Waves | we effervesce minutely | Cadence Video Poetry Festival 2025

Available in 18d 18h 46m 02s

Available April 25, 2025 7:01 AM UTC

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Life cycles leave a snail trail across the screen. These video poems navigate the vast expanse of time with subtle, personal narratives that collapse the space between art and home, womb and grave, career and honey bucket. Through mantras, photographs, and windows the works in this showcase offer a glimpse into eternity while embracing the temporary.

(61 min TRT)

Click here for in-person tickets to this program: Apr. 27 at 4:00pm

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Cadence 2025 will be held both virtually and in-person. Festival Passes are HYBRID, granting access to both virtual and in-person viewing, and are available here.

Header photo credit: The Shadows of Paper Trees, dir. Aida Daneshvar & Christopher Dreisbach

Showcase title credit: legs, dir. Christine Fellows, Jennifer Still & Chantel Mierau

A young Black man grapples with his toxic cycle, his day unfolding through a visual poem set to a tape cassette that weaves the rhythm of his struggles, echoing his journey toward self-awareness and change.

Year
2025
Runtime
4 minutes
Language
English
Country
United States
Premiere
Mixed (African-American & Pakistani)
Subtitle Language
with English subtitles

Director
Sultan Ali Jr.
Producer
Sultan Ali Jr.
Cast
James Asante
Cinematographer
Mo Rabbini
Editor
Mo Rabbini

12 films in package

In this short life

Can the reuse of home video archives transcend mere nostalgia?

The Snail Disco Diner

A diner managed by snails is frequented by customers who use time as currency.

Waves

A young Black man grapples with his toxic cycle, his day unfolding through a visual poemctoward self-awareness and change.

The Shadows of Paper Trees

Time-collapsed images of nature collide with reverie-soaked tableaus interpreting verses from “Panjereh” ("Window") by Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad.

Nest Egg

Driven to gain control over her body and reproductive rights, an artist documents her procedure of human oocyte cryopreservation (freezing eggs).

Third space

Finding your location.

YES! (JAH!)

The corners, slopes, dead ends, and curves nudge us to ponder the dilemmas of the achievement society. Should we push ourselves into a box or shall we dare to be wrong?

our ob or os

if every bone had not been sucked hollow, / the meat held for ransom. the yearling / still struggling to walk, its hock bent backwards. / its tongue meant to be peeled after boiling —

Insurance Man 1946

Poet Sean Hill performs his poem "Insurance Man 1946" while wandering a rural Montana town's general store.

legs

Three artists work in stride to translate, in sound and motion, the heart of a poem. They collaborate with life’s unexpecteds—snapped clotheslines, drained swimming pools, terminal diagnoses—and learn what falls away is not necessarily gone.

smirnov fedot (смирнов федот)

The ordinary life of an ordinary person condensed into seven days and two quatrains. What happens if you go with the flow until the very end?

Espectro

Antarctica, 1953. Like a espectro (specter) in my mind, I search for you, you search for me. I dream of you and you dream of me.