\nProgram duration is approx. 55 minutes. Descriptions provided by the artists. \nTony Nash\, Fabric\nDigital video\, 1:47 min\, 2025\nA funny interpretation about some things that happened to me\, based on facts \nJames John Gibbons\, WIYMMEIN?\nDigital video\, 5:22 min\, 2025\nIn this short documentary\, it follows the narrative of three different interviews and the interviewee’s most memorable experiences involving nature. Interviewees are presented with the same question at the beginning of each interview and the results vary greatly. Leading into fun stories involving personal accounts with nature. Each story is presented using varying visual techniques\, such as 2D digital animation\, stop-motion animation\, live-action footage\, and more! Warning: Explicit Language \nAmanda Besl\, An Illustrated Guide to Flowering Houseplants\nDigital video\, 5:10 min\, 2024\nMy experimental film\, An Illustrated Guide to Flowering Houseplants\, began as a reaction to the questionable and frustrating advice to “Bloom where you are planted” and follows both a woman and a Venus Flytrap\, one of which blooms by the end of the film. In truth\, an unhappy plant is just as likely to die as it is to flower when trapped in an inappropriate environment. I was interested in applying ideas of ecofeminism to an indoor garden to suggest an outgrown intimate relationship. The aesthetic reflects that of a vintage gardening show from the early 1970’s evoking ideas of outdated instruction subverted by personal experience. The soundtrack includes found audio from a public domain marriage training film from 1950. The surreal nature of the life within the paisley curtain references the short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I was also inspired by filmmaker Maya Deren and her disorienting 1943 film\, Meshes of the Afternoon. \nGrace LaPrade\, Rain\nDigital video\, 1:19 min\, 2022\nIn this charcoal animated short\, a dog is sent out into the rain\, which turns into a flood. \nEmily Engel\, Tired Old Dog\nDigital video\, 3:11 min\, 2025\nTired Old Dog is an original song written by local musician\, Tyler Westcott and animated by Emily Engel. This project was a part of a beautiful collaboration between us and the life we shared with our beloved companion\, Princess Buttercup. It explores interconnected themes of love\, grief\, and spirituality. Animations made using analog rotoscoping techniques. Created by printing out individual frames and drawing over them with paint markers and oil pastels. They are then scanned back in and edited with After Effects and Premier Pro. \nChace Lobley\, Lego Rex: The Movie\nDigital video\, 2:22 min\, 2025\nThe film is called Lego Rex. There is a lizard\, pterosaur\, T-rex\, and a triceratops. I was inspired by the dinosaurs and their behavior\, how they behave like no other animals in nature. I was inspired by the ways of the Mesozoic era. \nJennie Thwing\, The World Said No\nDigital video\, 8 minutes\, 2025\nThe World Said No is a short animation based on the question\, “What if nature decided to fight back?” It is an allegorical animation about ecological apathy and its consequences. It was animated using a combination of cell animation and stop motion. \nCorinne Teed\, Feral Utopias\nDigital video\, 7:20 min\, 2016\nFeral Utopias is a multi-channel animation that incorporates studio recordings of LGBTQ subjects and scans of 19th-century wood engravings carved by colonial naturalists. Digitally collaged together\, the animation presents a speculative\, other-worldly space. Audiences are immersed in multi-voiced narratives that reveal cross-species alliances in a time of ecological devastation. Participants attest to the ways they have survived homophobia\, settler colonialism\, patriarchy\, and alienation through identification with animal species. \nIn her essay Melancholy Natures\, Queer Ecology\, Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands writes “Recent queer scholarship on melancholia… is focused exactly on the condition of grieving the ungrievable: how does one mourn in the midst of a culture that finds it almost impossible to recognize the value of what has been lost?” Mortimer-Sandilands presents the embrace of melancholy as a political stance – preserving the beloved that society does not value. Relating the devastation of HIV/AIDS with that of climate change and extractive industries\, she offers a framework for queer ecology. From this stance of melancholy\, Feral Utopias documents voices and portraits of those on the margins. In the process\, we collaboratively define our existent\, ecocidal dystopia while articulating possibilities of alternative futures. \nMorgan Sears-Williams\, Through the Bushes and the Trees\, You’ll Find Me\n16mm on digital video\, 3:38 min\, 2024\nthrough the bushes and the trees\, you’ll find me intertwines the personal and political histories of Hanlan’s Point Beach\, the site of Canada’s first pride gathering in the early 1970s. A hole punch serves as a symbolic peephole\, reflecting the cruising areas on the beach that invite both spectatorship and participation. By situating the tender moments of queer affection amidst the vast body of water surrounding the Toronto islands\, the film celebrates and interrogates the histories and spaces of queer love and resistance. \nThis work was made by hole punching frame by frame using a cricut machine\, then manually taping together 10\,000+ frames. Digital scan and print made by Niagara Custom Lab. \nJelena Oroz (Director)\, No Room\nDigital video\, 6:22 min\, 2024\nThe cars are everywhere and they show no consideration for others. It’s time to get revenge! Produced and distributed by Vanja Andrijevic. \nStacey Sproule\, Sojourn\nDigital video\, 3:42 min\, 2025\nCentred on the South Shore of Ontario’s Prince Edward County\, a place of significant bio-diversity as well as a high density flight path for migratory songbirds\, Prince Edward County is also a popular tourist destination. This work was a meditation on access to nature\, land\, and temporary stays. The work is a way to grapple with rapid development\, loss of public access to nature and the ongoing destruction of habitat both in Prince Edward County and across the province. \nTia Brown\, re_set\nDigital video\, 1:23 min\, 2025\nHow do you reset in these challenging end times? \nAline Höchli\, Caries\nDigital video\, 9:41 min\, 2025 \n“Eager to create a monumental work of art\, a shaman remains blissfully unaware that she is painting her murals inside the mouth of a vain weather presenter. I like to tell stories that distort the world as we understand it. In my film Caries\, the disease that gives the story its title is not caused by acid-eroded tooth surfaces but by the inhabitants of the oral cavity smearing the teeth with wild murals. With this playful narrative style\, I want to encourage the audience to question the basic assumptions we hold about the world. Behind the absurd plotlines\, you can recognize connections to our reality. For example\, while brushing his teeth\, the weather presenter triggers a storm for the inhabitants of his oral cavity: so many of our everyday actions have a far bigger impact elsewhere in the world than we realize at first glance. Indeed\, the three cavepeople\, abruptly torn from their familiar surroundings because someone spits in another’s soup\, may prompt thoughts about immigration policy.” Distributor: Vanja Andrijevic \n
\n\nAline Höchli is an artist specializing in animated film and illustration. She studied film in the animation department at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts HSLU\, graduating in 2015. She founded KOLOSS Studio in 2016. Aline currently lives and works in Bern. Filmography: Caries (2025)\, Why Slugs Have No Legs (2019)\, Kuckuck (2017)\, He Sö Kherö (2016\, graduation film). \nAmanda Besl is an experimental filmmaker and painter living in Buffalo\, NY. Besl holds an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art\, Bloomfield Hills\, MI and a BFA from SUNY Oswego. She uses natural history as a platform to explore social issues. She was awarded a 2024 NYSCA grant for Temple of Hortus\, a botanically inspired installation of 2-d\, 3-d\, and video work questioning curated and commercial approaches to nature\, hybridization\, mutation and collection. Besl is represented by ArtResource and her 2022 solo exhibition Blue Mythologies at The Raft of Sanity gallery began her foray into experimental filmmaking. \nChace is currently a practicing artist in Starlight Art WOW program at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Chace began making dinosaurs around the age of 14 when he got “play clay” as a Christmas gift. When asked what he enjoys about dinosaurs he said he found an intensity about the creatures that inspired him to think about “their behavior and design – how they were made”. He enjoys sharing his creative output with his family and friends. \nCorinne Teed is a research-based artist working in printmaking\, book arts\, time-based media\, and social practice. Their work lives at the intersections of queer theory\, ecology\, and critical animal studies in the context of settler colonialism. Much of their creative practice centers on relationships\, through collaboration\, participation\, interview-based research\, and encounters with the more-than-human. Their work is supported by ongoing relationships with communities working toward social justice and ecosystem health. Teed currently works as an Assistant Professor in Printmaking at Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia\, PA. \nEmily Engel is a Buffalo\, NY-based artist and designer whose work reflects her unique perspective and personal experiences. Her artistic practice encompasses a range of mediums\, including chainstitch embroidery\, motion graphics\, and printmaking while blending both traditional and contemporary techniques in her work. \nGrace LaPrade is an artist from Buffalo\, New York. She works primarily as an illustrator for picture books\, but her roots go back to experimental animation\, having specialized in stop-motion matchbox NASCAR races at the age of 9. In books and animation\, she loves visualizing stories that explore what it means to be human in our world\, whether that be through small curiosities or grand imaginations. She uses analog processes to create tactile drawings that reflect the imperfect\, weird\, and awesome layers of being alive. \nMy name is James Gibbons. I am a 20 year old student who is currently attending SUNY Fredonia in New York. I major in Animation/Illustration at college and have loved drawing and animating for my entire life. I find my creative direction tends to lead in a more comedic direction\, I hope you like what I have to show! \nJennie Thwing is an artist\, animator\, and educator. She has received multiple awards\, including the 2014 Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art\, an Environmental Art Project Grant at the Schuylkill Center\, a 2013 – 15 Center for Emerging Artists Fellowship; a 2014 SPARC Artist in Residence grant\, a 2014 & 2019 Queens Arts Fund Grant\, and Wyoming Council for the Arts 2024 Individual Artist Grant and a 2025 New York State Council on the Arts Support for Artists Grant.