PROGRAM 

The “Anthropocene” has been a buzzword for two decades - and for good reason. We humans have so altered Planet Earth that the prophetic threat of Climate Change is now our tangible reality. The films, videos, and animations in this program coalesce to present eclectic environments. Flora and fauna meet human architectures. But we also live within intangible environments that are economic, political and technological. These “backdrops” take front stage, demanding our attention and participation, on the verge of taking over.

Chicago Filmmakers Firehouse Cinema

In-person screenings are held at Chicago Filmmakers firehouse cinema located at 1326 W Hollywood Ave in the Edgewater neighborhood. Please be sure to arrive 15 minutes prior to showtime and be ready to present your order confirmation number for admission. Masks are strongly recommended, but not required.

Language Unknown | Janelle VanderKelen | United States, 2022, 6 mins (Chicago Festival Premiere)

This film speculates how beings of the vegetal variety might approach interspecies communication with humans (who are far more sensorially limited). Leaves, mycelium, and roots playfully examine how humans experience the world, and the (supposedly) silent watchers consider what language those swift blurs of humans might possibly understand.

Our Non-Understanding of Everything 02 | eteam (Franziska Lamprecht, Hajoe Moderegger) | United States, Taiwan, 2022-23, 15 mins (World Festival Premiere)

OUR NON-UNDERSTANDING OF EVERYTHING is a daily practice, where we observe and speculate how our personal tech devices and their building parts exist in a possible future, shared between the architecture of circuitry, political thought and the wild and programmed parts of our natural environments.

Picture a Forest | Dave Rodriguez | United States, 2022, 4 mins (World Festival Premiere)

An anti-landscape performing its own impossible, inevitable annihilation. The north Florida woodlands fractured by strobe light, offering glimpses of its vitality and fragility. Over time, these flickering slices of the natural world become more corrupted and illegible, decaying into garbled datastreams. As the forest fails to preserve itself, it demands that we re-calibrate our vision.

LDN 51.5072N 0.1276W | Wen Pey Lim | Malaysia, 2022, 3 mins (US Festival Premiere)

LDN 51.5072N 0.1276W examines the influence of the Industrial Revolution via the relics from architecture in London, reflecting the effects technology has had on transforming traditional notions of work, community, and identity.

Dans les cieux et sur la terre | Erin Weisgerber | Canada, 2022, 12 mins (Chicago Festival Premiere)

Vertiginous masses of carved limestone give way to an ecstasy of light and living color through an alchemical spell of elemental transformation. Hierarchies dissolve as the transient quotidian inspires the monumental. Imprinting successive layers of time in a ritual of repeated gestures, active attention, walked paths, shifting seasons, and cycling years, DANS LES CIEUX ET SUR LA TERRE combines the photochemical potential of film with the ritual of the filmmaker's performance.

Phase II | Kelly Sears | United States, 2022, 6 mins

In the near future, real estate developers deploy sonic weapons used at protests to clear neighborhoods for high-end high rises. On the front lines are sound medics that tend to those injured by the assaults. As they respond, one member of the team documents the incidents to create a future archive for other sonic activists.

The falcon cannot hear the falconer | Oona Taper | United States, 2023, 8 mins (World Festival Premiere)

One woman is plagued by vultures. She struggles to rid her home of them while confronting her own ideas about nature, empathy, and human animal communication. This experimental film combining 16mm footage and ink animation uses layers of imagery and media to create interwoven visual metaphors.

Sunspots | Yannick Mosimann | Switzerland, 2022, 9 mins (US Festival Premiere)

In SUNSPOTS, several 16mm shots of the sun are layered and superimposed, paired with a soundscape consisting of volcanoes, fire, plastic and audible solar sounds recorded by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

Speck | Diane Christiansen | United States, 2022, 3 mins

A femme hand is both allured and terrified by a world of interplanetary wonder.

Content Warning: This program contains fast edits and strobing imagery that may negatively impact those viewers with epilepsy and other light-sensitive disorders.

Featured image from DANS LES CIEUX ET SUR LA TERRE by Erin Weisgerber.