Screening: aCinema Screening Series—Friday 5 PM *IN PERSON*
In person at Woodland Pattern
Fri. May 15, Sat. May 16, & Sun. May 17 ($Give What You Can)
Screenings will take place at 5 pm and 7 pm CDT each day
Join us for aCinema’s Annual Screening Series, featuring a weekend of six programs curated by Takahiro Suzuki and Janelle VanderKelen! We are thrilled to welcome them back to the gallery for this special, condensed presentation, which comprises aCinema’s Season 10.
The first two screenings will feature works selected from the aDifferent Program open call held this winter, which received over 300 submissions from around the globe. The weekend will then progress to four curated screenings featuring works by Curtis Chin, Clara Jost, Chester Toye, and many more!
Friday 5 PM | PROGRAM ONE: invisible cities
Eva Claus | To Be A Day
SYNOPSIS
A window to the outside world, just like the camera's frame. Through this window, I watch the sunrise. To Be A Day captures the sun casting its light over a vast seascape on Fogo Island, Canada. Between sunrise and sunset, a series of white dots appear. These white circles reflect the moonlight, guiding fishermen as they walk across the pier to their sheds and boats in the early morning.
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Brussels in 1992, Eva Claus is an independent audio-visual artist working primarily with 16mm film. Her practice is driven by observations of un/expected encounters with landscapes and people, natural habitats, space, psyche, circularity and means of film itself. Claus´s uses an intuitive method of filmmaking and her films exhibit a contemplative form of watching.
Claus was educated at the Friedl Kubelka School for independent film in Vienna, Austria and she obtained her MFA in photography at the Royal Academy of Arts in Ghent. Her films have been shown at festivals such as Light Field San Francisco, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Vienna Shorts, Indie Lisboa, Short Waves, Go Short, Rencontre International Paris / Berlin, Istanbul International Film Festival, amongst others.
She won the Public film prize at the 22nd Dresdner Schmalfilmtage, Germany. Was nominated for the Lichter Art Award and the Prix Médiatine. Parallel to her artistic practice she works as a film restoration assistant at The Temenos. Eva currently lives and works in Brussels.
Hannah Papacek Harper | The Collector and the Tamer of the Wind
SYNOPSIS
This short experimental documentary is a psychogeographical search where Hannah, the director, returns to Cadaques, a small Spanish village after 23 years. Through an exploration of her past, the elements and two important characters: The organ player and the local archivist, she finds her way to understanding this location and the traces made by those who inhabit it.
BIOGRAPHY
Hannah Papacek Harper graduated in Aesthetics and Cinema Practice, from the universities of La Sorbonne Pantheon, and La Universidad de Lima, in 2015, Hannah has been directing since 2019. Initially a Steadicamer, she started by telling stories through the moving image. Now both a writer and a director, she is developing several projects on the subject of ecology, intertwining science with art. The other side of her research is geared toward displacement, identity and transgeneration memory. Profoundly interested in communication, transmission and sensorial approaches to film, she continually searches for new empathetic ways to touch a general public. Her roots are in experimental video and from 2021 to 2023, two of her experimental short films, Just Listen To The Storm and Vegetative, travelled festivals worldwide. Lost For Words is her documentary feature debut.
Kamyar Mohsenin | what does it feel like to live inside a pomegranate?
SYNOPSIS
A young woman discovers a giant pomegranate in the middle of the forest and decides to live inside it.
BIOGRAPHY
Kamyar Mohsenin (b. 1998) is an Iranian-American interdisciplinary artist, award-winning filmmaker, and educator based between the Bay Area and Seattle. Through newfound connections between the traditional and the contemporary, Kamyar’s current art practice explores themes of identity, faith, migration, mythology, memory, family, and the natural world.
Rita Casdia | End
SYNOPSIS
“End” is an animated video, made on paper with red ink. The images, which flow one after the other, create inhospitable landscapes. These scenarios are the last destinations of a journey performed by small, gaunt and exhausted figures. End does not want to be the vision of a world that is coming to the end of its existence, but rather the rediscovered will of the human being to unite totally with the majestic and impetuous nature. Director's Notes The short animation titled End was born after seeing entire mountains on fire in my home territory (the province of Messina). This was the input that pushed me to stage the mountain landscape of the hinterland of eastern Sicily, an unexplored and sparsely inhabited place.
BIOGRAPHY
Rita Casdia, was born in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (ME) in 1977. She graduated Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Palermo in the 2000. Afterwards she moved to Milan, where she continued her study at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera and achieved a specialization in Art and New Technologies (2006) and Academic second level degree in the teaching of Painting (2009).