\n \nJelena Oroz (1987) graduated with a BA in Fine Arts Education from the Academy of Arts in Osijek. In 2014\, she obtained her MA degree in Animated Film and New Media from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb\, where she now works as a tenured professor. Jelena’s films have screened at numerous festivals around the world and won many awards. Filmography: No Room (2024)\, Letters From the Edge of the Forest (2022)\, Two for Two (2018)\, Wolf Games (2015\, graduation film)\, Fakofbolan: Forever or Never (2013\, music video)\, Comeback (2012\, student film)\, Waiting Room (2011\, student film) \nMorgan Sears-Williams (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultivator based in Toronto and Vancouver. Her practice reflects themes of feminist queer histories\, collective memory and exploring the materiality of moving images by using organic film developers. Investigating the use of analog film both as a form of projected image and as a sculptural material\, her current research focuses on how lived experiences inform queer aesthetics and articulations of memory and gender. Using plant-based film developers (also known as eco-processing) requires the artist to work directly with the film\, which results in an intimate collaboration among material\, concept\, and aesthetic. Bridging eco-processing\, experimental film and queer history (both personal and political) she aims to create intimate experiences for viewers to expand their ideas of queer space and time. She has exhibited her works across Turtle Island and internationally and was the recipient of the Roloff Beny Award in 2022\, Pandora Y. H. Ho Memorial Award and the Artscape Youngplace Career Launcher in 2017. In support of her artwork and research\, Morgan received the graduate scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in 2023\, and has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Morgan was a founding member of The Rude Collective\, a queer arts collective amplifying voices of marginalized queer folks in Toronto. \nStacey Sproule is a Picton-based multi-disciplinary artist working in hand-drawn animation. Using and subverting animation techniques and processes she explores the liminal\, the ephemeral\, and the magical. She holds a BFA from OCAD in Drawing and Painting. Her work has been supported by the OAC\, she has received a full fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center\, and has exhibited at Forest City Gallery\, FADO\, the Art Gallery of Mississauga\, and others. Her work has been featured in festivals including 7a*11d International Performance Art Festival\, Les Sommets du cinéma d’animation\, the Rhubarb Festival\, and the West Virginia Mountaineer Film Festival. \nTia Brown is a multidisciplinary creative. They are the former editor of Utterance and their work has been featured in One for One Thousand\, CivicScience\, truthout\, and Qween City. Projections is an audiovisual examination of grief\, emotional uncertainty\, nature\, and the human. \nTony Nash: I am an artist living in Buffalo. \n \nSponsors\n \nVilla Maria College is the Reel Sponsor of Squeaky Wheel’s Animation Fest. Thank you to our sponsors Buffalo Spree\, Rigidized Metals\, Locust Street Art\, PUSH Buffalo\, Delaware Council Member Joel Feroleto\, Rich Products\, TriMain Center\, Harlequin Pet Service\, Hodgson Russ LLP\, Lumpy Buttons\, Buffalo State College Communication Dept\, Evolve Fitness\, New York State Senator Sean Ryan\, and the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. \nBanner image: A still from Jelena Oroz’s No Room. Drawings of cars with cat like single eyes and legs on a street. A person is watching them from the window. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/squeaky-wheels-22nd-animation-fest/ LOCATION:Buffalo AKG Art Museum\, 1285 Elmwood Avenue\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14222\, United States CATEGORIES:Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/NoRoom_07.jpg GEO:42.9324531;-78.87566 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Buffalo AKG Art Museum 1285 Elmwood Avenue Buffalo NY 14222 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=1285 Elmwood Avenue:geo:-78.87566,42.9324531 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250918T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250918T213000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20250916T153503Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T215919Z UID:10001250-1758222000-1758231000@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Latin American Film Festival: Sofía Gallisá Muriente DESCRIPTION:Thursday\, September 18\, 7 pm\nFree or suggested donation\nSqueaky Wheel is excited to host the Latin American Film Festival with artist and filmmaker Sofía Gallisá Muriente! Muriente\, a visual artist from San Juan\, Puerto Rico\, will showcase her films that have been shown at venues such as the Museum of Modern Art\, the Smithsonian Museum\, and the Whitney Museum. She will screen her film Celaje (2020) . Ms. Muriente will take part in a conversation and Q&A following the screening\, including clips from her other short films such as Foreign in a Domestic Sense (co-directed with Natalia Lassalle-Morillo\, 2021). You can watch a profile of Ms. Muriente here. The 2025 Latin American Film Festival is organized by the University at Buffalo Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and CAS Office for Diversity\, Equity\, and Belonging and is a three-night celebration of Latin American cinema! Each evening will feature powerful films that highlight the Latin American diaspora through people’s lives\, histories\, and cultures. For more information\, see the flyer here or contact Donte McFadden\, CAS Unit Diversity Officer at dontemcf@buffalo.edu. \nAttendees: Please note that you cannot enter Tri-Main Center after 7:30 pm. Squeaky Wheel is located in Suite 310 of Tri-Main Center. Take the elevator to the third floor\, and head left. Click here to see parking\, transportation\, and accessibility information. \nCelaje (Cloudscape)\n16mm and Super8 film with various treatments\, 41min\, 2020 \nCelaje (Cloudscape) oscillates between intimate chronicle\, dream and historical document. Combining images in Super 8 and 16mm\, hand development techniques and original music by José Iván Lebrón Moreira\, the piece weaves together en elegy to the death of the colonial project and the sedimentation of disasters in Puerto Rico. Memories move around like clouds\, images rot and age\, and the traces of the process are visible on the film and in the country\, like ghosts. \nIt is the third and final part of Assimilate & Destroy\, a series of works that examine the relationship between climate and memory in the tropics\, where nature imposes impermanence. \nBiography of the artist\nSofía Gallisá Muriente (b. 1986\, San Juan\, Puerto Rico) is a visual artist whose practice claims the freedom of historical agency\, proposing mechanisms for remembering and reimagining. Her works employ text\, image and archive as medium and subject\, exploring their poetics and politics. Sofía has been a fellow of the Cisneros Institute at MoMA\, Smithsonian Institute\, Puerto Rican Arts Initiative\, US LatinX Art Forum and others. Her work has been recently exhibited in Documenta Fifteen\, MoMA\, the Whitney Museum\, the Smithsonian Design Triennial\, MoCA TAipei\, Savvy Contemporary\, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico\, and galleries such as Proxyco\, El Kilómetro and Embajada. She has participated in artistic residencies with the Vieques Historical Archive (Puerto Rico)\, Alice Yard (Trinidad & Tobago)\, Headlands Center for the Arts (California)\, FAARA (Uruguay)\, and Fonderie Darling (Montreal)\, among others. From 2014 to 2020\, she co-directed the artist-run organization Beta-Local in San Juan. She was invited to curate the exhibition In Dispersion at VisArts Maryland in 2022\, featuring image-based works from Puerto Rican artists negotiating diasporic experiences throughout the world. In 2023\, she published the artist book Observatorio de lagunas: notas de campo with Editorial Educación Emergente. She lives and works in Puerto Rico and is currently a United States Artist Fellow (2024) and Trellis Art Fund Milestone grantee (2025). \nImage: Photograph of the artist by Erika Rodríguez. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/latin-american-film-festival-sofia-gallisa-muriente/ LOCATION:Squeaky Wheel\, 2495 Main Street\, Suite 310\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14214\, United States CATEGORIES:Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/SOFIA-GALLISA.jpg GEO:42.8906261;-78.8721258 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Squeaky Wheel 2495 Main Street Suite 310 Buffalo NY 14214 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=2495 Main Street\, Suite 310:geo:-78.8721258,42.8906261 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250522 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250628 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191647Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191647Z UID:10001232-1747872000-1751068799@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Call for submissions: Squeaky Wheel's 22nd Animation Fest! DESCRIPTION:Deadline: June 27\, 2025\, 11:59 PM\nNotification Date: August 22\, 2025\nSqueaky Wheel announces the call for submissions for our annual Animation Fest! Celebrating its 22nd year\, we are proud to continue a festival showcasing short films and artworks made in a diverse variety of animation techniques\, including stop-motion\, claymation\, 3D animation\, hand-painted film\, motion graphics\, and more. All genres are welcome. Past festivals have showcased work from both rising artists as well as established artists. \nThe 22nd Animation Fest will be held online and in-person in Fall 2025. Films in the virtual program will be accessible for 24 hours thereafter for general audiences\, and 72 hours for Squeaky Wheel members. If selected\, you will be asked for a downloadable copy of your film and stills from your film. \n\nEach individual submission should not exceed ~10 minutes.