Header image credit: Gravity, dir. Paul Shepherd

(Rosie Trump, US, 2021, 6 min)

Home Movies consists of vintage found footage of people dancing. Moments captured long ago of living room dance parties, birthdays, and impromptu twirls down the street and in the kitchen.

(Thomas Corriveau, Canada, 2021, 8 min, in English & French with English subtitles)

The severed head of a choreographer is held captive by an eagle on a desert island. With a dazzling mastery of drawing and painting, this animated short unexpectedly takes us into the sensitive world of an artist madly in love with dance.

(Ana Baer & Cecilia Appleton, Mexico, 2020, 4 min)

An intimate view at an intergenerational family living in one of the largest cities in the world, filmed on location in Mexico City.

(Paul Shepherd, Hong Kong, 2022, 3 min)

In a sudden global cataclysmic event – me, you,and everyone we know are unified in our isolation – we work isolated, we study isolated and we struggle isolated. The real is just out of [human] touch.

(Stephan Dorn, Germany, 2022, 1 min)

Ten hard cuts. Ten snapshots of movement. Out of focus, unfinished, silly. The pictures dance with themselves, according to a strict beat. And when they are done, they start all over.

(Florent Mahoukou, Congo, 2021, 19 min, in French)

At a difficult turning point in his personal and professional life, choreographer Florent Mahoukou returns to the town of Pointe Noire where, for him, everything began with dance.

Lights Dance Festival, Toronto’s only festival that bridges the worlds of dance and film, comes to NWFF in 2022 for its first in-person Seattle screenings.

Strata of forgotten items discovered in any lost-and-found box present a certain history, be it plastic jewelry from the ‘90s, handwritten notes, or photographs. Each item tells a story of its former owner, while collectively, the mélange of abandoned objects provides a perspective of entangled histories. Such recollection – contact with the past – need not be merely object-based, but also, ephemeral, sensorial, and imaginative.

The magic of moving images such as film is also a vehicle into the past through which we revisit familiar spaces and recontextualize certain events through the lens of time. Inspired by the power of film to reignite remnants of the past, the Lights Dance Festival has curated films from around the globe to meaningfully engage with temporalities, whether they are autobiographical journeys or more conceptual experimentations with digital materials and technologies.

⚠️ 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.