Casdia’s videos participated in various festivals, including: Les Instants vidéo 36° édition, Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille, XIII International Image Festival, Manizales, (menzione speciale), 7° Proyector International Videoart Festival, Madrid, 39° Festival du Nouvéau Cinéma, Montréal, CosmiX IV Festival International de Cinéma Expérimental, Cinéma Saint André des Arts, Parigi, Lives on fire, curated by Katie Rehbeck, Millennium Film Workshop, New York, Attaque[e]r le visible – VIDEOAKTION 6#, curated by Lawinia Rate, Raum für drastische Maßnahmen, Berlin.
Hiroya Sakurai | The Stream XIV
SYNOPSIS
I observed how the landscape transforms when the wind blows through the fields. By using a wind chime, I perceived the invisible presence of the wind through sound, and through the ripples of wind that arose in the fields, I also captured its presence visually.
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Yokohama, Japan. Graduated from University of Tsukuba. Emeritus Professor, Seian University of Art and Design. Sakurai’s work can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada and J.Paul Getty Trust. Sakurai was awarded at “ Asolo Art Film Festival (2016)", Italy, "Tokyo Video Festival" and "Ann Arbor Film Festival" (2018). Exhibitions include "Sydney Biennale (1982),"San Francisco International Film Festival" (2015) and "Stuttgarter Filmwinter"(2025)
Abigail Hendrix | Dream Trio
SYNOPSIS
Who are we when we dream? This series of vignettes explores three dreams where the narrator has switched bodies, genders, and histories with another person.
BIOGRAPHY
Abigail Hendrix (she/they) is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. Their artistic practice consists primarily of experimental films and audiovisual installations, stemming from their parallel interests in folklore and expanded cinema. Their vision has been shaped by studies in anthropology (BA, University of Washington) and film (MFA, Emerson College), with emphases on analog film, experimental media, and ethnography. Working primarily with 16mm, they use portraiture, still lives, abstract textures, and the natural world to portray their relationship with the transmutations of the human body.
Dwayne LeBlanc | You Do Not Exist
SYNOPSIS
In the stillness of his yard, Booker watches the sky fill and empty with passing planes. As the world moves around him, he lingers, circling a memory whose edges blur with time
BIOGRAPHY
Dwayne LeBlanc is a Los Angeles based, first gen Caribbean-American filmmaker whose work explores themes of migration, visibility, and dual identities.
His debut narrative short film, Civic, was named one of The Best Movies of 2023 by The New Yorker. His sophomore film, Now, Hear Me Good, premiered in the Tiger Shorts Competition at International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) and has screened worldwide at major international festivals. Both films have been distributed on Criterion Channel. LeBlanc’s most recent work, You Do Not Exist, premiered at IFFR and has since been programmed at Clermont-Ferrand, Slamdance and True/False Film Fes among others. This project completes his short film trilogy.
His work has been presented at venues including The Met, MoMA, Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, NYU, and CalArts. LeBlanc is one of Filmmaker Magazine's '25 New Faces of Independent Film,' a 2024 Dolby Institute Fellow, a Berlinale Talents alum, a Zurich Film Festival Academy alum, and a 2025 MacDowell fellow. He is now focused on the development of his debut feature film.
Millefiore Clarkes | An Impression of Everything
SYNOPSIS
I am finding it increasingly difficult to process the mounting tragedies of the world. The climate crisis and escalating ecological collapse. The brutality of war and oppression at the hands of the military industrial complex and the corporate elite. The aesthetic and spiritual wasteland of unfettered capitalism. The rise of extremism. It has become common for people to refer to these times as end times. It comes up in casual conversation. Like we are willingly careening toward a cliff of our own making but cannot figure out how to stop ourselves. In the midst of what feels like madness, I look to the interconnectedness of the earth body. I seek solace in knowing that we are only flickers of consciousness within a story so vast and beautiful, we cannot fathom its beginning or its end. But we have this gorgeous moment. This moment that is all moments. This film is a gesture toward these philosophies and feelings.
BIOGRAPHY
Millefiore Clarkes is an award-winning filmmaker and editor from Canada’s smallest province, Epekwitk/Prince Edward Island. Through her company One Thousand Flowers Productions she produces a variety of media work: documentaries, music videos, drama, experimental shorts, and video installations which have won awards at various festivals. She received the 2019 DOC Institute’s Vanguard Award and WIFT-AT’s Wave Award in 2024. Her films have screened at festivals internationally and been broadcast nationally. She has directed four documentaries for The National Film Board of Canada: THE SONG AND THE SORROW, LOVE IN QUARANTINE, BLUE RODEO - ON THE ROAD, and ISLAND GREEN. She is dedicated to creating films that connect us to one another and to nature.
ATTENDING IN PERSON?
Registration is not required for in-person event attendance at Woodland Pattern. However, it is still helpful and appreciated!
.