Film
Shorts Program 2: Remembrance
Virtual
Tickets: $10; $7.50; $5
All-access pass: $30; $22.50; $15
BAM Members: Levels 1-3 get 50% off highest suggested price with discount code; free for Level 4 and above.
Films available to stream in the US only
Gathering cinematic experiments from collages to archival tributes, this dynamic shorts program offers meditations on migration, loss, reconciliation, and the circular nature of time.
Post-screening Q&A with Gi (Ginny) Huo (director, we didn't see it as a tidal wave), Saif Al-Sobaihi (collaborator, we didn't see it as a tidal wave), Tanika Williams (producer, Sanctuary), Angelo Madsen Minax, (director, Two Sons and a River of Blood), Amber Bemak (director, Two Sons and a River of Blood), Darol Olu Kae (director, i ran from it and was still in it), Esery Mondesir (director, What Happens to a Dream Deferred?), and Shahkeem Williams (director, Sanctuary).
This event includes closed captioning.
Tickets for BAMcinemaFest 2021 are pay what you wish. Please note: The viewing experience is the same at each price level; select the amount that makes the most sense for you.
All BAMcinemaFest films are available until Tuesday, June 29th at 11:59pm. Please ensure you have time to complete your film viewing.
Dir. Gi (Ginny) Huo | 2021, 2min
This stop-motion film shot on Super 8 explores religious narratives and the tales that seep into everyday lives. Splicing images of hands raised in sea, glitter backdrops with emergency aircraft oxygen masks, and motions mimicking ocean waves, Ginny Huo delves into her family’s photo archive to retrace the story of her grandfather, who was the first in Incheon, Korea, to be baptized by white Mormon missionaries. The echoing narration of reports from Mormon conferences with the drumming beats and bells brings to question: What informs our belief systems? And are they real or imagined?
This film is made in collaboration with artist, composer, and filmmaker Saif Al-Sobaihi.
Dirs. Angelo Madsen Minax & Amber Bemak | 2021, 11min
A queer woman is pregnant. The self-made family unit of two dykes and a trans man imagine a kind of erotic magic that will allow for procreation based solely on desire. Together they enact a public sex ritual to symbolize their hopefulness for multiplicity, acknowledging their cyborg bodies as technological interventions. When the queer woman miscarries her child, the three begin to build their own mythic understanding of where bodies live when they are not inside us. They create a story to trace movement of the non-body, from a hole to a river to a room. Images of an imaginary white room, an Ikea-esque torture chamber of stillness, haunt them. As a parallel emerges between the pregnant body and the trans body, the techno-sex act becomes the key and a pyramid becomes the portal to access this other world of non-bodied existence.
Dir. Darol Olu Kae | 2020, 11min
In this poetic meditation on familial loss and separation—and the love that endures—Darol Olu Kae repurposes materials sourced online and pairs them with images from his personal archive. In an effort to wade through the deep emotions surrounding his father's death and the sudden relocation of his children, collapsing time and memory in the process, Kae discovers how an intimate account of one's life can potentially extend beyond the realm of personal experience.
Dir. Esery Mondesir | 2020, 25min
It's New Year's Eve in Tijuana, Mexico. Wood and Colonel are making a traditional Haitian meal, soup joumou, to celebrate Haitian Independence Day with their friends at the Trap House. As they cook, memories resurface of the perilous journey that brought them to the US-Mexico border two years ago. From Haiti to Brazil, and through nine other South and Central American countries, here they are, sandwiched between their dream of a music career and the Trump Administration's racist immigration policies.
Dir. Shahkeem Williams | 2021, 10min
Combining academic research, autobiographical expression, and archival interviews, this project examines the turmoil of African-Caribbean mothers who leave their children behind to emigrate to the US.
Season Sponsor:
Leadership support for off-site programs provided by:
Leadership support for BAM Access Programs provided by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation
Leadership support for BAM Film provided by the Ford Foundation and The Thompson Family Foundation


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