Screening: aCinema Screening Series—Saturday 7 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!
Saturday 7 PM | PROGRAM FOUR: history as heavy as light
Nathan Swann | Palm Sunday
SYNOPSIS
Palm Sunday drifts between presence and absence, in the corners, edges, and spaces behind our experience. Both haphazard and precise, its images layer upon each other like a tapestry winding and unwinding. Rhythms emerge through repetition, like a song finding its root note. In this way, the film echoes liturgical movement in gestures repeated, images revisited, a quiet ritual of seeing and remembering.
BIOGRAPHY
Nathan Swann is a filmmaker and visual artist based in East Tennessee. His work explores spirituality, place, and the textures of everyday life. He also runs CHROMA, a monthly screening series in Knoxville dedicated to experimental and arthouse cinema.
Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu | Excuse Me, Miss!
SYNOPSIS
Excuse Me, Miss! looks at Los Angeles from the perspective of a recent immigrant, observing things that are quietly changing the face of the city. The film's title refers to the woman with a camera, whose filming is itself both an expression of presence and an intervention. The act of filming is entangled with the city landscape and interacts with the lives of those who pass by while recording.
BIOGRAPHY
Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu is an artist, filmmaker, and writer whose work is grounded in experimental literature, the conceptual avant-garde, and philosophy. Liu's works are concerned with materiality in different contexts and eras, as well as its transformation, symbolism, decay, and emotional resonance. Through film, poetry, painting, sculpture, and other media, she reflects the light and darkness of the world she lives in. Her films have been shown at international film festivals and museums, including the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Helsinki Festival, Festival des Cinémas Différents et Expérimentaux de Paris, Image Forum Festival at the Museum of Kyoto, CROSSROADS at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, M+ Museum, the Barbican Centre, among others.
Helena Wittmann | A Thousand Waves Away
SYNOPSIS
The people are in turmoil. The ground from which their enchanted garden grows, is trembling. Between bushes and trees, flowerbeds and fountains, everyone has lost their way on their own. Their eyes search for paths, their hands try to remember. Sometimes they spot something. Sometimes they listen. They catch a whisper, a faint promise. They follow the petals downstream. Further.
BIOGRAPHY
Helena Wittmann, *1982, is an artist and filmmaker based in Hamburg, Germany.
Nate King | Tiger Lily Mountain Pass
SYNOPSIS
Tiger Lily Mountain Pass is a hand-drawn animation inspired by Nate King's time spent in the forests of Appalachia. The work explores nature as a space of queer erotic encounter in a region where queerness is often hidden or disguised. King animates with a combination of pencil, paper, and digital processes, weaving together a dreamlike poem that tells a story of ecstasy, longing, and heartache.
BIOGRAPHY
Nate King is an artist and educator living in Blacksburg, Virginia, and teaching animation at Virginia Tech. His work has screened nationally and internationally, including at Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Film Festival and Vancouver Queer Film Festival. King worked heavily on his film Tiger Lily Mountain Pass while attending Stove Works Artist Residency, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, and Cha North Artist Residency.
Joa Heikkinen | Recollections in three movements
SYNOPSIS
A short film set in a ruined archive follows an anonymous figure encountering three memories that have changed over time. The screening room of swaying flashbacks is easy to enter and difficult to leave.
The stop motion animation is made by laser printing every second frame of the
video material and scanning them into the selected order. The film is supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike). Sound produced by Aarno Kankaanpää.
BIOGRAPHY
Joa Heikkinen is a Finnish visual artist working with experimental moving image and photography. Their work stages scenes around the reliability of memory, alienation, and the absolute absurdity of everything. Heikkinen alters digital imagery through analog processes, transforming high-definition footage into grainy, unpredictable layers. Their footage centres on rough surfaces, delicate remnants of nature, and anonymous characters. Heikkinen is currently completing an MFA at the University of the Arts Helsinki.
Arnold Tam | A Brave New World
SYNOPSIS
A Brave New World reimagines scenes of everyday life with a twist of absurdity, building a cinematic vignette of the social landscape of the artist’s homeland, Hong Kong, in the form of 15 provocative portraits. Interweaving fictional scenarios with real-life elements such as unscripted podcasts, family dinner conversations, and textbook contents, the film explores the unspoken sentiments of Hong Kong people as the city heads towards a “new era” in the 2020s.
BIOGRAPHY
Arnold is a self-taught filmmaker from Hong Kong. He likes to challenge conventional forms of storytelling. His works are selected at IFFR, American Film Institute Festival, Beijing International Short Film Festival, Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival, and more. He is also an alumnus of the Asian Film Awards Academy IFC.
ATTENDING IN PERSON?
Registration is not required for in-person event attendance at Woodland Pattern. However, it is still helpful and appreciated!
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