These films occupy the thresholds among nostalgia, sorrow, renewal, loss, longing and memory. ** All film programs during Engauge 2021 include a virtual filmmaker Q&amp;A that is <a href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/8922398" target="_blank" class="ql-size-large">free to view through the festival’s Vimeo page</a>. Whether you experience the festival in person or at home, check in afterwards to hear from the filmmakers! **

Parenthesis, a short impressionistic poem, liberates the inserted thought from its master. The film's mirrored beginning and ending render the inserted material, not as an explanation or afterthought but rather as the dominant point where the natural and civilized worlds claim their separate space before colliding, as the continual breathing of the sea becomes increasingly intense and urgent. Whatever may be going on in the outside world is kept at bay by the visual parentheses.

Parenthesis

In this lonely contemplation of a past summer, the ancient promontory becomes a parenthetical projection of frantic lines and alternating impressions.

A short piece paying tribute to my hometown Wuhan, China. All source footage is from Wenhua's childhood friends' social media 15-second video feed. Muybridge captured the galloping horse one hundred forty years ago in a brief 12 frames. The duration of today's social media video clips is similar to Muybridge's brevity. Wenhua tries to reimagine what subject Muybridge would capture today, using the cyanotype method to reprint the individual frames to create the final short videos.

Because the sky is blue

A short piece paying tribute to my hometown Wuhan, China, applying cyanotype methods to 15-second social media videos from my childhood friends' feeds.

threshold. between two states of being. the boundary of perception.

LIMEN

threshold. between two states of being. the boundary of perception.

A meditation on loss and what is left behind. A letter to a friend.

five miles Another (for Diana)

A meditation on loss and what is left behind. A letter to a friend.

To return again. To re-align is the object of these visits, perhaps. Geography of origin becoming catalyst for an inner re-alignment with the secret, private, unspoken work of one’s being. Peering into layers, sliding planes of windows and time, the fragmentary gesture of the dance. 
 A series of rapid contrasts, a synthesis of elemental and everyday experience.
 Structures shift and intermingle, two worlds become one.

A Return

Peering into layers, sliding planes of windows and time, the fragmentary gesture of the dance. A series of rapid contrasts, a synthesis of elemental and everyday experience. Structures shift and intermingle, two worlds become one.

"The film is a diary and act of bearing witness in which Wardell tells of his father’s artificial heart valve, the industrial farming industry that both provided the tissue for it and arguably hastened its necessity, and their somewhat distant father-son relationship. Wardell hand-developed this film in salt which resulted in a shimmering pock-marked effect on the celluloid which emphasizes the film’s own materiality and physical precarity in line with the earthbound fleshiness of the maker’s voiceover narrative. However, the salt’s implications as a curing agent for meat and the way its visual impact brings together threads of preservation – of his father’s life, of their mutual love, of the detachment they have felt for years – and the latent imagery of these things hanging and curing over time, becomes quietly overwhelming." – Ben Nicholson, Alt/Kino

Psychic Meat

"The film is a diary and act of bearing witness in which Wardell tells of his father’s artificial heart valve, the industrial farming industry that both provided the tissue for it and arguably hastened its necessity, and their somewhat distant father-son relationship." Poetically hand-developed in salt, a curing agent for meat. (Excerpt from a synopsis by Ben Nicholson for Alt/Kino)

Black is made entirely using images from found 16mm footage. The movie reflects the director's observations of the political and cultural turmoil after the 1979 revolution in Iran, along with her experiences of everyday life abroad. Through a visual metaphor, the film offers a glimpse into the complex social, religious and political realities that influenced the nation of Iran and mandated their identities in a different direction. The entire film employs direct animation on found film, exploring the inner sentiments of a young woman caught in the midst of social and political change. The direct scratches and lines along with the cinematic sequences reinforce the film's message of bewilderment surrounding the progression of events during that time.

Black

Black is made entirely using images from found 16mm footage. The movie reflects the director's observations of the political and cultural turmoil after the 1979 revolution in Iran, along with her experiences of everyday life abroad.

“Put me on the train, send me back to my home. Couldn't live without you when I tried to roam.”

Out in the Sky Nobody Sleeps

“Put me on the train, send me back to my home. Couldn't live without you when I tried to roam.”

“I don't want to put any labels on my films… I never impose on you; you need to find what you have to find.”― Storm de Hirsch Film for Storm de Hirsch (AKA Women's Time) is a handmade film and a tribute to legendary filmmaker Storm de Hirsch, one of the pioneers of underground experimental cinema in the 1960s, along with other female directors such as Marie Menken, Barbara Hammer, Gunvor Nelson, Joyce Wieland, Shirley Clarke, Barbara Rubin and many others. Film for Storm de Hirsch includes images of clothespins and film leader, slowed down to suggest the idea of women's waiting, women's time, women's spaces; women artists and filmmakers "waiting" to be rediscovered. Their work lives on and inspires so many young experimental filmmakers and female video artists who search for the path that many avant-garde women paved in experimental film, video and art.

Film for Storm de Hirsch

Rephotographed psychedelic painted and scratched images, collaged and abstracted. An homage to underground experimental poet and filmmaker, Storm de Hirsch; one of the great unsung women in avant-garde film in the 1960s.

Limen

Sliding Scale

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These are all the passes tied to your account. Visit https://watch.eventive.org/engauge2021 to reserve tickets to the programs that interest you. You can access your tickets via {{my_tickets_link|"My Tickets"}} or via the PDFs attached to each ticket order confirmation email.

These are all your purchased virtual tickets. Unless you are a Hybrid Pass-holder, in-person screenings are ticketed entirely separately. Links to in-person screening tickets can be found on each virtual film program, as well as at bit.ly/engauge2021nwff

General Engauge 2020 Pass

NWFF Member Pass

Student Pass

Virtual-Only Pass (General)

Virtual-Only Pass (NWFF / SIFF / GI / PCNW Member)

Virtual-Only Pass (Student/Senior)

None available

Passes

Below are all of the film programs in the 2021 festival. On each virtual listing, you'll find a link to that program's in-person showtime at NWFF. Virtual programming will be available continuously from Oct. 28 – Nov. 8; in-person programming at NWFF runs Oct. 28–31.

Each Fall, Engauge Experimental Film Festival hosts screenings sponsored by Interbay Cinema Society in partnership with Northwest Film Forum. The festival screens ONLY work that originates on film, by filmmakers both local and international. 2021 marks their return to in-person screenings at NWFF!