In a mixed bill of experimental films and documentaries, we meet vibrant and courageous individuals digging deep to bring out their best selves, including those with mental and physical disabilities, nurses experiencing burnout, those battling substance abuse and addiction, cultural alienation or in one case, sci-fi existential angst. This year’s highlights include a lighthearted and broad-spectrum documentary about love called IYKYK (“If You Know You Know”) by Singaporean student filmmaker Jereca Png. Also on the program is filmmaker Ned Farr’s Porch Light, a subtly powerful story of a young woman returning to her home in search of the childhood she lost.

In this beautifully crafted combination of narrative film and dance, a young woman returns home in search of the childhood she lost. To find it she must struggle through her own emotional obstacle course. As she bravely sheds her baggage and relinquishes her walls, we are reminded of what it takes to face a past, to travel backward through the weight of what we’ve carried, in order to move forward.

Porch Light

A young woman returns home in search of the childhood she lost.

iykyk (“if you know, you know”) is a documentary about love. Love. The most abstract, all-encompassing feeling, thought, and experience - it creeps into our lives with unassuming gentleness or consumes us with a ferocity that forces us to pay attention. But what exactly is love? This documentary focuses on how youths of our time perceive, feel and express love. We dive into love through the stories of different individuals, expressed through the performative medium of dance. Through this project, we want to unravel what love truly means to a young generation; to inspire them to form their own definitions of love, and find the courage to pursue it.

iykyk

Love - it creeps into our lives with unassuming gentleness or consumes us with a ferocity that forces us to pay attention.

Tidal externalizes the internal life of a bedside nurse over the course of a year. The film examines the cyclical nature of workplace trauma and the relentlessness of the nursing profession. With the use of movement and dance, waves of deep-seated expression move through her as she tries to find home. Disjointed and overwhelmed, she is increasingly unable to connect to her outside world and is no longer able to separate hospital life from herself.

Tidal

Tidal examines the cyclical nature of workplace trauma and the relentlessness of the nursing profession.

SHE is a cinematic adaptation of a solo dance performance with the same name. The original performance work was created and performed by Dorotea Saykaly and premiered at 5éme Salle at Place des Arts in Montréal, Quebec in 2019. Inspired by The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector, the solo revolved around identity and doubt. Manifested through movement, distortion, and an interview with a phantom interrogator, the original work proposed looking at a questioning body through a female lens. The cinematic adaptation of the original performance arose during the first COVID lockdown in 2020 as a collaboration between Dorotea Saykaly and film director Emil Dam Seidel.

Her sense of identity in doubt, Clarice searches for a sense of self through a mirror.

"until I vanish" explores the internalized conditioning that BIPOC females undergo to absorb microaggressions, stay silent, and suppress rage despite feelings of implosion. The film embodies the melancholy and exhaustion that many of us experience while weaving through systems of hierarchy and oppression. It reflects a collective disillusionment of present-day society’s treatment of BIPOC communities–in particular, the Asian American community throughout the pandemic. How do we move forward when silence and stillness often feel like our only options?

Until I Vanish

How do we move forward when silence and stillness often feel like our only options?

Silke followed her dreams from an early age. A talented circus artist, she consistently wowed and inspired her audiences. EUDAIMONIA is a celebration of Silke’s discipline, passion, and her incredible willpower. Poem by Michael Ende

Eudaimonia

The inspiring story of a circus artist with incredible talent and drive.

Dance encourages deep, embodied connection between and audience and a character. By combining dance with imagistic approaches to more literal scenes, we hope to combine that increased empathy with clear narrative to battle the stigma against addiction.

Promise

An experimental dance film exploring grief, substance abuse, and recovery.

Red Bull dancer Angyil McNeal meditates on her difficult childhood growing up in the hoods of Kansas City, and how she uses spirituality and dance as tools to understand life.

Angyil

Using spirituality and dance as tools to understand life.

Sam, a cleaner working in a large theatre, has a passion for dance but is too shy to realize her dreams. When Peaches (her magical, inner-diva-drag queen) materializes one night, Sam’s dreams transform into reality - she rips up a daring dance-number to the rhythm of The Cat Empire’s beats. “Look The Part” shows us that talent comes in all shapes and sizes, and can often defy expectations.

Look The Part

Talent comes in all shapes and sizes, and can often defy expectations.

Finding Me | 2022 San Francisco Dance Film Festival

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