PROGRAM 

The pandemic might be in the past – at least the bulk of it. But in our emergence, we still find ourselves spending more time at home, alone, brewing memories, sipping solitude. Films and videos in this program conjure bubbles of isolation that float above states of withdrawal, reflecting on themes of displacement, absence, boredom, and self-help. These works are contemplative and insightful, sometimes heavy, sometimes funny.

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.

Om | Yanbin Zhao | United States, 2022, 13 mins (World Festival Premiere)

Inspired by Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, OM is a quasi visual diary retracing the quarantine experience of a Chinese stranded in California during the peak of the pandemic. Traveling between mutated domestic space and contaminated nature, the film explores the rupture in both the personal and the political, as well as meditates upon senses of displacement, paranoia, alienation, and collective trauma.

CONDUIT | Lynn Kim | United States, 2022, 5 mins (Chicago Festival Premiere)

A running body powers the cycle between states of being. CONDUIT is a tribute to Korean musical rituals and the wonder of locomotion, both spiritual and physical.

and so it came about (A Tale of Consequential Dormancy) | Charlotte Pryce | United States, United Kingdom, 2023, 12 mins (World Festival Premiere)

A mythological tale - the story of Persephone - is retold, recast, and relocated to the periphery of a common. The entangled intrigues of the seen and the unseen conspire to disclose an underland at once enticing and threatening. But what are the consequences of such trespassing between worlds?

Some Tropics of Cancer | T.J. Blanco | United States, Honduras, 2022, 10 mins (Chicago Festival Premiere)

After losing their father at a young age, the filmmaker mines the hidden world of astrological word origins, gems, ancient medical histories and forgotten family archives in hopes of gleaning meaning.

Jokes on Every Wrapper | Rachel Ferber | United States, 2021, 10 mins (US Festival Premiere)

JOKES ON EVERY WRAPPER takes the viewer through a digital rabbit hole of out-of-order processes and vaguely connected objects, spaces, and occurrences. Situated within an interior domestic setting, bizarre acts of home-making and odd everyday events are reflected, shopped, and smashed together. These clips are interrupted by behind-the-scenes views into the DIY construction of these images; the home as a media studio.

Funtown Journey into the Living Land | Alice Avery | United States, 2023, 12 mins (World Festival Premiere)

This is the story of a demon who fell from heaven and needed her air to be purified again in order to survive. She worked at dietpepso inc but she was laid off for mischievously doing something very bad and not in line with the corporation's goals, so she was sent down to earth. This is her journey back into her land of fun, back into the land of the living, becoming one with the world in a way that does not necessarily promote the interests of the dietpepso inc.

Bigger on the Inside | Angelo Madsen Minax | United States, 2022, 12 mins (Chicago Festival Premiere)

From an isolated wooded cabin a trans man star-gazes, scruff chats with guys, watches youtube tutorials, takes drugs, and lies about taking drugs - feeling his way through a cosmology of embodiment. BIGGER ON THE INSIDE probes the boundaries between interior and exterior, the micro and macro, to consider bodily insides as passageway and portal, relative to the immensity of longing. Nudes and landscapes are equally erotic. Eros as an issue of boundaries: When I desire you, a part of me is gone. Land is surreal. Memory is porous.

Content Warning: This program contains nudity and descriptions of violence.

Featured image from SOME TROPICS OF CANCER by T.J. Blanco.