Engauge 2025 – A Panoply of Techniques

One of the great things about experimental filmmaking is that there are really no rules for how to make a film. Like 2-D artists or poets, experimental filmmakers explore the possibilities, often starting there. In this program, the filmmakers employ a mind-boggling array of techniques: direct animation, hand painting and drawing, collage, cyanotypes, scratch animation, emulsion manipulation, laser jet printing, cameraless filmmaking and more. Come see what is possible.

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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:

thread, chain, beads and tacks

(Ela Kazdal | b & w + sound | 16mm + 35mm to digital | 2:03 | UK)

“thread, chain, beads and tacks” is an experimental film made on 16mm and 35mm film, alongside materials such as thread, chain, beads, tacks, hex nuts, bolts, steel eye pins, hooks, clasps, tracing paper, prints, IKEA paper measure, bobby pins, 35mm photographic film strip, 16mm film strips, nail polish, screenprint, mesh fabric and lace.

The Peace of Swim Teams

(Foteini Tina Jacobson | color + sound | 16mm to digital | 4:35 | US)

A return to a meditative state in unison when despair for the world grows in me. Hand-painted Cyanotype on 16mm is animated by the movement of water at Lake Union, Seattle. A collage of autumn leaves on 16mm leader is contact printed manually on 16mm color reversal. Then, the digital transfer is edited to create the final film. An evocation of the poem “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry.

Sunspots

(Abinadi Meza | color + sound | 16mm to digital | 5:44 | Mexico)

Pulsing solar forms dissolve into the delicate architecture of retinal veins; sunspots mirror the floating specks across our vision. This film exists in a space between the vast and the intimate – where drops of blood become celestial bodies, and fractures in film emit light like distant stars. Without the mediation of a camera the film collapses the distance between the observer and the observed, the macro and the micro.

Second Notes

(Julia Petrocelli | b & w + silent | 16mm to digital | 4:26 | US)

A film that is composed entirely from words found on notes app screenshots sent to me via Instagram DM. By taking the second note on each list, the words were compiled and arranged by the filmmaker. In many ways the film is a conversation between the artist and its participants. The film was printed on a LaserJet printer on clear 16mm leader.

Traceless Traces

(Dirk de Bruyn | color + sound | 16mm to digital | 5:02 | AUS)

Poetry video bridging the gap between analog and digital media, enunciating a trace-less trauma embedded in the surface of materialist film. Created by drawing and dying directly on the emulsion surface of acetate film.

Midsummer

(Masha Vlasova | color + sound | 16mm to digital | 2:37 | US)

Midsummer is a cyanotype, sun-printed film. The film was conceived during Juhannus, the celebration of the longest day of the year in Finland, when the sun doesn’t set for 24 hours. The light of the sun is both material and collaborator in creating this film-poem.

Kaleidosprocket

(Iloobia | color + sound | S8, 16mm + 35mm to digital | 7:30 | UK)

Disembodied movie fragments mutate into a lurid looping graphical landscape where captive movie actors witness the ensuing disorder as they descend into a celluloid maelstrom.

Trellis

(Mary Billyou | color + sound | 16mm to digital | 3:00 | US)

A scratched grid filled with red. A creeping synthesizer paces howling wolves. An anonymous agent appears in a clearing.

Double Perf

(Patrick Connelly | b & w + sound | 16mm to digital | 3:00 | US)

“Double Perf” is a scratch animation examining the shape and structure of film itself.

Inundation

(Dominick Rivers with Alberto Sanchez | color + silent | 16mm to digital | 3:43 | US)

. . .a non-representational film that submerges the viewer in the ephemeral interplay of light and shadow. Employing cyanotype and eco-coloring techniques, the piece captures fleeting impressions and refractions, where illumination emerges only to be swallowed again by darkness. As much about erasure as it is about presence, Inundation meditates on the impermanence of light—its ability to imprint, dissolve, and transform the cinematic surface into a shifting, alchemical space.

I am a Microscope

(Karl Nussbaum | color + sound | 35mm to digital | 7:00 | US)

I am a Microscope is a direct animation, created by painting directly onto 35mm film and working with various chemical solvents. The two separate films were originally part of an installation and played side by side, creating new juxtapositions. Those relationships are recreated here in a single, very wide film. For the soundtrack, five different pieces of music were woven together.

Poppy Flowers/Παπαρούνες

(Evridiki Papaiakovou | color + sound | 35mm to digital | 4:24 | Estonia)

Remembering is a fluid affair. A daughter tries to reconcile with her mother through memories of their shared rituals, exposing the intricate aspects of their relationship. As the daughter matures, she begins to contemplate conventional notions of divinity. The blank frames of the 35mm strip regain their function as memorabilia in the process of engraving her past onto its surface.

5-Cent American Flag

(Vito A. Rowlands | color + sound | 16mm to digital | 6:15 | Belgium, US)

A cryptopolitical forensic investigation of the JFK assassination through acoustic ballistics and signs embedded into 1963 5-cent American flag stamps.

Diskrete Kinesis #2

(Eislow Johnson + Kate In | b & w + silent | 16mm to digital | 1:30 | US)

The second entry in an interlude series within the multiple potential interstitial states of string harmonics. Hand processing and 16mm-to-digital scanning are treated as points of intervention and compositional instruments.

Fusion

(Richard Reeves | color + sound | 35mm to digital | 3:18 | Canada)

Investigating interplay between sound and picture as visual music. An experimental animation experience produced by drawing both sound and picture onto 35mm film. A film without words. No camera or musical instrument was used.

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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