top of page

Program 4 - Only a Moment
68 minutes

Light Matter is Curated by James Hansen 

Saturday November 8, 1:45 PM

LMQT_1.3.2 kopie (1).jpg
Les mains qui travaillent
Eva van Tongeren, Belgium/Niger, 6 minutes
North American Premiere

This small cinematic exchange offers a glimpse into a women's collective based in Agadez (Niger). The camera zooms in on womens working hands revealing the harsh conditions of their daily lives. While separating peanuts from their shells, the women talk to each other about the men passing by and the film maker being present.The short encounter questions how the camera could be used by both the women in front and behind the camera to find a way of getting in contact with each other while not sharing a common language.

Hemispheres Dawn 2048 × 1240 005.tif
Hemispheres
Eric Stewart, USA, 7 minutes
US Premiere

Filmed over the course of several years in southern Colorado, Hemispheres is a quiet study in pattern and place, as observed through the window of my living room. Shot on Super 16mm film, the project layers multiple time-lapse exposures of cacti and seasonal light, capturing subtle shifts in color, atmosphere, and rhythm. 
 
Like the inlay of a sundial meeting a garden’s creeping vines, what emerges is not a photograph of a singular view or moment, but a composite drawing of duration—using light to trace the intersecting cycles of growth and dormancy, brightness and shadow, warm and cool, seasonal progression and retreat…

Shapeless Variations_Francisco Rojas2.png
Shapeless Variations
Francisco Rojas, Chile, 11 minutes
New York Premiere

A condensation of a handful of sunsets with various visual moods. Red and blue as opposites that still find a way to cohere.  Concrete silhouettes over an ever-changing, expanding canvas. The horizon is invisible, there’s no dividing line. Every movement is collective, molecular. A chance to meditate on the “speed” of water and the sea and also for a more fluid kind of editing.

yasinsky not your monster.png
I’m Not Your Monster
Karen Yasinsky, USA, 5 minutes

I’m Not Your Monster is a hand-drawn animation composed of fragments rotoscoped from various films. It began with replacing Frankenstein’s monster with a person I know. The idea of fear creating violence inspired the project, coupled with ideas about the self, its construct and its relation to the body.

River of Days2.jpg
River of Days
Mark Street, USA, 7 minutes

Using hundreds of transparent photographic stills animated on a lightbox and abstract Super-8 footage, the film meditates on the illusory nature of the passage of time.

Dreams of Formosa1.jpg
The Dreams of Formosa
Esperanza Collado, Taiwan, 2 minutes
World Premiere

A brief cinematographic exploration on Super8 that examines Taiwan's complex national identity through the prism of political utopia. Shot in emblematic locations such as the Legislative Yuan, Liberty Square, the National Human Rights Museum, 228 Memorial Park, and TSMC headquarters, the film juxtaposes these symbols of democracy and autonomy with monuments from the authoritarian past like the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Cih-hu Memorial Statue Park. 
 
Through these evocative images, the film reflects on the historical, diplomatic, and geopolitical tensions that have defined Taiwan for many centuries and specially since 1949, when the Kuomintang established its government on the island following the Japanese surrender in 1945. This work explores the Taiwanese paradox: a nation functioning as a sovereign democracy while navigating a diplomatic limbo, pursuing a political utopia where its self-determination might be fully recognized. 
 
As a fragment of a larger on-going project, this two-minute piece invites us to question: Can utopia exist in this state of perpetual ambiguity? Or is it precisely this singular position between two worlds that constitutes modern Taiwanese subjectivity?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Photo 1 Tooborac.jpg
Tooborac
Richard Tuohy & Diana Barrie, Australia, 9 minutes
New York Premiere

Granite tors scattered over 20 square kilometers around Tooborac in central Victoria dance in energetic celebration of their own endurance.

earlier wreck_still_3_copy.jpg
As An Earlier Wreck Is Now Cleared
Masha Vlasova, USA, 8 minutes

​The film drifts through nocturnal botanicals, fleeting infrastructure, and moments of transit—walking, driving, and listening to NPR. As the scale shifts from plant to human-animal to city, the images, dimly lit and elusive, conjure a psychic landscape of rootlessness and an event just out of reach.

Species of Analogy 1Martinez.jpg
Species of Analogy
JM Martinez, USA, 13 minutes

A field guide: Flora evolving with environmental changes, and pollinators utilizing biomimicry. Natural objects are gathered, and sculptures of and from the landscape cast reflections of nature being infinite, self-knowing, and alive. Extinct species and stages of evolution are suggested, accompanied by field recordings capturing the underground soundscape of soil. Bird calls and wingbeats offer greetings and warnings. -A rock, a tree, a human—each dissolving into matter and transmuting into new forms. 

bottom of page