Engauge 2025 – Bodies in Space and Time

The body, our most intimate landscape, is a site for detailed examinations of the aging, changing, meditative, playful, remembered, non-conforming, and contested self in the world.

🎟️ WATCH IT AT NWFF 🎟️

Click for Accessibility Info

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:

Write Your Sunlight on My Skin

(Billy Palumbo | b & w + color + sound | 16mm to digital | 3:42 | US)

The elements collide to make serenity out of turmoil, and anxiety gives way to a new normal. Point the way and I will follow.

pressing

(stephanie barber | color + sound | 16mm to digital | 3:19 | US)

the pressing of pubic hair against nylon/ the pressing of fingers on fruit/ the pressing of an image of/ womanhood/ sexuality/ pleasure/ on the young psyche of the character in the film./the pressing of light on photosensitive chemicals./minerals i’ve exposed.

Augmented

(Raymond Rea | color + sound | 16mm to digital | 8:27 | US)

AUGMENTED is an experimental non-fiction short, shot completely on 16mm, that analyzes the commonalities between medical augmentation and Transgender alignment. We are frightening because we’re the future.

Fainter Echoes

(Brady Lewis | b & w + color + sound | 16mm + S8 to digital | 6:29 | US)

“Fainter Echoes” was shot on nine different 16mm and super-8 film stocks. It deals in dreams, impressions and fleeting memories, trying to depict a person, a place and a relationship.

As I Belong to My Life

(Sarah Bliss | b & w + sound | 16mm to digital | 4:10 | US)

An exploration of the ways older bodies and psyches engage eros, gender, creativity, sexuality and desire. In a culture in which aging bodies are assumed to be sexless and considered neutered, what does it look and feel like to reclaim our erotic power?

Crystal Palace

(Linda Izcali Scobie | color + sound | 16mm to digital | 8:30 | US)

Two films align as a languid meditation on motion, color, pattern and joy. A collaboration between filmmaker Linda Izcali Scobie and musician John Davis for John’s 2024 LP release “Landlines”.

Mother

(Wenhua Shi | color + sound | 16mm print? | 4:30 | US)

This piece is a film portrait of my mother. all shot in-camera with 16mm.

le corps morcele

(Vicky Smith | b + w + silent | 16mm print | 4:14 | UK)

Animation, performance and hand processed black&white film combine to describe the body repeatedly succumbing to gravity and to horizontality. Pixilation, typically used to attribute physical superpowers, in this case renders actions that are suspended, directionless and thwarted. As multiple superimpositions accrue, the individual body is submerged by a mass of limbs.

Clear

(Hogan Seidel | color + sound | 16mm print | 6:20 | US)

Clear is a visceral confrontation with the illusion of “safety,” where altered 16mm footage and layered audio reveal the quiet violence surveillance imposes on trans and gender-nonconforming bodies.

A Patriot of These Woods

(Karel Doing | b & w + sound | 16mm print | 9:40 | UK)

Inspired by the novel The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino, which tells the adventures of a boy who climbs up a tree to spend the rest of his life inhabiting an arboreal kingdom. The filmmaker casts himself in the role of the protagonist by applying his ‘phytography’ technique. He dives into the vegetal world, undertaking his own journey into the trees around him using his body as a metaphorical soldier who defends the trees and plants that grow around him. An otherwise concealed world opens up, revealing the symbiotic relationship between humans and plants. A hybrid creature emerges, partially plant, partially human, their bodies merged, their thought processes entangled. These woods respect no borders.

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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