SFCINEMATHEQUE

SEAM (2021) by Sheri Wills

SEAM is a short experimental film shot on Super-8mm film that explores everyday hauntings, drawing attention to the margins of experience. An early audio recording medium, wax cylinder recordings were the first commercially produced sound recordings. They create a snapshot of the daily life of those “early adopters” in the decades around the turn of the 20th century who recorded the small details of their day with what was, during its time, the newest technology. Two anonymous sound recordings from wax cylinders comprise a primary part of the soundtrack to SEAM. Thanks to the University of California, Santa Barbara Cylinder Audio Archive. (Sheri Wills) bay area premiere

The Day Lives Briefly Unscented (2021) by Brandon Wilson

A rumination on ancestry, transformation and loss, elemental forces and the universal web of interconnection. Dedicated to the memory of the filmmaker’s grandmother Marilyn. (Brandon Wilson) bay area premiere

Ghost is Hungry (2021) by Brandon Wilson

A ghost wakes up and hunts in the forest. (Brandon Wilson) bay area premiere

Wasteland No. 3: Moons, Sons (2021) by Jodie Mack

A world tender and unhatched, Future chaos in repose, in slumber. Yggdrasil. Microcosmos. Batter in a bowl. A living wreath. Oleander hyacinth blow away dandelion, particles of an interplanetary lullaby.
Dedicated to the one I love.
Desiccated attic must
momento mori in grace engraved.
With the loss of the imaginary and the real, I am unspeakable
as one remembers I once was this…
before myself, and then nothing, before I could touch the envelope that is right before me, translucent,
When I could cry but could not answer.
—  Darcy Shreve
bay area premiere

III. (2022) by Alexandre Larose

Third part of a series, in which the figure in the frame is Larose’s father, Jacques Larose. It was shot in Super-8mm and 16mm—later enlarged to 35mm—and alternates between colour and black and white. Presented at CROSSROADS 2022 with live score performed by Ashley Bellouin and Ben Bracken. (Alexandre Larose) north american premiere

The Waterfall (2017) by Matthieu Hallé

A 16mm film loop of a waterfall plays continuously on a custom-modified 16mm film projector that uses a live video feed of candles focused with hand-held pieces of glass as the light source that illuminates the film. Presented at CROSSROADS 2022 with live score performed by Unitions. (Matthieu Hallé) US premiere

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Artist Bios

Sheri Wills (US) is an artist whose work is based in film, sound, video performance and installation. Her work has been exhibited internationally. Her films are distributed by Light Cone in Paris. She is a Professor in the Department of Film/Animation/Video at the Rhode Island School of Design. She lives in New York City.

Brandon Wilson (US) lives in the woods of northwest Oregon. He uses moving images and sound to explore new ways of seeing and to celebrate what he can’t fully understand or know. Much of his work places the human in a de-centered position. He’s been making films since 2014. (Brandon Wilson)

Jodie Mack (US/UK) is an experimental animator who received her MFA in film, video and new media from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007. Combining the formal techniques and structures of abstract/absolute animation with those of cinematic genres, her handmade films use collage to explore the relationship between graphic cinema and storytelling, the tension between form and meaning. Musical documentary or stroboscopic archive: her films study domestic and recycled materials to illuminate the elements shared between fine-art abstraction and mass-produced graphic design. The works unleash the kinetic energy of overlooked and wasted objects and question the role of decoration in daily life. 

Alexandre Larose (Canada) is a French-Canadian artist based in Montreal (Canada).  His moving-image practice investigates phenomena of appearance and representation as translated by the media of optics and celluloid. His approach relies on a methodical stripping out of layers embedded in both the live subjects and the technique that translates them into visual artifacts.

Ashley Bellouin (US) and Ben Bracken (US) make music with both traditional and handmade instruments that exploit the natural overtones and sympathetic vibrations generated by highly redundant tuning systems. Minimal structures and simple harmonic relationships give rise to meditative washes of sound. Each composition is constructed by considering the physical site, the materials used in the construction of the instruments, and the interplay between the two. Their performances are a mixture of the imagined and real, natural phenomena, and direct action. Ashley and Ben are both graduates of Mills College, where they studied Electronic Music & Recording Media under Maggi Payne and John Bischoff.

Matthieu Hallé (Canada) is a filmmaker based in Ottawa, Canada. His work includes short film and video work, as well as the creation of different “visual instruments” for live performance in collaboration with other artists and musicians. His works have been presented at Particle + Wave Media Arts Festival (Calgary), the8fest (Toronto), the Mobile Museum of Art (Alabama) and many underground and unconventional spaces. He was an artist in residence at LIFT and PIX Film (Toronto) and the Knot Project Space (Ottawa). He is also a co-founder of the Lightproof Film Collective, an artist film collective dedicated to the creation and presentation of celluloid film in Ottawa.

Unitions is a musical relationship built upon 20 years of dedication to the music of Life. The duo has performed site-specific Free Jazz and Creative Improvised Music. Umesh Mallery (US) is an accordionist and multi-instrumentalist with a cosmic range with training and experience in Indian Classical, Balkan, Jazz and Experimental forms a of Music. Music Research Strategist Marshall Trammell (US)  is an entirely unique and explosive percussionist applying his “Deep Phonology” approach generated through series of Insurgent Learning Workshops and Ebonics Native Land Acknowledgment investigations from his Black Amnesia and Indigenous Justice series. He is known for his work on SIGE Records with Black Spirituals (defunct), In Defense Of Memory, White People Killed Them, MurderMurder and The Moon Is Down: The Status Quo Is My Enemy. Music Research Strategies is based in NYC.