\nThere is no submission fee.\nAll selected artists will receive a screening fee of $100 per selected film. (International applicants must have a Paypal account to receive their screening fee).\nAll selected artists will receive a one year membership to Squeaky Wheel.\nMultiple submissions per artist are accepted.\nFilms must have been completed within the past ~2 years.\n\nArtists who face systemic and structural barriers are encouraged to apply. Please direct any questions about the application process and your submissions to Ekrem Serdar at ekrem@squeaky.org \nClick here to submit your films\nImage description: Documentation from the 20th Animation Fest retrospective at North Park Theater. A projection in a darkened movie theater. On the screen is the word “Filmmakers!”\, which is from Helen Hill’s 2004 short film Madame Winger Makes a Film: A Survival Guide for the 21st Century. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/call-for-submissions-squeaky-wheels-22nd-animation-fest/ LOCATION:Squeaky Wheel\, 2495 Main Street\, Suite 310\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14214\, United States CATEGORIES:Open Call,Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/North-Park-Helen-Hill.jpg GEO:42.8906261;-78.8721258 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Squeaky Wheel 2495 Main Street Suite 310 Buffalo NY 14214 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=2495 Main Street\, Suite 310:geo:-78.8721258,42.8906261 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250520T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250520T210000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191646Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191646Z UID:10001230-1747764000-1747774800@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Seed Songs for Palestine DESCRIPTION:Tuesday\, May 20. 6–9 pm; screening at 7 pm\nat Duende (85 Silo City Row\, Buffalo\, NY 14203)\nRSVP below. Free. Click here to learn more about the “Revive Gaza’s Farmland” programme at Arab Group for the Protection of Nature.\nSqueaky Wheel is excited to present an evening of short films to benefit the farmlands of Gaza. The screening\, curated by wave~form~projects and re:assemblage collective\, includes work by Alanis Obomsawin\, Cecilia Vicuña\, Nicolás Grandi and Lata Mani\, Marwa Arsanios\, Rana Nazzal Hamadeh\, and Ryley Williams. This event has taken place in locations across the world\, including in cities such as Cape Town\, Glasgow\, Jakarta\, Oaxaca\, Toronto\, and cities across the U.S; we are excited to present it in Buffalo. \nHow to get to Duende: The event will take place at Duende\, on the second floor. The address is 85 Silo City Row\, Buffalo\, NY 14203. Duende is located at 85 Silo City Row. Turn off of Ohio Street onto Silo City Row\, then drive through the gate into Silo City. You will be driving through an active construction site. Parking is just past the bar. Duende is a 2-story building on the right hand side just past the red caboose train car. Please note that the second floor is only accessible with stairs. \nThe Revive Gaza’s Farmlands Project was initiated by Golo Besmlah in collaboration with Arab Centre for the Protection of Nature. Curated by wave~form~projects and re:assemblage collective. The Buffalo iteration of this program is presented by Squeaky Wheel\, in collaboration with Silo City\, Jewish Voice for Peace – Buffalo\, the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Community Lab at the University at Buffalo (aka UB Food Lab). Special thank you to Dee Hartman\, Noura al Khasawneh\, Samina Raja\, Toleen Touq\, and all our partners. \nAbout the program\nThe event will begin at 7pm. Doors will open at 6pm. There will be brief introductions and talks by associates of UB Food Lab\, Jewish Voice for Peace\, and Squeaky Wheel ahead of the films. We will have samosas available from Ali Baba Kebab and some bottles of water. The bar of Duende will be open through the event. \n“The films in Seed Songs for Palestine engage themes of seed sovereignty and Indigenous resilience\, highlighting the intrinsic connections between land\, culture\, and self-determination. Delving into the symbolic and practical importance of seeds\, plant life\, and relations with land as forms of resistance and continuity for Indigenous communities\, the films interrogate the dynamics of freedom and survival in the face of environmental and colonial oppression\, while also offering poignant reflections on both the fragility and resilience of existence. Collectively\, they illuminate the vital role of seed sovereignty in asserting Indigenous rights and preserving cultural heritage. This collection of shorts presents a rich tapestry of voices and radical perspectives that have existed from time immemorial\, considering the intersections of ecological stewardship and self determination which continue to disperse across fertile lands.” – wave~form~projects and re:assemblage collective. \nFilm program\nDuration: 74 minutes \n\nCecilia Vicuña\, Semiya (Seed song) (2015\, Chile\, 8 mins)\nAlanis Obomsawin\, Farming (1975\, Canada\, 2 mins)\nRana Nazzal Hamadeh\, We Would Be Freer (2023\, Palestine/Canada\, 9 mins)\nMarwa Arsanios\, Who is Afraid of Ideology\, Part I & II (2017-2019\, Lebanon/Iraqi Kurdistan\, North and East Syria\, 39 mins)\nRyley Williams\, it’s amazing that you still exist (2021\, Canada\, 4 mins)\nNicolás Grandi and Lata Mani\, Nocturne I (2013\, India\, 5 mins)\n\nSupplemental material from the curators and our partners\nVideo: The Untold Revolution: Food Sovereignty in Palestine (26 mins)\, Ameen Nayfeh\, 2021 \nVideo: Seeds are meant to disperse (8.5 mins)\, Christina Battle\, 2022. More information. \nReading: Forgotten history: a vision for Palestinian refugees’ agricultural self-sufficiency\, Nadi Abu Saada\, 2023 \nReading: Planning and Food Sovereignty in Conflict Cities: Insights From Urban Growers in Srinagar\, Jammu and Kashmir by Raja\, S.\, Parvaiz\, A.\, Sanders\, L.\, Judelsohn\, A.\, Guru\, S.\, Bhan\, M.\, … Frimpong Boamah\, E. Journal of the American Planning Association\, 2022 \nReading: UB’s Food Lab partners with prominent Kashmiri poet Zareef Ahmad Zareef to celebrate an important Indigenous green called haak\, University at Buffalo\, 2024. Read more about UB Food Lab’s global work here. \n\nBanner image: A still from Rana Nazzal Hamadeh\, We Would Be Freer (2023\, Palestine/Canada\, 9 mins) URL:https://squeaky.org/event/seed-songs-for-palestine/ LOCATION:Duende\, 85 Silo City Row\, Buffalo\, 14203\, United States CATEGORIES:Screenings,Special Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Seed-Songs.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250510T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250510T213000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191631Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191631Z UID:10001229-1746903600-1746912600@squeaky.org SUMMARY:No Other Land DESCRIPTION:Saturday\, May 10\, 4 pm and 7 pm\nat Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center (map)\nDoors open at 6:45 pm. Registration highly recommended; click here to register.\nBoth screenings are now sold out.\nThis free screening (92 minutes) will be followed by a discussion lead by LOLA and Jewish Voice for Peace Buffalo. \nA collective of Palestinian and Israeli activist/filmmakers chronicle the Israeli military’s incremental expulsion of the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta — home to 20 ancient Palestinian villages — in this tightly focused\, urgent documentary. Over a period of five years (2019–23)\, Masafer Yatta resident and Palestinian journalist Basel Adra shoots video of home\, school\, water well\, and road demolitions (legalized by the area’s conversion to an IDF training zone) and their consequent protests by displaced residents. Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham — free to move about while Adra’s movements are constricted — takes this nonviolent fight to a wider platform. The two form a complicated friendship and hopeful partnership in their efforts to resist a government-sanctioned mass eviction. \nPresented in partnership with Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center\, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center\, LOLA\, Jewish Voice for Peace Buffalo\, and Buffalo Int’l Film Festival. \nFurther reading\nBasel Adra\, Our film is going to the Oscars. But here in Masafer Yatta\, we’re still being erased\, +972 Magazine\, February 10\, 2025 \nAnthony Kaufman\, No Other Distribution: How Film Industry Economics and Politics Are Suppressing Docs Sympathetic to Palestine and Critical of Israel\, Documentary Magazine\, January 15 2025 \nMary Turfah\, “No Other Land” for Whom?\, Mubi Notebook\, February 11 2025 \nBanner image: A man laying on a grassy and rocky knoll. A tractor is visible behind him. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/no-other-land/ LOCATION:Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center\, 341 Delaware Avenue\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14202\, United States CATEGORIES:Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/no-other-land.jpg GEO:42.8937279;-78.8753531 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center 341 Delaware Avenue Buffalo NY 14202 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=341 Delaware Avenue:geo:-78.8753531,42.8937279 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250423T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250423T203000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191631Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191631Z UID:10001227-1745434800-1745440200@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Songs of Memory and Forgetting: Films by Assia Djebar\, Inas Halabi\, Onyeka Igwe\, Tiffany Sia DESCRIPTION:Wednesday\, April 23\, 7 pm\nFree or suggested donation\nGet tickets below\nSongs of Memory and Forgetting brings together three short films by Inas Halabi\, Onyeka Igwe\, and Tiffany Sia\, along with Assia Djebar’s essential 1982 anti-colonial classic\, The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting. The artists in this screening take on archives and collective memories: where we search for and see them\, their possibilities and limitations in crafting a collective future. Part of the public programs of The Image in its Absence\, the screening complements the works in the exhibition. Catering\, including vegetarian options\, will be provided by Ali Baba Kebab. \nAttendees: Squeaky Wheel is located in Suite 310 of Tri-Main Center. Take the elevator to the third floor\, and head left. Please note that you cannot enter Tri-Main Center after 7:30 pm. Click here to see parking\, transportation\, and accessibility information. \nThe screening is funded by Teiger Foundation. The films are courtesy of the artists and Video Data Bank (for Tiffany Sia)\, Lux (for Onyeka Igwe)\, and Arsenal (for Assia Djebar).’ \nStills\nA still from Onyeka Igwe’s No Archive Can Restore You. A blue bunch of 16mm film on a dusty floor.A still from Assia Djebar’s The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting. A French person shooting with a 16mm camera. An Algerian man wearing a burnous is to his right\, looking at him. The French mans gaze and lens is past the Algerian.A still from Inas Halabi’s MNEMOSYNE. A woman sitting on a couch outside. The subtitles state “they placed all the young men from the village on a truck and took them to the Lebanese border”A still from Tiffany Sia’s What Rules the Invisible. Five people looking at a landscape in an old home movie.\nProgram\nTotal duration ~90 minutes. Descriptions courtesy the filmmakers and distributors. \nInas Halabi\, Mnemosyne\nDigital video\, 14 minutes\, Arabic with English subtitles\, 2016-2017 \nThe title of the work is borrowed from the Titan goddess of memory and the ‘inventress of language and words.’ The starting point for the project is a scar on the forehead of the artist’s grandfather. The scar was a result of a bullet shot in his direction by an Israeli soldier in the late 1940’s. Focusing on the sagas of myth and the construction of memory\, members of the same family are filmed individually as they narrate their version of the same event. By scratching the surface of family history\, the project explores the scar as a foundational hinge that arranges reality. The project also considers how one can play the role of a historian when the primary source is no longer there. ‘We do not remember. We rewrite memory much as history is rewritten.’ As such\, recollection becomes an act of transformation rather than reproduction. \nTiffany Sia\, What Rules the Invisible\nDigital video\, 9:50 minutes\, English and Cantonese\, 2022 \nWhat Rules The Invisible is a short film that upends archival travelog footage shot in Hong Kong. Spanning reappropriated amateur footage across the 20th century\, the sojourner’s gaze—distanced\, distorted and even voyeuristic—shows tropes and patterns. The same shots repeat across decades\, from landscape to cityscape to street scenes. Sometimes the footage reveals more about the traveler himself\, such as a sequence where the camera curiously tracks the hips and bare legs of women wearing cheongsam crossing a busy intersection. Sia’s essay film studies these travelogs to find indignant subjects glaring back at the camera\, or figures on the edges of the frame who appear pixelated and phantasmic\, showing the patina of the footage’s circulation. Meanwhile\, intertitles intermittently puncture this footage with an oral history of Hong Kong\, as told by Sia’s mother who describes colonial police\, excrement and hauntings in Kowloon of the postwar era. The viewer is left to imagine these scenes there are no images for. \nOnyeka Igwe\, No Archive Can Restore You\nDigital video\, 5:54 minutes\, 2020 \nThe former Nigerian Film Unit building was one of the first self-directed outposts of the British visual propaganda engine\, the Colonial Film Unit\, stands empty on Ikoyi Road\, Lagos\, in the shadow of today’s Nigerian Film Corporation building. The rooms are full of dust\, cobwebs\, stopped clocks\, and rusty and rotting celluloid film cans. Amongst these cans\, a long-lost classic of Nigerian filmmaking\, Shehu Umar (1976) was found in 2015. The films housed in this building are hard to see because of their condition\, but also perhaps because people do not want to see them. They reveal a colonial residue\, that is echoed in walls of the building itself. Taking its title from the 2018 Juliette Singh book\, No Archive Can Restore You depicts the spatial configuration of this colonial archive\, which lies just out of view\, in the heart of the Lagosian cityscape. Despite its invisibility\, it contains purulent images that we cannot\, will not\, or choose not to see. The film imagines ‘lost’ films from the archive in distinctive soundscapes\, juxtaposed with images of the abandoned interior and exteriors of the building. This is an exploration into the ‘sonic shadows’ that colonial moving images continue to generate. \nAssia Djebar\, La zerda et les chants de l’oubli (The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting)\n16mm film on digital video\, 59 minutes\, Arabic with English subtitles\, 1982 \nFor La zerda et les chants de l’oubli\, Algerian writer Assia Djebar changed her field and recapitulated the colonization of the Maghreb using French newsreels. Through editing\, the film seeks in these “images of a killing gaze” the truth they precisely don’t reveal\, the “resistance behind the mask.” The soundtrack combines polyphonic chants and experimental music to create a furious elegy to colonial violence. Djebar creates a complex picture of Algeria’s colonial history\, focusing particularly on the role and portrayal of women during this period. Screenplay by Malek Alloula. \nBiographies of the filmmakers\nAlgerian-born\, Muslem raised\, Paris-educated\, Assia Djebar (1936- 2015) tackled all genres: poetry\, plays\, short-stories\, novels and essays. In her books Djebar explored the struggle for social emancipation and the Muslim woman’s world in its complexities. Several of her works deal with the impact of the war on women’s mind. She wrote\, directed\, and edited her own films\, winning the Biennale prize at the 1979 Venice Film Festival with her very first attempt\, La Nouba des Femmes du Mont Chenoua (The nouba or “ritual” festival of the Women of Mt. Chenoua). She staged her own plays and both translated and directed the plays of others (Amiri Baraka’s\, for example). In 2000\, she authored an operatic libretto\, Filles d’Ismaël dans le vent et la tempête (Daughters of Ishmael\, through wind and storm). Based on her 1991 narrative on the life of the Prophet\, Far from Medina\, this oratorio was performed to excellent reviews in Rome and at the Palermo Arts Festival. A second version\, in classical Arabic this time\, is commissioned for future performance in Holland. Djebar is one of North Africa’s most famous and influential writers\, and was elected to the Académie française on June 16\, 2005\, the first writer from the Maghreb to achieve such recognition. She won the following awards: Peace Prize of Frankfurt Book Fair (2000); International Prize of Palmi (Italy); Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for Literature (Boston\, MA); International Literary Neustadt Prize (1996); International Critics Prize\, Biennale of Venice\, for the film “La nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua.” (08/18) – Biography via Women Make Movies \nInas Halabi (b.1988\, Palestine) is an Artist/Filmmaker. Her practice is concerned with how social and political forms of power are manifested and the impact that overlooked or suppressed histories have on contemporary life. Recent exhibitions and screenings include Luleå Biennial (2024)\, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (2023)\, de Appel Amsterdam (solo 2023)\, Showroom London (solo 2022)\, Europalia Festival\, Brussels (2021)\, Silent Green Betonhalle\, Berlin (2021); Stedelijk Museum\, Amsterdam (2020); and Film at Lincoln Center\, USA (2020). Her recent work has been supported by Amarte\, Amsterdam Fonds Voor de Kunst (AFK)\, Mondriaan Fund\, and Sharjah Art Foundation. She lives and works between Palestine and the Netherlands. \nOnyeka Igwe is an artist and researcher working between cinema and installation. She is born and based in London\, UK. In her non-fiction video work Onyeka uses dance\, voice\, archives\, sound design and text to create structural ‘figure-of-eights’\, a format that exposes a multiplicity of narratives. The work comprises of untieable strands and threads\, anchored by a rhythmic editing style\, as well as close attention to the dissonance\, reflection and amplification that occurs between image and sound; in the work as much in life\, what is said and what we see are not always the same thing. www.onyekaigwe.com \nTiffany Sia (b. 1988) is an artist\, filmmaker\, and writer. Sia’s films have screened at TIFF Toronto International Film Festival\, New York Film Festival\, MoMA Doc Fortnight\, and elsewhere. She has had solo exhibitions at Artists Space\, New York; Maxwell Graham Gallery\, New York; and Felix Gaudlitz\, Vienna. Sia is the author of On and Off-Screen Imaginaries (Primary Information\, 2024)\, a compendium of essays that makes a case for fugitive\, exilic cinema\, moving beyond national identity and the politics of place as a critical lens. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art\, New York; Fondazione Prada\, Milan; Seoul Museum of Art\, Seoul and elsewhere. Her essays have appeared in Film Quarterly\, October\, and more. The recipient of the Baloise Art Prize in 2024\, Sia has given talks at Dia Art Foundation\, Stanford University\, and has taught at Cooper Union. The artist and filmmaker’s work at its core challenges genre. Working across mediums\, her multidisciplinary practice materializes across multiple forms from films\, video sculptures\, artist books\, scholarly essays\, and more. Sia’s work blends nonfiction with poetics and theoretical inquiry. Her formal explorations confront questions about the representation of memory and place\, relating especially the imaginaries of exceptional and irregular polities beyond the national (from Hong Kong to elsewhere). Throughout\, her conceptual focus remains in the struggle to represent historical time\, geography\, and the limits of official records. Sia currently lives and works in New York. \nBanner image: A still from Onyeka Igwe’s No Archive Can Restore You (2020). A blue and green bunch of 16mm film on an uneven\, dusty\, and mud encrusted floor. