PROGRAM 4: POWER BALLADS
Streaming June 9 – 13, Artist Q&A on Friday, June 11 at 7:30 pm

Consider the mix of experimental narratives and poststructuralist essays in this program a trial by music of the essay-film form. Using musical elements and innovative sound design, each filmmaker tests whether the essay might be made to carry personal myths, erased histories, and tales of resistance with the ease of a song. 

Amusia

Three people forget their destination along the way and arrive where they’re at. 

Grace E Mitchell
United States, 2021, 08:00 mins

safehouse

Using Saidiya Hartman’s transformative work Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments to think through the absence of black stories, particularly the stories of black women and queer people, from the archive, this video seeks to speculate on a small alternate world in a system of institutionalized care built on carceral logics. 

ariella tai
United States, 2020, 12:00 mins

Bugs & Beasts Before the Law

An experimental film that explores the medieval practice of putting animals on trial. This history of colonial law-making forged political and sometimes profane relationships between humans and animals. 

Sharlene Bamboat and Alexis Mitchell
Canada / Germany, 2020, 33:00 mins

I've Been Afraid

I've Been Afraid is about the fear of aggression and those paralyzing forces that allow the body to accept violence. Music by Isaac Sherman.

Cecelia Condit
Mexico/United States, 2020, 07:00 mins

Here is the Imagination of the Black Radical

Junkanoo, a form of celebration in the Bahamas is a culture with innovative costume designs. Aesthetic and political intertwine as we follow the Shell Saxon Superstars in the year-long production of costumes. Here is Black radical imagination, a resistance, a uniquely Bahamian identity. Who is archiving Junkanoo for future generations?

Rhea Storr
United Kingdom/Bahamas, 2020, 10:00 mins