2021, I Miss Seeing You documents feelings of frustration, loneliness, desire, and fear experienced a year into the COVID-19 pandemic. (Olympia, WA)
What Do We Do With What's Been Done To Us
Taylor Bednarz. Runtime: 7:20 min
An audio/visual collaboration in search for the warm hug we wish we could feel once again.(Seattle, WA)
Silent Partner
Jane Johnson. Runtime: 1:04 min
An animated meditation on grief, memory, and inheritance of a self. Who are we when our shadows leave? (Occupied Duwamish Land)(Tukwila, WA)
Life Is A Gift
Gloria Muhammed & Mu Knowles. Runtime: 3:13 min
What does it mean to be liberated? to be free? for yourself and those you love? in life is a gift, Mu Knowles (born & raised on the hilltop in Tacoma, WA) takes us on a journey through these questions. (Tacoma, WA)
An Approaching World
Andy Motz. Runtime: 3:15 min
An Approaching World mediates on the journey so many queer people take from rural to urban, from unsafe to safe, and from storm to shelter in search of liberation. (Tacoma, WA)
Failure Film
Isabel Abeln. Runtime: 14:38 min
A young adult enlists the help of her friend to make sure she completes a short film in a very short period of time. (Seattle, WA)
2021 South Sound Experimental Film Fest
November 12, 2021
poster art by Inga Markstrom
