stop-gap microcinema: animation microdose!
Join us for two evenings of animated shorts! This curated film program will give viewers a microdose of the creative possibilities within the art form of animation. Come prepared to watch a blend of digital and traditional techniques, with work that spans hilarious and perfectly strange comedic narratives, personal and heartfelt autobiography, a dive into generative AI, and experimental explorations of sound, color and texture.
animation microdose features short films by ten artists and animators: Amy Kravitz, Sonnyé Lim, David Delafuente, Isabel Santos, Jordan Wong, Naghmeh Farzaneh, Jacklyn Brickman & Sharon Gill, Anne Beal, Sarah Schmidt, and Sofia El Khyari. Curated by Lynn Kim.
The runtime of the show is approximately forty minutes and is scheduled to play twice on Friday, February 2nd and once on Sunday, February 4th. See schedule below.
SCREENING SHEDULE
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2ND
first screening: 6 pm
second screening: 8 pm
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4TH
third screening: 6 pm
Free! No tickets but capacity and seating is limited! Doors will open 30 min before each screening and seating is on a first-come basis. Approximate run time 40 min.
If you need a chair to be comfortable, please email us ahead of time and we can reserve.
SCREENING PROGRAM
Vegeversary (2022)
Filmmaker: Sarah Schmidt
Duration: 04:00
Synopsis: A rabbit's friends take her on a meat-bender to celebrate her vegan-anniversary, indulging in the kinds of foods she avoids all year long.
SWIM! (2022)
Filmmaker: Isabel Santos
Duration: 04:50
Synopsis: In a typical day at swim practice our protagonist is bombarded by the whistling of her eccentric coach, the majesty of the older swimmers, the horror of getting her period, and naughty recordings on her teammate’s cellphone. All while, the protagonist comes to understand herself and her body.
Scent of Geranium (2016)
Filmmaker: Naghmeh Farzaneh
Duration: 04:41
Synopsis: Immigration is a new chapter in one's life, a chapter with unexpected events that can take one's life down paths different from the one imagined. This film is an autobiographical account of the director's experience with immigration.
Ayam (2017)
Filmmaker: Sofia El Khyari
Duration: 03:42
Synopsis: Three generations of Moroccan women exchange feelings and anecdotes while preparing the traditional ceremony of Eid Al Adha.
Positoning (2016)
Filmmaker: Anne Beal
Duration: 03:58
Synopsis: The American Dream wants to know where you stand, what you’re wearing, and whether you’re going to cook him dinner. Are you positioned for success?
Speculative Speciation: Honeycreeper (2023)
Filmmaker(s): Jacklyn Brickman, Sharon Gill
Duration: 6:00
Synopsis: Honeycreeper is a short film that is part of the larger series of Speculative Speciation: Artificial Anagenesis and Creative Cladogenesis by Jacklyn Brickman and Dr. Sharon Gill, 2023-24. Since the 1600s, more than 160 species of birds have gone extinct. Not only are those extinctions profound losses in and of themselves, but they also represent devastating losses of what could have been. Over time, would these species have changed, evolving into new species not yet seen? Would these species have diversified into many more different and wonderful forms increasing biodiversity? Speculative Speciation: Artificial Anagenesis and Creative Cladogenesis ponders on what could have been, by employing AI to generate new species descended from the extinct ones, highlighting what has been lost in the past, what continues to be lost in the present and may be lost for future generations.
Roost (1998)
Filmmaker: Amy Kravitz
Duration: 04:12
Synopsis: “Roost" describes, in abstracted imagery, a desolate place in which new life kindles belief in God. "The wild hen at roost is blessed, Delirious angels sing 'round her nest, Rejoice! In the old barn, a new voice."
Compositions for Understanding Relationships (2021)
Filmmaker: David De La Fuente
Duration: 05:30
Synopsis: A Love Letter.
Mom’s Clothes (2018)
Filmmaker: Jordan Wong
Duration: 05:35
Synopsis: A nonfiction reflection on being out of the closet. As a queer person of color, it's taken me a long time to be as comfortable as I am through navigating forms of intimacy, gender, and self worth. It doesn't always get better, but you're beautiful however you decide to present, including the choice of garments you decide to wear.
NIGHT NIGHT OUI OUI (2021)
Filmmaker: Sonnyé Lim
Duration: 01:40
Synopsis: Oui Oui is very busy eating, sleeping, and dreaming of peanuts all day long. Night Night, Oui Oui.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
David De La Fuente is an animation artist with interests in the moving image, semiotics, and graphic design. His work has explored themes of queerness, aesthetic experiences, and romanticism. His films have shown in the Annecy International Animation Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, Melbourne Queer Film Festival, Ottawa International Animation Festival and others. Currently, David is based in New York where he continues his process of experimental storytelling.
