Cadence 2025 – Craft Talk w/ Visiting Artists: Lilián Pallares + Charles Olsen [In-Person]

Apr. 26 at 6:15pm PT – In-Person Only

Free to attend for ticket and passholders!

In-person tickets > ($20 General Admission / $10 Community Access)

Festival passes > (Pay what you can, $65 – $80 – $95 / NWFF Members, $40)

All Festival Passes are HYBRID, granting access to both virtual and in-person viewing! Non-member passes are priced on a sliding scale; please pay what you can to support our work. Passes include the Festival Preview at Frye Art Museum on April 24.

About the program:

(30 min)

** Join visiting artists Lilián Pallares and Charles Olsen, whose work has been featured at Cadence over the years, for a focused craft talk between screenings. **

Two poets and a camera:

Highlighting key moments in their poetry film making, Charles and Lilián take us from early pieces based on their own poems through to collaborative pieces made with diverse communities, most recently with girls of the Our Little Roses orphanage in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

Their newest video poem Wandering Houses (Casas Errantes) will have its US premiere during a new place for these treasures at Frye Art Museum (Apr. 24, 6pm) and also screens in my more-than-me at NWFF (Apr. 26, 4pm).

Film poster credits:
Noho Mai (Sit Here). 2020, dir. Peta-Maria Tunui, Waitahi Aniwaniwa McGee, Shania Bailey-Edmonds, Jesse-Ana Harris, Lilián Pallares, Charles Olsen; poem Peta-Maria Tunui
Llanto Congelado (Frozen Cry), 2020, dir. Charles Olsen, poem Lilián Pallares
A-Dentro (In-Side), 2023, dir. Charles Olsen, Lilián Pallares; poemDayana Jiménez
Casas Errantes (Wandering Houses), 2025, dir. Lilián Pallares, Charles Olsen; poem Lilián Pallares, Lauren Mendinueta

♿ 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 Director of Exhibition at cole@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 ⚠️

Northwest Film Forum values being a COVID-safer space for the filmmakers and film lovers who need us to be. From the moment we reopened to the public in September 2021, we required masks. Due to economic pressure, however, a new mask policy took effect on September 20, 2024.

We will continue to require masks at select showtimes – Thursday nights and Saturday and Sunday matinees – but the majority of screenings will now be “masks strongly encouraged.” Please note additional details here, and be sure to read each calendar event thoroughly for policy differences.

ℹ️ FAQ: How do I attend in-person? ℹ️
  • Purchase your ticket to either my more-than-me or grounding into the space; come to the talk!
  • You can also purchase a ticket on the day of the screening at Northwest Film Forum (1515 12th Ave, Seattle).
  • If you have purchased a Hybrid Festival Pass, we’ll look you up at Will Call by the name you purchased under.
🌐 FAQ: How do I watch online? 🌐
  • This program will only be available in-person.

About the Artists:

Lilián Pallares

Lilián Pallares

Lilián Pallares (Colombia, 1976) In 2017 she received the XIV distinction Poetas de Otros Mundos from the International Poetry Fund and in 2020 she was presented with the award “10 colombianos” by the Colombian Embassy in Madrid for her personal and artistic trajectory. She has published the books Ciudad Sonámbula (2010), Voces Mudas (2011), Pájaro, vértigo (2014) and Bestial (2018). In 2020 alongside Charles Olsen she received an Artists Residency at Matadero Madrid on the theme of “Childhood, Play and Public Space.” Together they have run writing workshops for children and the elderly, and painting workshops in primary schools with the city council programme “Madrid, Un libro abierto.” In 2022, together with Charles Olsen, she received a fellowship to run creative poetry workshops the Our Little Roses orphanage in Honduras. With her theatre research company Afrolyrics she has created with director Daniel Aguirre her new show Bestial ‘el espíritu de Lilith’, which brings together poetry, storytelling, dance, visuals and percussion in a mystical, erotic and sensual atmosphere and an African context.

Charles Olsen

Charles Olsen

Charles Olsen (New Zealand, 1969) has lived in Spain since 2003. Artist, poet and filmmaker, his short film The dance of the brushes won second prize in the Flamenco Short Film Festival, Madrid, 2010, and his paintings have been shown in Madrid, Barcelona, Oporto, Paris, Wellington and the Saatchi Gallery, London. His latest poetry collection is La rebeldía del sol (Rebellious Sun, Olifante Ediciones de Poesía, 2022). In 2018 he was awarded the III Antonio Machado Fellowship of Segovia and Soria, and in 2017 the XIII distinction Poetas de Otros Mundos (Poets from Other Worlds) by the Fondo Poético Internacional in Spain. Alongside Lilián Pallares he runs the audiovisual production company antenablue and in 2020/21 they received a joint artists residency on the theme of “Childhood, Play and Public Space” at Matadero Madrid. Their work has been in international poetry film festivals and featured in Moving Poems, Poetry Film Live and Atticus Review. Charles has contributed essays to The Poetics of Poetry Film (Intellect Books, S. Tremlett (ed), 2021).


Back to Festival Home

Cadence Video Poetry Festival is a series of screenings, workshops, and discussions on the genre of video poetry during National Poetry Month.

Cadence approaches video poetry as a literary genre presented as visual media that makes new meaning from the combination of text and moving image. Featuring screenings, an artist residency, generative workshops for youth and adults, artist gatherings, and a virtual poetry bookshelf, Cadence fosters critical and creative growth around the medium of video poetry.


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Northwest Film Forum
1515 12th Ave,

Seattle, WA 98122

206 329 2629


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