Short Films & Print Swap
with MFA|EDA Community

 

Programmed and presented by
Ama Kyereme + Bren Vienrich-Felling + Dingyi Xu + Ziwen Liu

Friday, April 25, 6:00pm

 

Time:
6:00 Reception+Print Swap
7:00 Film Screening

 

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Shop Watching, 14:29
Jolene Mok (’13)

This work features a selection of 16 extra-ordinary shops found in Kawabata Shopping Arcade in Fukuoka City, Japan. As an ethnographical portrait of the shop owners and staff in an old shopping street located in downtown Fukuoka City, it unravels the intertwining yet distinct characteristic of various shops through the most mundane in-shop activities. This work was made during a 10-week Fall residency in 2015 hosted by Fukuoka Asian Art Museum.

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elemental, 7:39
Marie Gayeski (’24)

elemental addresses the transitioning of the body in form and matter. After experiencing lifelong genetic illnesses and a Category 5 hurricane that destroyed my family’s home and business, I searched to find peace, acceptance, beauty and connectedness in life, death, the forces of nature and the Cosmos. My work emerged from trauma, the recognition of reorientation and survival. I asked myself: How do you cultivate a sense of belonging and re-association with nature in the face of natural disaster and death? How do you go back to what is primordial, the elements and forces that create and destroy everything in the Cosmos? How do you move past your physical body and accept yourself as a being in transition? I believe all is not destroyed by nature but continually enveloped and recreated by it.

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Everyone Knows What Oranges Look Like, 2:40

Alina Taalman (’15)

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Red, 2:41
Susen Shi (GLS ’25)

Stream of consciousness short film about period cramps. This short experiment explores pain, intersectionality, escape, and identity. Having suffered from period cramps for years, I know many women share this experience. When I lie in bed enduring the pain, I sometimes imagine death with a sickle, offering two buttons: “live” or “die.” I don’t know what to choose. The pain, forced upon biological women, fills me with anger and sorrow. Beyond this, patriarchy imposes other invisible, persistent pains on women—pains that, like period cramps, can also be made visible.

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Under the Tooth, 4:23
Bren Vienrich-Felling (’25)

As an outdoor family gathering unfolds, so do unsettling decisions in alimentative practices. This film explores the paradox of consumption and care, where the presence of some animals makes others conspicuously absent. Drawing from Carol J. Adams’ concept of the absent referent, Under the Tooth meditates on the quiet erasures within shared rituals—where the act of eating is both deeply familiar and haunted by what, or who, is no longer there.

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Near Nowhere, 5:56
Nora Zubizaretta (’24)

Moving through invented landscapes, Near Nowhere explores wondering and wandering in the natural world. My projects seek to open-up affective spaces before and beyond verbal language. Near Nowhere plays with the fragmented but continuous nature of the experiential, examining the lively tension present in both the landscapes and human relationships with nature.

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A Kind of Performance, 22:03
Ziwen Liu (’25)

The music slowly drifted through the cold air. The story unfolds through the music created by Tao, an elderly band leader, portraying the lives of the elderly in northeastern China. It all takes place in Ziwen’s hometown, Jinzhou. This place has been forgotten amidst China’s rapid development and even abandoned by the younger generation. What is life like for these elderly people in their cold hometown?

 

—I n t e r m i s s i o n—

 

Gay Marriage in Cherokee, NC, 9:38
Nolan Arkansas (AAHVS PhD 2nd Year)

“Gay Marriage in Cherokee, NC” was originally Nolan’s senior thesis film at Yale College. The short essay documentary argues that the Eastern Band Cherokee violates the civil rights of LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit citizens.

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Arremonops rufivirgatus, 11:59
Laurids Sonne (’18)

Arremonops rufivirgatus explores the ambiguous human histories surrounding the discovery of the bird species known as the Olive Sparrow (Arremonops rufivirgatus) as part of the westward expansion in the “wilderness” beyond the Mississippi River. Through the tracing of normalized eponymous practices, echoes of exploration, extraction, colonization, and order—hidden in plain sight—are revealed.

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Fire Rest Light Crossed Over, 4:26
Lauren Neefe (’26)

“Fire Rest Light Crossed Over” is a lyric oddity in which the lost contents of a mysterious letter from my personal archive are reanimated by the eclectic assortment of sounds sent into the Eunoisha archive over the course of 10 days this spring.

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Key to Timeless, 10:14
Dingyi Xu (’25)

In a journey across generations, Dingyi revisits a rural Wuhan reservoir once built by her grandfather. Blending memoir and present-day footage, the film explores memory, nature, and transformation. The film is installed as a two-channel projection on adjacent movable walls, with sound spatialized across the two sides.

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Gan Tang, The Lake, 13:48
Tianming Zhou (Alaric) (’24)

In the summer of 2023, the government of Jiujiang launched the Gan Tang Lake Cleansing Project. Within weeks, this ancient lake with over two millennia of history was drained. Nearby in Gan Tang Park, a boy wakes up in the rain. There, the destiny of Gan Tang awaits.

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In 40, 24:36
Clara Zhu (’25)

In 40 explores the intricate interplay between personal history and the social landscape. Through a short film and a series of photographs, the work traverses spaces imbued with history—hometowns, sites of travel, and places rich in personal and cultural significance—allowing these locations to speak to the legacies they hold. Grounded in the traditions of journalism and storytelling, the project begins with interviews and writing to uncover deeper layers of understanding. It seeks to reclaim an understanding of individual identity and familial bond, addressing broader questions about how we carry, confront, and reconcile our past.

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Lilac Sunday, 3:31
Lisa McCarty (’13)

Flower worship, selfies, and bingo. A kaleidoscopic photo-roman made during the 115th Lilac Sunday festival at The Arnold Arboretum, Boston, MA.

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Next Next Premise, 9:09
Lexi Bass (’18)

In 2017, I requested fellow filmmakers’ “trash” which I would use to compose a film. The rule was that I could only use what was given to me to make both the sound and the visual and that I had to use something from every contributor in the film. The result was “Next Premise,” an anagram of the word, “experiments.” I tried this again in 2020, but with less contributions I loosened the rule to allow for another kind of “trash” in my film.

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