Sonnyé Lim is a Korean-American independent animation artist interested in exploring the endless possibilities of making things move, and then share it with others. I hope to awaken your inner child; let's enjoy life and have fun.
Amy Kravitz is known for her poetic animated films and her unique approach to teaching animation. An animator since childhood, she also studied Social Anthropology at Harvard University (BA), and Experimental Animation at CalArts (MFA). Her animation is a testimony to the intimate collaboration between viewer and maker that takes place between each drawing. She explores animation as a distinct language that employs unusual materials, unique spatial expressions, and visual metaphors as its grammar. She is one of the principal architects of the animation program at Rhode Island School of Design where her singular teaching methods, developed over five decades of experience, encourage students to develop individual approaches to the medium.
Naghmeh Farzaneh is an Iranian filmmaker, art director, and animator based in Chicago. Her independent films have received international recognition and awards in festivals. Over the last decade, Naghmeh has extensively collaborated with independent artists and filmmakers. She has held key roles as a director and art director for clients such as The New Yorker, Meow Wolf, Sesame Workshop, ACLU, TED-ED, and Onassis Foundation. Naghmeh Farzaneh serves as an assistant professor at DePaul University, teaching animation.
Isabel Santos is an animator and illustrator from Queens, New York. She earned her BFA in animation from the Rhode Island School of Design and is currently earning her MFA in experimental animation from the California Institute for the Arts. She works independently, creating and directing her own animated shorts, and commercially as a freelance animator and designer. Isabel is inspired by the weirdness of life itself and finds the best ideas in chaos and absurdity. She loves art education and animating on paper.
Sarah Schmidt was raised in small-town, Ohio by her family's gas station and marching band. After earning a BFA in Animation at Columbus College of Art & Design in 2014, she worked professionally both full-time and freelance before co-founding animation studio Sunshine Mall LLC in 2019. Since 2016, she has hosted the independent animation zine-and-screening series, Malt Adult, and taught part-time as an adjunct professor. She is a current MFA student at DePaul University.
Jordan Wong: A collector of souvenir state spoons and overpriced Uni Alpha Gel lead pencils, Jordan Wong is a Chinese-American experimental animator and nonfiction filmmaker driven by emotional honesty and analog processes. He received a BFA in Film/Animation/Video at Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Experimental Animation at California Institute of the Arts. His films have screened internationally, including DOK Leipzig, NewFest, Animafest Zagreb, Japan Media Arts Festival, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival, where he was awarded the Tom Berman Award for Most Promising Filmmaker for the film "Mom's Clothes".
Sofia El Khyari is an animation filmmaker and visual artist born in Casablanca. Alongside her studies in cultural management in France, she taught herself the craft of animation before obtaining a Master’s Degree from the Royal College of Art in London. Her films have since won awards and been screened at various international festivals, including the Locarno Film Festival, TIFF Toronto International Film Festival and Annecy animation film festival. They have also been acquired by renowed museums and institutions such as Institut du Monde Arabe and Musée du Quai-Branly Jacques Chirac in Paris or the Cinémathèque Française.
Anne Beal is an animation filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist. She investigates Play, female empowerment, and mental health using experimental animation and sound. Her films have screened internationally in festivals such as Ottawa, Annecy, and Tricky Women. She roots her work in physical materials and paint, and draws from her lifelong practice of music. She has been awarded artist residencies at MacDowell and Yaddo in support of her multimedia work-in-progress exploring mental illness through intergenerational discourse.
Jacklyn Brickman is a visual artist and educator whose work entangles science fact with fiction to address social and environmental concerns by employing natural entities, processes, and technology. Her work spans installation, video, and performance, with a special interest in cross-disciplinary collaboration and social engagement. Fellowships include The National Academy of Sciences, Chaire arts et sciences, Jentel Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and Erb Family Foundation. She has exhibited her work internationally. Brickman resides in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the ancestral and contemporary territory of the Council of the Three Fires – the Ojibwe, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi. Indigenous nations of the Great Lakes region are also known as the Anishinaabe. She is an Assistant Professor of Kinetic Imaging at Western Michigan University.
Sharon Gill is a sound ecologist and educator, whose research interests include bird communication, impacts of human-driven environmental change on bird song and collective soundscapes, and bird extinctions. In addition to the traditional forms of communicating scientific findings, she uses storytelling and soundwalks to share stories of nature, with the aim to increase awareness, concern, and action for the natural world. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defence, and the Eppley Foundation for Scientific Research. Her art practice centers on weaving, through which she expresses stories of grief and loss, and creative nonfiction, writing about bird extinctions. Gill is a professor of Biological Sciences at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, and resides on the ancestral and contemporary lands of the Three Fires Confederacy formed by the Odawa, the Ojibwe, and the Potawatomi.