Engauge 2025 – Sound/Light/Movement: Solo Cello + Handmade Film featuring Lori Goldston

Cellist Lori Goldson returns to Engauge with a new program, featuring original scores to silent films from the Engauge archive + a newly digitized copy of one of Engauge founder Jon Behren’s rarely screened films.

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Ticketing, concessions, cinemas, restrooms, and our public edit lab are located on Northwest Film Forum’s ground floor, which is wheelchair accessible. All doors in Northwest Film Forum are non-motorized, and may require staff assistance to open. Our upstairs workshop room is not wheelchair accessible.

We have a limited number of assistive listening devices available for programs hosted in our larger theater, Cinema 1. These devices are maintained by the Technical Director, and can be requested at the ticketing and concessions counter. Also available at the front desk is a Sensory Kit you can borrow, which includes a Communication Card, noise-reducing headphones, and fidget toys.

The Forum does NOT have assistive devices for the visually impaired, and is not (yet) a scent-free venue. Our commitment to increasing access for our audiences is ongoing, and we welcome all public input on the subject!

If you have additional specific questions about accessibility at our venue, please contact our Patron Services Manager at rajah@nwfilmforum.org. Our phone number (206-329-2629) is voicemail-only, but we check it often.

Made possible due to a grant from Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, in partnership with Sensory Access, our Sensory Access document presents a visual and descriptive walk-through of the NWFF space. View it in advance of attending an in-person event at bit.ly/nwffsocialnarrativepdf, in order to prepare yourself for the experience.

⚠️ Covid-19 Policies ⚠️

NWFF patrons will be strongly encouraged to wear masks that cover both nose and mouth while in the building. Disposable masks are available at the door for those who need them. Recent variants of COVID-19 readily infect and spread between individuals regardless of vaccination status.

Read more about NWFF’s policies regarding cleaning, masks, and capacity limitations here.

FAQ: How do I watch in person?

Purchase your ticket through Brown Paper Tickets; come to the show!
You can also purchase a ticket on the day of the screening at Northwest Film Forum’s box office (1515 12th Ave, Seattle).
If you have purchased a Full Festival Pass or Full Day Pass, we’ll be able to look you up at Will Call by the name you purchased under.

Films in this program:

Stan's Salon

(Jon Behrens | color | 16mm to digital | US)

I was in Boulder Col. on holiday when I attended one of Stan Brakhage’s film salons that he hosted. I saw some very incredible images that night and got to meet the grand master himself. I was so inspired by what I saw and the people that I met that the moment that I returned home to Seattle I made this film. My first fully hand painted motion picture, and the techniques that I used in this film were the beginning of an entirely new phase of my filmmaking and I hope to master this technique some day.

–Jon Behrens

Liquid is Light

(Kalpana Subramanian | b & w | Super 8 to digital | 4:00 | US)

Elemental gazing and cinematic dissolution of a ‘Brakagian landscape.’ Countering counter cinema through resistance of vision. The title ‘liquid is light’ references a quote attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, in a correspondence between Stan Brakhage and Guy Davenport. Shot on Super 8, this film primarily uses in-camera editing and was filmed at Boulder Creek in Colorado.

Late December, East of the Sierras

(Bill Basquin | color | 16mm to digital | 21:00 | US)

I shot this silent, in-camera edit a little east of the Sierras in Late December over the course of a couple of sunrises and a sunset. The film is languid, using landscape cinematography to evoke mood.

Shedding

(Vicky Smith | b & w | 16mm to digital | 4:19 | UK)

Multiple passes of hand processed 16mm film, with some flash frames. A performance for the Bolex camera in which dimensions of stasis and movement are physically enacted by filming at varying frame rates. A still figure, saturated with light, appears to be highly overexposed. As layers of the image dislodge it becomes apparent that the exposure is correct, and that the brightness is caused through multiple superimpositions.

Herbaria x Pelicula

(Derek Jenkins | color | 16mm to digital | 11:00 | Canada)

This “Field Portfolio” is a single channel version of the multichannel installation “Herbaria × pelicula.” A consideration of collection as both archive and act, “Herbaria × pelicula” examines the work that takes place at the HAM Herbarium of Royal Botanical Gardens (Canada), located in Burlington ON along the edges of Cootes Paradise wetland, traditional territory of the Mississauga and Haudenosaunee peoples. The herbarium collection, which houses over 60,000 holdings, comprises specimens from around the world but is made up primarily of local vascular plant types gathered by the scientific community and educated hobbyists. Combining documentary footage of the herbarium space, code-generated database animations of digitized specimen sheets, and images of plant life processed in plant material, the film work positions the specific labour of botanical gathering and collection as an image-making practice in addition to a mode of knowledge production.

Tobacco Barn Light Studies

(Rocío Mesa | b & w | 16mm to digital | 2:00 | Spain)

The tobacco plant was introduced to Granada (Southern Spain) in 1923. It became a monoculture in the region until the end of the century. When the tobacco production stopped being profitable, the farmers switched to new crops like wheat, corn or asparagus. However, the lands of Granada are still replete with tobacco barns: large empty houses where the leaves used to be hung to dry. They inhabit the landscape like architectural ghosts.

Monosabishii

(Wenhua Shi | color | 16mm to digital | 4:20 | US)

A visual poem was composed, when no one is at home.

Bosco

(Lucie Leszez + Stefano Canapa | b & w | 8:00 | 16mm to digital | France/Italy)

Three filmmakers bring back images of the forest, they are reworked and destructured with the means of the photochemical laboratory. “Bosco” is a visual breakthrough punctuated by a contrasted and hypnotic black and white.

And By the Night

(Anna Kipervaser | color | 10:00 | 16mm to digital | US)

After a period of no revelations, Surah al-Duha was revealed to Prophet Muhammad, stating that God had neither forsaken nor forgotten him. And to be patient. The film is also a response to my abortion.

Puedo Ver Todo Menos Mis Ojos/I Can See Everything But My Eyes

(Leandro Varela | b & w | 2:00 | 16mm to digital | Argentina)

Inspired by the mythological creature Ouroubouros, this visual experiment attempts to use temporality to recreate the form of a circle through the use of moving lines.

The 8th Engauge Experimental Film Festival celebrates sprocket-driven, artist-made experimental film, presenting seven programs of shorts and one feature over the course of four nights at NWFF’s cinema in Capitol Hill. All work featured in the festival originates on film stock.

The festival features a closing-night live performance from Lori Goldston of original compositions over six films.

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