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/songs-of-memory-and-forgetting/ LOCATION:Squeaky Wheel\, 2495 Main Street\, Suite 310\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14214\, United States CATEGORIES:Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-13-at-3.40.11-PM-scaled.jpg GEO:42.8906261;-78.8721258 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Squeaky Wheel 2495 Main Street Suite 310 Buffalo NY 14214 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=2495 Main Street\, Suite 310:geo:-78.8721258,42.8906261 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250313T183000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250313T210000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191631Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191631Z UID:10001207-1741890600-1741899600@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Seed Stories DESCRIPTION:Thursday\, March 13\, 6:30 pm\nFree or suggested donation\nRSVP below\nJoin us for a screening of Chitrangada Choudhury & Aniket Aga’s Seed Stories (42 minutes\, 2024)\, followed by a discussion with the filmmakers in conversation with Dr. Samina Raja (UB Planning). There will be catering with vegetarian options by Ali Baba Kebab. The doors will open at 6:30 pm\, and the screening will begin at 7 pm. \nIn a village in the Niyamgiri mountains of Odisha’s Eastern Ghats\, a heroic effort is underway: barefoot ecologist Dr. Debal Deb and his 3 member-team are conserving in-situ over 1000 endangered heirloom varieties of rice. Odisha’s Eastern Ghats region is one of the world’s surviving biodiversity hotspots\, with Adivasi communities like the Kondhs possessing the knowledge of growing multiple crops with their folk seeds\, evolved over centuries. At the same time\, the village and the wider region is irreversibly changing with the coming of genetically modified cotton seeds and associated chemicals. Seed Stories takes a worm’s eye view of how this is reshaping a geography and a people steeped in agro-ecological knowledge\, and altering their attitudes towards farming\, food and ecology. It invites audiences to reflect on the question\, “What is sustainability?” \nOfficial Selection: Kolkata People’s Film Festival\, Chennai International Documentary & Short Film Festival\, Festival delle Terre\, Rome\, Give Peace A Screen\, Torino Other Screenings: Vikalp@Prithvi – Films for Freedom\, Mumbai; India International Centre\, Delhi; National Centre for Biological Sciences\, Bengaluru; Bengaluru International Center; Museum of Goa. Click here to read a review of the film American Anthropologist. \nAttendees: Squeaky Wheel is located in Suite 310 of Tri-Main Center. Take the elevator to the third floor\, and head left. Please note that you cannot enter Tri-Main Center after 7:30 pm. Click here to see parking\, transportation\, and accessibility information. \nThis program is presented and funded by UB Department of Geography\, UB Asia Research Institute\, UB Center for Global Health Equity\, UB Department of Indigenous Studies\, UB Food Lab\, UB Critical Ecologies Research Collaborative. \nBiographies of the filmmakers\nChitrangada Choudhury is a journalist\, filmmaker and PhD candidate in Geography at the University of Zurich. Her reportage on the environment and social justice has been cited for multiple awards including the Sanskriti Foundation Award\, the Press Council of India’s National Award for Investigative Reporting\, and the Lorenzo NataliJournalism Prize twice. She has been on the founding team of The People’s Archive of Rural India and is on the Editorial Board of Article 14 – two award-winning digital publications. Her research has appeared in journals and edited volumes including Elementa – Science of the Anthropocene\, Capitalism Nature Socialism\, Economic & Political Weekly\, and the Columbia Journalism Review. \nAniket Aga is Assistant Professor of Geography at UB-SUNY\, the author of Genetically Modified Democracy: Transgenic Crops in Contemporary India (Yale University Press\, 2021) which won the 2022 Fleck Best Book Prize from the international Society for the Social Studies of Science. His research lies at the intersection of science and technology\, development and democracy. His article on pesticide marketing and caste\, published in the Journal of Peasant Studies\, won the 2019-20 Krishna Bharadwaj-Eric Wolf Prize from the journal. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/seed-stories/ LOCATION:Squeaky Wheel\, 2495 Main Street\, Suite 310\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14214\, United States CATEGORIES:Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEEDSTORIESFILMSTILL3_ChitrangadaChoudhury.jpg GEO:42.8906261;-78.8721258 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Squeaky Wheel 2495 Main Street Suite 310 Buffalo NY 14214 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=2495 Main Street\, Suite 310:geo:-78.8721258,42.8906261 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241108T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241108T210000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191614Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191614Z UID:10001194-1731092400-1731099600@squeaky.org SUMMARY:The Big Picture Event: Vague Questions by Nick Mass and Silas Rubeck DESCRIPTION:Friday\, November 8\, 7 pm\nFree\nAs part of The Big Picture series\, Squeaky Wheel is excited to screen Vague Questions by Nick Mas and Silas Rubeck. \nVague Questions is an interview series conducted by Nick Mass and Silas Rubeck. Together they have compiled a series of interviews documenting the reactive minds of their respective peers and members of the community. Through a series of Rorschach tests and an auto didactic interview process that gives control of the questions to the interviewee\, what answers might you find? This project is supported by The Generator Fund\, a grant for artists administered by The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art and funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. \nThe Big Picture is a Squeaky Wheel access program initiative designed to provide local artists a platform to showcase their projects; to impact and be impacted by the community of makers\, viewers\, critics & supporters and to grow from the experience. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/the-big-picture-event-vague-questions-by-nick-mass-and-silas-rubeck/ LOCATION:Squeaky Wheel\, 2495 Main Street\, Suite 310\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14214\, United States CATEGORIES:Event Series,Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/IMG_20241010_104038.jpg GEO:42.8906261;-78.8721258 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Squeaky Wheel 2495 Main Street Suite 310 Buffalo NY 14214 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=2495 Main Street\, Suite 310:geo:-78.8721258,42.8906261 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241004T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241004T193000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191613Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191613Z UID:10001177-1728064800-1728070200@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Squeaky Wheel's 21st Animation Fest! DESCRIPTION:Friday\, October 4\, 6 pm ET\nIn-person at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum and online\nIn-person is free as part of M&T First Fridays. Online is free or $10 suggested donation\nSqueaky Wheel is excited to present the 21st annual Animation Fest! Featuring eleven films from Buffalo and beyond\, this years edition provides a survey of gorgeous vistas and inventive joy\, with films made in a variety of techniques and media\, from charcoal drawings to 3D animation. \nThe films take on love and identity\, landscapes and gardens\, artificial intelligence\, and much more. Featuring films by Alisi Telengut\, Calvin Hardick\, Delia Hass\, Eva Davidova\, J. Ramos\, Kolya Kishinsky & Geneva Huffman\, Marina Santana De la Torre\, Miranda Javid\, S4RA\, Suncana Brkulj and Tony Nash. \nContent notes: The 10th film in the program\, Red Thumb\, features a foreboding atmosphere and a scene of a character choking another that may not be appropriate for young children. See film descriptions below for caption availability. \nTo attend in-person: The screening will take place at 6 pm at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum’s auditorium. Just show up! \nTo attend online: Get your ticket below! Upon check-out\, you will receive an email titled “Your Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center order has been received!”. A private link will be included in that email; the event will be available at the link at the start date and time. You will have access to the event for 24 hours; Squeaky Wheel members receive 72 hour access. Not a member yet? Sign up here. \nAlisi Telengut’s Baigal Nuur is courtesy of Fabian&Fred Studio. Suncana Brkulj’s Butterfly and Delia Hass’ On Hold are courtesy of Bonobo Studios. Special thank you to Fabian Driehorst\, Vanja Andrijevic\, Charlie Garland and Amina Boyd. This years edition of the Animation Fest was curated by Squeaky Wheel staff Carra Stratton\, Ekrem Serdar\, Mark Longolucco\, and Zainab Saleh. \n
