These films occupy the thresholds among nostalgia, sorrow, renewal, loss, longing and memory.
** All film programs during Engauge 2021 include a virtual filmmaker Q&A that is free to view through the festival’s Vimeo page. Whether you experience the festival in person or at home, check in afterwards to hear from the filmmakers! **
"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
- Year2020
- Runtime10 minutes
- LanguageEnglish
- CountryUnited States
- DirectorStephen Wardell
These films occupy the thresholds among nostalgia, sorrow, renewal, loss, longing and memory.
** All film programs during Engauge 2021 include a virtual filmmaker Q&A that is free to view through the festival’s Vimeo page. Whether you experience the festival in person or at home, check in afterwards to hear from the filmmakers! **
"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
- Year2020
- Runtime10 minutes
- LanguageEnglish
- CountryUnited States
- DirectorStephen Wardell