(Kevin T. Allen | color | surround sound | 10:00 | Super 8 to DCP | 2013/2023 | US)

A surround sound reworking of footage shot in 2013. This film is a study of three similar but distinct microcultures: the Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge and Williamsburg Bridge. Interrogated through the use of contact microphones, these physical infrastructures become audible to reveal their inherent macroacoustics. The film treats the bridge as an anthropological body for discourse, with organs, eyes and ears moving in time.

(Yuula Benivolski | b + w | sound | 6:20 | 16mm to digital | 2023 | Canada)

In March the streets of Mexico City are covered in purple Jacaranda flowers. We live in Obrera—meaning “Worker” in Spanish. It is a working-class neighborhood. Walking home one night, I follow the trail of purple flowers on the ground until I come face to face with a large bronze seamstress, locked behind the fence of an apartment building courtyard. At home, I look up the address: Manuel José Othón, corner of San Antonio Abad. I find a photo of the monument and the following words: “Topeka, large garment factory, employed hundreds of women.” And then: “Bronze statue at site of collapsed factory.”

(Jonathan Osuwan Johnson | color | sound | 4:42 | Super 8 to digital | 2018 | US)

In this experimental documentary, an unseen filmmaker uses unseen memories to follow traces of his deceased grandparents throughout urban and rural Thailand. Loosely following a travelogue-essay format, the search for identity is intertwined with the old and new history of rural and urban Thailand. Shot on Super 8mm reversal film.

(Sally Lawton | color | silent with text | 5:16 | 16mm to digital | 2023 | US)

“What affects me most powerfully: mourning in layers – a kind of sclerosis.” – Roland Barthes, Mourning Diary. Inspired by Roland Barthes’ Mourning Diary, the film attempts to measure grief and consciousness in the pandemic through images and monthly recorded notes. The images were recorded entirely in the summer of 2020, while the text stacks together several years. The simple naming and showing of events exposes the banality of grief, but hopefully also the significance.

(Cláudia Cárdenas | b + w | sound | 19:00 | 16mm to digital | 2023 | Brazil)

A poetic and experimental short film that travels in between documentary and fiction to approach a culture faced with extinction: the indigenous peoples of Brazil. It is particularly about the sharing of knowledge of the Bugio village, and made in a collective way in every stage of 16mm footage, botanical revelation and sound capture. It tries to reactivate the memories of the origins of the Laklãnõ/Xokleng people, while observing what is lost with the alienation of their knowledge and culture practiced by colonialism.

(Kevin Roy | color | silent | 4:16 | 16mm to digital | 2022 | US)

Hand-painted abstract film inspired by a fixation on the theft of intellectual property and the erasure of artist identity to train digital systems in the art of artifice.

(Sam Drake | color | sound | 9:07 | 16mm to digital | 2023 | US)

Inadequate attempts to describe a sensation; lingering seasickness, and other terrestrial disorientations.

(Nisha Platzer | color | sound | 3:03 | 16mm to digital | 2018 | Canada )

‘tulips are my father’s favourite flower’ was originally made as a 17-foot film loop installation, projected in a grassy field in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. Contact printed, tinted and toned 16mm film uses the subject of the work, tulips, to guide reflection and interpretation of both artist and viewer.  Notions of wandering, retreat, exploration, cycles of pain and hope are complimented by the haunting soundtrack made by sound artist, Apollo. While making this piece i was reflecting a lot on cycles of pain, but also noticing a constant, underlying beauty that exists parallel to the pain.

(Jason Moyes | b + w & color | sound | 3:12 | 16mm to digital | 2022 | Scotland)

Exploring the relationship between electricity pylons and the landscape. Hand processed Super 8mm film with audio from the English sculptor and artist Barbara Hepworth.

(Mars Saude | 10:00 | color & b + w | sound | 10:00 | 16mm to digital | 2023 | UK)

“Some Things We Tended” explores the future of food production in a changing climate through 16mm documentation of two sites in mid Wales: an automated research greenhouse and a small-scale organic market garden. These settings lead to a miniature excursion into a speculative future rooted in Welsh soil.

The 6th 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 features in the festival originated on film stock.

The festival features a solo show by San Francisco-based filmmaker Greta Snider, and Lori Goldston and friends’ live score for a 16mm print of Anacortes-born, Beat Generation filmmaker Harry Smith’s feature Heaven and Earth Magic.

⚠️ Please note: NWFF patrons will be required to wear masks that cover both nose and mouth while in the building. We are not currently checking vaccination cards.