\n\nProgram duration: ~53 minutes. Descriptions courtesy of the filmmakers and distributors. \nTony Nash\, Where Was I?\n1:37 minutes\, open captions\, 2024\nThis work was inspired by friendship and nostalgia. \nDelia Hess\, On Hold\n7:11 minutes\, 2024\nA young woman is stuck in the hold queue of a telephone hotline. A surreal episodic short film about the absurdities of urban life and the frustration of a paralysing standstill. \nMiranda Javid\, What Humans Do\n6:40 minutes\, open captions\, 2023\nA macro view of human-actions\, as told from within a singular body. Animated frame by frame with biodegradable ink + paper. \nMarina Santana De la Torre\, La Estación de las Rosas (The Season of the Roses)\n2:45 minutes\, Spanish with English subtitles\, 2024\nChronicle about freedom and sexual diversity. The film centres on the gay relationship between two university students who discover what life is like when they graduate. \nJ. Ramos\, Eldritch Kiss\n2:53 minutes\, open captions\, digital video\, 2024\nA workplace romance sparks up at a small convenience store. Claire is a shy\, awkward girl with a secret. Addie is a nice girl who is unaware of Claire’s truth. Will their newfound love survive Claire’s reveal? \nCalvin Hardick\, Silo\n1:17 minutes\, 2024\nA very personal and specific representation of universal creative energy manifested as a character. Inside of an impossible structure somewhere in the cosmos\, seen through the impenetrable safety of a viewing portal\, we get to witness the moment of ascension into the material plane. We\, the viewers\, our hoppy two dimensional friend\, and the being born in the silo are all segments of an infinite accordion\, seeing\, feeling\, sharing\, and expressing. \nS4RA\, bot3quim\n4:45 minutes\, Spanish with English subtitles\, 2023\nstage for intellectuals\, artists & freethinkers 2 meet\, a cultural institution that has become the sanctuary for creative expression & a symbol of resistance during the portugese dictatorship \nAlisi Telengut\, Baigal Nuur (Lake Baikal)\n8:56 min\, Buryat-Mongolian with English subtitles\, 2023\nThe formation and history of Lake Baikal in Siberia are re-imagined with hand-made animation\, featuring the voice of a Buryat woman who can still recall some words in her endangered Buryat-Mongolian language. \nEva Davidova\, Vinson And Flying Dancers Over A Lush Garden With Animals\n2:46 minutes\, 2024\nVinson and Flying Dancers Over a Lush Garden with Animals is an experimental animation investigating through hundreds of prompts the biases in the dataset of Runway’s LLM about dancers of color\, and the frustrating attempts at feeding concepts like Flying (we ended up writing Falling to achieve Flying)\, Bare Feet\, or Dancing with Animals. The sound is a mix by Eva Davidova\, based on Matthew D. Gantt experiments with Artificial Intelligence in sound. \nKolya Kishinsky and Geneva Huffman\, Red Thumb\n5:52 min\, 2024\nA stop motion short about a gardener who tries to control his environment as he discovers a pulsing red plant. As it physically grows so does their connection\, becoming his prized blooming obsession. \nSuncana Brkulj\, Butterfly\n8:07 minutes\, 2024\nA community of garden creatures all contribute to the flow of life\, using water from a fountain. When a butterfly gets stuck in the fountain\, they’re faced with an unfamiliar situation. \n
\n\nAlisi Telengut is a Canadian artist of Mongolian origin\, living between Berlin and Tiohti:áke/Montréal. Her work received multiple awards and nominations and has been screened and exhibited internationally\, including at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures\, Sundance Film Festival\, TIFF\, Videonale\, among others. \nCalvin Hardick is a multi-disciplinary illustrator and animator from Buffalo\, NY. \nDelia Hess studied animation at the Lucerne School of Art and Design in Switzerland. Since her graduation in 2012 she has been working independently on her own short film projects as well as on commissioned films and illustrations. She lives and works in Lucerne.\nFilmography: On Hold (2024)\, Emmen by the Lake (2021)\, Circuit (2018)\, Around the Stairway (2018)\, Morning Train (2012\, student film)\, Partition (2011\, student film)\, In the City (2011\, student film) \nEva Davidova explores behavior\, ecological disaster\, and the social implications of technology through performative works rooted in the absurd. Challenging a singular narrative\, she combines ancient mythology with current technologies to address the impending ecological catastrophe. Her practice involves research\, performance\, 360 video and 3D animation\, game engines\, participatory Virtual Reality\, and interactive\, site-specific immersive installations. Davidova has exhibited at the Bronx Museum\, the UVP at Everson Museum\, Buffalo AKG Museum\, MACBA\, CAAC Sevilla\, La Regenta\, ISSUE Project Room\, Harvestworks\, Instituto Cervantes\, and the Museum of Moving Image (MoMI) in New York. \nJ. Ramos is someone inspired by their own experiences with sexuality and mental health. They’re pursuing a BFA in Animation at Villa Maria College\, going into their senior year in 2024. They love animation and working on new projects as they come. \nKolya Kishinsky is a recent RISD graduate and Bay Area born animator where in the foggy hills one’s hand disappears if it’s too far from the body. As in the fog\, his work focuses on searching\, autonomy and creating personal identity. He works in both stop motion and 2D animated mediums as well as holding a printmaking and illustration practice focused on telling surreal yet personal stories.\nGeneva Huffman is a recent graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design\, working in both 2D and 3D aspects of illustration. She particularly enjoys fabrication in the world of stop motion and is constantly tinkering. Geneva is probably making something creepy and macabre this very moment. Be afraid\, be very afraid. \nMarina Santana is a Mexican Director\, cinematographer\, animator and sound designer. Her work explores dreams and eerie circumstances as well as fear of the unknown. She has screened at Ann Arbor\, Shorts México\, Festival Internacional de Cine de Hidalgo\, Austin Arthouse\, ICDOCS\, Pantalla de Cristal\, New York City International Film Festival and Trinidad y Tobago Film Festival. She holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and is an alumni of the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. \nMiranda Javid (she/her) is an animator\, curator\, and art-educator. Her animations describe cognitive experience\, human bias\, and the relationship between individuals and their communities. \nS4RA is an < non-binary && genderqueer > interdisciplinary artist that feeds on con*sensual power dynamics & gender role play through a /non/ linear looping hybrid process between digital animation & ( immersive : ) environments. also spends endless hours strolling through post-capitalism mazes & it’s influence on libidinal pleasure. \nSuncana Brkulj (1997) earned her MA in animation from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. Her student films have been selected for screenings at prestigious festivals in Annecy\, Ottawa\, Zagreb\, Stuttgart\, and elsewhere\, winning several awards. After graduating\, Suncana undertook a residency at Open Workshop in Viborg\, where she made her first professional film\, Butterfly. \nTony Nash: I began painting about 50 years ago and now also enjoy making video artwork. \nSponsors\nThank you to Villa Maria College for being the Reel Sponsor of Squeaky Wheel’s Animation Fest. Thank you to our sponsors Buffalo Spree\, Rigidized Metals\, Rose Jade Consulting Co-op\, Delaware Council Member Joel Feroleto\, Tri-Main Center\, Harlequin Pet Services\, Buffalo State College Communication Dept\, Rich Products Corporation\, Legislator April Baskin\, 26 Allen\, Lumpy Buttons\, Niagara Council Member David Rivera\, PUSH Buffalo\, Buffalo AKG Art Museum Altreuter & Berlin\, If Music Be. \n \nBanner image: A still from Suncana Brkulj’s Butterfly (2024). A colorful\, unrealistic. and dense landscape of cute creatures smiling or looking sad. Some are sitting next to each other\, some are dancing\, some have their hands up in joy. Two circles that could be the sun and moon overlook them. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/squeaky-wheels-21st-animation-fest/ LOCATION:Buffalo AKG Art Museum\, 1285 Elmwood Avenue\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14222\, United States CATEGORIES:Hybrid,Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Butterfly.jpg GEO:42.9324531;-78.87566 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Buffalo AKG Art Museum 1285 Elmwood Avenue Buffalo NY 14222 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=1285 Elmwood Avenue:geo:-78.87566,42.9324531 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240514 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20240615 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191539Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191539Z UID:10001165-1715644800-1718409599@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Call for submissions: Squeaky Wheel's 21st Animation Fest! DESCRIPTION:Deadline: June 14\, 2024\, 11:59 PM\nNotification Date: August 15\, 2024\nSqueaky Wheel announces the call for submissions for our annual Animation Fest! Celebrating its 21st year\, we are proud to continue a festival showcasing artworks made in a diverse variety of animation techniques such as stop-motion\, claymation\, 3D animation\, hand-painted film\, special effects\, and motion graphics. Past festivals have showcased work from both rising artists as well as established artists. \nThe 21st Animation Fest will be held online and in-person on Friday\, October 4\, 2024\, an in-person screening at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum and a virtual screening through Squeaky Wheel. Films in the virtual program will be accessible for 24 hours thereafter for general audiences\, and 72 hours for Squeaky Wheel members. If selected\, you will be asked for a downloadable copy of your film. \n\nEach individual submission should not exceed ~10 minutes.\nThere is no submission fee.\nAll selected artists will receive a screening fee of $100 per selected film. (International applicants must have a Paypal account to receive their screening fee).\nAll selected artists will receive a one year membership to Squeaky Wheel.\nMultiple submissions per artist are accepted.\n\nArtists who are African/Black\, Indigenous / Native / Aboriginal\, POC\, creatives with disabilities\, women\, 2SLGBTQIA+\, and artists who face systemic and structural barriers are encouraged to apply. Please direct any questions about the application process and your submissions to Ekrem Serdar at ekrem@squeaky.org \nClick here to apply\nImage description: Documentation from the 20th Animation Fest retrospective at North Park Theater. A projection in a darkened movie theater. On the screen is the word “Filmmakers!”\, which is from Helen Hill’s 2004 short film Madame Winger Makes a Film: A Survival Guide for the 21st Century. