Program 7: Facing The Void
Saturday, February 26, 2022
8:00 p.m. Varsity Center
Stories about grieving and memorializing the dead, about natural deaths, the undying, hauntings and a seance. IT CAME FROM THE BIG MUDDY.
Still Life (d. Aaron Salazar)
Narrative – 8 minutes
“You’ll drift apart, it’s true, but you’ll be out in the open, part of everything alive again.” – Phillip Pullman, “The Amber Spyglass”
November Snow (d. Timothy David Orme)
Animation – 5 minutes
On the first snowy day of the year, a girl walks into the woods to shoot cans, only to experience the unexpected.
The Frost (d. Natalia Duguay)
Narrative – 9 minutes
Mariane is in denial about the unexpected death of her beloved husband, and is secretly keeping him in their apartment. Harnessing the cold of winter, she preserves his body for as long as possible, until she is ready to let him go for good.
The Chimney Swift (d. Frederic Schuld)
Animation – 5 minutes
19th century in Europe. A child climbs up a chimney while a bird sails down into it to build a nest. An encounter with no way back. A British chimney sweeper describes his everyday routine of forcing young kids to become workers. While we observe a kid cleaning a chimney, the master’s statement gets more personal with every sentence until we understand, that he is speaking about his own past.
Donnie Rose (d. Sammy Lamb)
Documentary – 14 minutes
Donnie Rose retells the vibrant, short, and tragic life of runaway fourteen-year-old Donnie; the film explores the queer origins of the nascent Los Angeles punk scene, and how Donnie found family among the outcast teens living on the streets of Los Angeles in 1978.
Sleepwalker (d. Ben Manhanke)
Narrative – 24 minutes
benmanhanke.com
Guided by a strange dream, a young man believes he’s found a way to bring the dead back to life.
Summer Light For Tula (d. Silvia Alison Turchin)
Experimental – 9 minutes
sleepingtreepictures.com
“Summer Light for Tula” is a garden symphony of sorts, a tribute to the light and beauty, and an effort to reconcile with death.
Wildcat (d. Cat Dale)
Narrative – 15 minutes
bycatdale.com/wildcat
Mary Todd Lincoln, who is committed to an insane asylum by her last living relative, tries to prove her sanity with the help of a medium and her dead son.
Based on true events.
The Abyss of the Soul (d. Guilherme Daniel)
Narrative – 18 minutes
A father is hypnotised in his death bed with his own method, and suspended between life, death and dream.