PROGRAM 

We return to humanity’s eternal themes: Love, Desire, Yearning, Longing. This program offers glimpses of Desire’s emotional totality and the means by which it is represented – or restricted – on-screen. Mixing various mediums, including film, analog/digital video, and hand-drawn animation, these works are examples of how our comprehension and expression of Love and Desire are fraught with the push and pull of technological existence.

Onion City Experimental Film Festival Streaming Online

Online programs will be made available for streaming the day following all In-Person competition programs. The link to view this program will be emailed to the email address used to purchase the streaming pass.

Kick Rocks | Ryan Tynan | United States, 2021, 2 mins (Chicago Festival Premiere)

A playful cinepoem that explores the idea of letting go of love through the lens of a ‘90s rom-com.

I HEART HORSE | Allison Radomski | United States, 2022, 6 mins (World Festival Premiere)

A lonely doodler forges an intense emotional bond with a horse.

Looking for Love | Sam Taffel | United States, 2022, 11 mins (US Festival Premiere)

A hallucinatory trip through Joshua Tree set to Handel; a talking ball blue desperate for love; a tap dance from the digital beyond. These sketches, among others - produced using Portapak cameras and analog video mixers - investigate how the materiality of image-producing devices activates practices of personal memory and longing.

Nazarbazi / نظربازی | Maryam Tafakory | United Kingdom, 2022, 19 mins

NAZARBAZI [the play of glances] is a film about love and desire in Iranian cinema where depictions of intimacy and touch between women and men are prohibited.

fur | Zhen Li | United States, 2022, 7 mins (Chicago Festival Premiere)

A crush gone moldy...

Skin Pleasure | Marius Packbier, Aïlien Reyns | Belgium, 2022, 36 mins (US Festival Premiere)

SKIN PLEASURE is a video essay that investigates the different functions of the skin in relation to the reception of internet pornography. Interweaving found footage - like amateur porn, ASMR videos and other web-based body genres - with close-ups of the filmmakers' body, SKIN PLEASURE is a highly reflective and at the same time deeply personal exploration of our bodily engagement with online media.

Content Warning: This program contains nudity and sexually explicit content.

Featured image from NAZARBAZI نظربازی by Maryam Tafakory.