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/call-for-submissions-squeaky-wheels-21st-animation-fest/ LOCATION:Squeaky Wheel\, 2495 Main Street\, Suite 310\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14214\, United States CATEGORIES:Open Call,Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/North-Park-Helen-Hill.jpg GEO:42.8906261;-78.8721258 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Squeaky Wheel 2495 Main Street Suite 310 Buffalo NY 14214 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=2495 Main Street\, Suite 310:geo:-78.8721258,42.8906261 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240507T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240507T210000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191539Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191539Z UID:10001163-1715108400-1715115600@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Rushes: Films and actions by Jason Livingston DESCRIPTION:Tuesday\, May 7\, 7 pm ET\n@ Journey’s End Refugee Services (2495 Main St #530\, Buffalo\, NY 14214) and online\nFree or suggested donation\nTickets available below\nSqueaky Wheel presents an evening of films\, actions\, and conversation with artist Jason Livingston. This evening of films showcases Livingston’s long-standing work on the climate crises and protest movements through visual and linguistic play. Featuring his celebrated film Ancient Sunshine (2020)\, the screening features work made by the filmmaker from 2012 to the present day. This event is organized on the occasion of his exhibition with Phoebe A. Cohen\, In the Sun’s Absence. The artist will be present to deliver an artist talk ahead of the screening\, and the exhibition will be open after the screening at Squeaky Wheel. \nFor in-person attendees: JERS is located on the fifth floor of Tri-Main Center; head left after you exit the elevator. Please note that you cannot enter Tri-Main Center after 7:30 pm. \nFor online attendees: Upon check-out\, you will receive an email titled “Your Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center order has been received!”. A private link will be included in that email; the event will be available at the link at the start date and time. You will have access to the event for 24 hours; Squeaky Wheel members receive 72 hour access. Not a member yet? Sign up here. Please note that the artist talk will not be available online. \n Program (click to expand) \nTotal program time approximately 65 minutes. \nIntroduction and artist talk by Jason Livingston \n#RUSHES/URL\n11:52 min\, silent\, 16mm on digital video\, 2015 \nAn in-camera 16mm edit of the 1st anniversary/birthday/funeral of OWS in New York City\, as seen from an embedded role in the Jellyfish Brigade\, an ad hoc affinity group formed to participate in the day’s event. Bold impact fonts compliment and countervail the images toward a warm antagonism. \n“Experimental filmmakers with no obligation to spoon feed the public fared better in documenting Occupy in a manner that proved more meditative and avoided reducing the movement to a list of talking points. Jason Livingston’s short film\, #Rushes\, provides an alternative to what the filmmaker himself labels “populist agitprop.” The two versions of the film deploy contrasting reflexive strategies designed to challenge standard representations of dissent and on-the-spot reportage of street activism. Offering a glimpse of a festive protest cum celebration commemorating the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street in 2012\, Livingston juxtaposes the culture-jamming antics of the Jellyfish Brigade with familiar scenes of police intimidation and use of force. Demonstrators dressed in whimsical costumes holding signs such as “No Fossil Fuels…Frack Wall Street\, Not Water” highlight the march’s blend of earnestness and carnivalesque glee; the differences in tone are reinforced by\, on the one hand\, the satirist Reverend Billy’s comic spiel and\, on the other\, the unironic politicking of perennial presidential candidate Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala\, her 2012 vice-presidential candidate. \nForsaking digital for 16mm with in-camera edits\, the initial version of #Rushes was projected silently to live audiences. Refusing to bombard the audience with riot porn clichés\, talking heads\, voice over—or even the ambient sounds of a demonstration—Livingston instead solicited a running commentary from the audience at various screenings and encourage a participatory ethic and aesthetic. His decision to shoot in 16mm and move away from the more au courant DSLR aesthetic evolved from his revulsion towards consumerist pressure to abandon “technologies deemed obsolescent.” \nAlthough Livingston’s regarded his stripped-down aesthetic—and his promotion of audience participation—as “Occupy poetics\,” a screening at Union Docs in Brooklyn convinced him to launch an extended auto-critique of his own neo-Brechtian assumptions concerning “active spectatorship.” Despite the fact that #Rushes inspired some impassioned responses from audiences (particularly a frenetic screening at Squeaky Wheel in Buffalo which Livingston loved because it engendered a “lot of talking” over the silent images)\, he feared “that by encouraging ‘participation’ (i.e. talking) without sufficient direction on my part\, I was inadvertently disavowing my role as the maker (not that it’s much power in the end…)\, and actually promoting a very\, very vague participatory democracy that felt all too much like upper management’s penchant for doodlepolls\, or asking workers for ‘input’.” \nLivingston’s ambivalence towards his own attempt to emulate Occupy-style egalitarianism one microcinema at a time convinced him to accompany the film with narration\, later transformed into a series of memes embedded in a second version of the film\, that undercuts the celebration of a participatory ethos with what he terms a “warm antagonism.” Warm antagonism might be defined as playful self-laceration\, almost a parody of the type of self-criticism that was once de rigueur among authoritarian leftists. In the self-détourned version of #Rushes\, Livingston proclaims:: “Against participation\, not because participation denies the primary role of the artist in any given work and thus projects an anti-hierarchical fantasy…but because participation itself is a bureaucratic imagination.” While there’s a tongue-in-cheek aspect to Livingston’s self-indictment\, the cadences of his manifesto also undermine the pieties of “active spectatorship” and the hallowed entity known as the “emancipated spectator.” In certain respects\, the alternative film world’s penchant for participatory events might constitute a farcical equivalent of the pseudo-participation that anarchists discerned as integral components of Yugoslavian experiments in self-management. From another perspective\, the film’s dialogue with its audience\, and with itself\, is close to the kind of “auto-ethnography” that David Graeber proposes as a riposte to the vanguardist sensibility.” – Richard Porton\, author of Film and the Anarchist Imagination\, 2nd edition \n7.24.14\n4.5 mins\, silent\, 16mm film on digital video\, 2014 \nDemonstration in support of Gaza and against Operation Protective Edge on July 24\, 2014 in Ithaca\, NY. \nShale Raga\n4.5 min\, sound\, digital video\, 2015 \nSet to an excerpt of Don Cherry’s Malkauns from his border-erasing 1975 album\, Brown Rice\, Shale Raga extracts a mining industry in-house video to put pressure on carbon-based capitalist sorcery\, in this case EcoShale technology\, which is patented by Alberta-based Red Leaf Resources\, Inc. and promises to “revolutionize” oil shale production in the Book Cliffs of eastern Utah by accelerating geological time. The video is a counter-spell to ward off venture capital’s appetite for ancient life forms baked into rock. \nACID REIGN\n4.5 min\, sound\, digital video\, 2012 \nCombining archival/found footage\, treated images and diaristic Hi-8 video\, ACID REIGN explores the ongoing battle between human beings’ technologies of control and other life forms. In this case\, animals re-inhabit a post-human urban landscape. \nAncient Sunshine\n19.5 mins\, sound\, 16mm film on digital video\, 2021 \nA fossil cast in plastic\, an artificial plateau\, classic cars running on the fumes of the nation. Ancient Sunshine marks a path through fossil fuel extraction and climate defense in the American West. The film proposes solidarity against the violence by which “earth” becomes “resource.” \nUtah Tar Sands Resistance has been fighting experimental mining in the Tavaputs Plateau for almost a decade\, setting up camp every summer in sight of heavy equipment and construction crews. The film asks\, how might the concept of horizontalism be applied to the physical horizon\, its decimation\, and to capital’s propensity for vertical extrication? Ancient Sunshine interweaves the endless remaking of the Western landscape with labor history\, reflections on anarchist organization\, and interspecies economies. \nAncient Sunshine consists of interviews with the Utah Tar Sands Resistance primary organizers and other Utah land protectors\, and sets their voices in and against an industrialized landscape. The film presents an array of voices\, drawing attention to the role of resistance and kinship during times of threat and extinction. \nToward a poetic solidarity\, toward a formal politics. \n \nBiography of the artist\nJason Livingston is a media artist\, filmmaker\, and educator. His award-winning films have been widely exhibited at festivals and museums\, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington\, D.C.\, the International Film Festival Rotterdam\, and Media City in Canada. He is currently researching histories of extractive cinema and abolitionist re-imaginings of our shared world as a Presidential Fellow in the Department of Media Study\, University at Buffalo. \nBanner image: A still from Jason Livingston’s film #Rushes/URL (2012). Two policemen on scoooters on a sunny day in New York City. On top and on the bottom of the image are superimposed words like a mid-2000s meme in Impact font: “AGAINST THE ACTIVATED SPECTATOR.” URL:https://squeaky.org/event/rushes-films-and-actions-by-jason-livingston/ LOCATION:Journey’s End Refugee Services\, 2495 Main Street\, Suite #530\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14214\, United States CATEGORIES:Hybrid,Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Livingston-Rushes-scaled.