* Washington state premiere! *

Shot over numerous years in Portland, Oregon, Essays of a City is a rapturous exploration of the city, on Super 16mm black and white film.

Split into three parts, it begins with a portrait of urban desolation, dominated by architecture and bereft of humanity. A series of monologues follows, given by those who live in the shadows of that architecture. Finally, Essays of a City concludes with a thesis about how the cinema’s unique ability to document time and space differentiates it from other art forms. With an orchestrator’s sense of tempo and detail, Stuart Eagon has made a constantly surprising film of rare aesthetic and even moral consciousness.