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240228T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240228T210000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191539Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191539Z UID:10001143-1709146800-1709154000@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Malek Rasamny and Matt Peterson's Spaces of Exception DESCRIPTION:Wednesday\, February 28\, 2024\, 7 pm ET\nIn-person and online\nFree or suggested donation\nTickets required; get tickets below\nMalek Rasamny and Matt Peterson’s feature length non-fiction film Spaces of Exception (90 minutes\, 2018) features interviews with members of the American Indian Movement\, the Mohawk Warrior Society\, and Diné families resisting displacement on Black Mesa\, as well as members of Fatah\, Palestinian environmental and media activists\, autonomous youth committees\, and the families of political prisoners and martyrs. The film investigates and juxtaposes the struggles\, communities\, and spaces of the American Indian reservation and the Palestinian refugee camp. It was shot from 2014 to 2017 in Arizona\, New Mexico\, New York\, and South Dakota\, as well as in Lebanon and the West Bank. Spaces of Exception is an attempt to understand the significance of the land—its memory and divisions—and the conditions for life\, community\, and sovereignty. \nSpaces of Exception comes out of the long-term multimedia project The Native and the Refugee\, which has been presented in Canada\, Denmark\, Ecuador\, England\, France\, Guatemala\, Italy\, Jordan\, Lebanon\, Palestine\, Portugal\, Syria\, Turkey\, and the United Arab Emirates\, within the refugee camps and reservations were the film was shot\, and at venues including cinemas\, museums\, and universities. \nCo-director Matt Peterson will join us for a conversation and Q&A with Jason Corwin (Seneca Nation\, Deer Clan\, Clinical Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies) upon the conclusion of the film. This event is presented in collaboration with PLASMA at the Department of Media Study\, curated by Elia Vargas. Special thank you to Burning Books and Jason Livingston. Copies of the book\, The Mohawk Warrior Society: A Handbook on Sovereignty and Survival by Louis Karoniaktajeh Hall\, and edited by Kahentinetha Rotiskarewake\, Philippe Blouin\, Matt Peterson\, and Malek Rasamny\, will be available for purchase courtesy of Burning Books. \nFor in-person attendees: See how to get to Squeaky Wheel here. Please note that you cannot enter Tri-Main Center after 7:30 pm. \nFor online attendees: Upon check-out\, you will receive an email titled “Your Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center order has been received!”. A private link will be included in that email; the event will be available at the link at the start date and time. You will have access to the event for 24 hours; Squeaky Wheel members receive 72 hour access. Not a member yet? Sign up here. \n\nTeaser from The Native and the Refugee on Vimeo. \nRecent interviews with the filmmakers and reviews of the film\n“‘The Native and the Refugee’ Shares Narratives of Resistance” (Andreas Petrossiants\, Frieze) \n“In conversation with Kareem Estefan” (e-flux) \nSpaces of Exception by A.M. Gittlitz (Screen Slate) \nSpaces of Exception by Caitlin Quinlan (Reverse Shot) \nBiographies of the filmmakers and participants\nMatt Peterson is an organizer at Woodbine\, an experimental space in New York City. He previously directed the documentary feature Scenes from a Revolt Sustained (2014)\, and co-edited the books In the Name of the People (2018) and The Reservoir (2022). \nMalek Rasamny is a documentary filmmaker\, researcher and writer. His work has been featured in publications including The New Inquiry\, Lundi Matin and Newlines Magazine. He is currently working on a doctoral research project at Paris Nanterre University concerning the social phenomenon of reincarnation within the Druze community of Lebanon. \nJason Corwin is a citizen of the Seneca Nation\, Deer Clan and a lifelong media maker. He was the founding director of the Seneca Media & Communications Center and has produced several short and feature length documentaries. Jason has extensive experience as a community-based educator utilizing digital media and land-based learning to engage with Indigenous ways of knowing\, sustainability\, and social justice topics. He is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor at University at Buffalo’s Department of Indigenous Studies. \nBanner image: A still from the film Spaces of Exception\, showing Standing Rock covered in snow under a gray sky. There is a road with a car in the middle of the frame\, and a few people in big coats. Over 50 flags of Indigenous nations and other countries are on either side of the road. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/malek-rasamny-and-matt-petersons-spaces-of-exception/ LOCATION:Squeaky Wheel\, 2495 Main Street\, Suite 310\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14214\, United States CATEGORIES:Hybrid,Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Spaces-of-Exception.jpeg GEO:42.8906261;-78.8721258 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Squeaky Wheel 2495 Main Street Suite 310 Buffalo NY 14214 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=2495 Main Street\, Suite 310:geo:-78.8721258,42.8906261 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240219T080000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240308T200000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191539Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191539Z UID:10001148-1708329600-1709928000@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Extended: Jordan Lord | Works from The Voice of Democracy\, with Abby Sun and Pooja Rangan DESCRIPTION:A still from the film An All-Around Feel Good by Jordan Lord. Prominent black borders are on the left\, right and bottom edges of the image. Framed by the black borders is an image of the Colorado State Fair\, taken from the bleachers on a bright sunny day. The camera is facing outside the main stage\, where there are horses and riders in a pen\, numerous parked cars and a tractor\, and several U.S. flags\, and audience members both near the camera and across the stage. On the bottom is the caption “Belonging to the nation-state is not premised on seeing or attending.”\nNow extended through March 8: Online access to works in the exhibition\nOnline and in-person: Friday\, February February 23:\n5:30 pm ET: Screening of How Is It That You Frame Old Glory in Your Mouth?\n7 pm ET\, online and in-person: Conversation with Jordan Lord\, Abby Sun\, and Pooja Rangan.\nASL interpretation and CART provided\, catering from Alibaba Kebab for in-person attendees.\nFree or suggested donation; get tickets below\nCelebrating the closing of Jordan Lord’s solo exhibition The Voice of Democracy\, Squeaky Wheel invites audiences from Buffalo and beyond to watch the works in the exhibition online\, and join us for a screening and conversation between the artist\, Abby Sun\, and Pooja Rangan. The works in the exhibition analyze the politics of voice and accent across disability\, race\, class\, and gender\, and how they shape the terms of entry to democracy. \nAttendees will have the opportunity to experience the four works by the artist included in the exhibition anytime between February 19 through February 23. \n\nHow Is It That You Frame Old Glory in Your Mouth? (digital video\, 74 minutes\, sound\, open captions\, audio description\, 2023)\nAn All-Around Feel Good (digital video\, 25 minutes\, sound\, open captions\, audio description\, 2024)\nI didn’t set out to make a film about religion (digital video\, 30 minutes\, sound\, open captions\, audio description\, 2024)\nDocumentary Participation Agreement (PDF contract template\, 2023)\n\nOn Friday\, February 23\, online and in-person attendees are invited to a dedicated screening of How Do You Frame Old Glory in Your Mouth? at 5:30 pm ET and a conversation about the exhibition with Lord\, Rangan\, and Sun at 7 pm ET. Catering with vegetarian options will be provided for in-person attendees; ASL interpretation and CART will be provided for all. \nLearn more about the exhibition here. \nBiographies of the artist and participants\nJordan Lord (US) is a filmmaker\, writer\, and artist whose work addresses the relationships between historical and emotional debts\, framing and support\, access\, and documentary. Their films have been shown at festivals and venues including MoMA Doc Fortnight\, Dokufest Kosovo\, Union Docs\, and the Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival. Their film Shared Resources (2021) won the John Marshall Award for Contemporary Ethnographic Media at the Camden International Film Festival and the Critics Jury Prize at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival. They have presented solo exhibitions at Piper Keys and Artists Space. In 2021\, they were profiled as one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine\, and their work has been featured in publications such as Screen Slate\, Millennium Film Journal\, and Hyperallergic. \nAbby Sun (she/her) is IDA’s Director of Artist Programs and Editor of Documentary magazine. Before joining IDA\, Abby was the Curator of the DocYard and co-curated My Sight is Lined with Visions: 1990s Asian American Film & Video with Keisha Knight. As a graduate student researcher in the MIT Open Documentary Lab\, Abby edited Immerse. She has bylines in Film Comment\, Filmmaker\, Film Quarterly\, Notebook\, Sight & Sound\, and other publications. Abby has served on festival juries for Hot Docs\, Dokufest\, Palm Springs\, New Orleans\, and CAAMfest\, as well as nominating committees for the Gotham Awards and Cinema Eye. She has reviewed projects for IDFA Forum\, BGDM\, NEA\, SFFILM\, LEF Foundation\, Princess Grace Foundation\, the Boston Foundation\, Sundance Catalyst\, and spoken on and facilitated panels at Locarno\, IFFR\, TIFF\, NYFF\, EFM\, and other film festivals. Along with Keisha\, Abby received a fall 2022 Warhol Foundation Curatorial Research Fellowship. She produced Shared Resources and\, with Jordan Lord\, received a 2022 American Stories Documentary Fellowship for the upcoming The Voice of Democracy. Her hometown is Columbia\, Missouri\, US. \nPooja Rangan is Associate Professor of English and Chair of Film and Media Studies at Amherst College. Her research explores the humanitarian preoccupations of documentary media\, with an emphasis on the ethics of voice and listening. Rangan is author of Immediations: The Humanitarian Impulse in Documentary (Duke University Press\, 2017) and co-editor of Thinking with an Accent: Toward a New Object\, Method\, and Practice (University of California Press\, 2023). Her forthcoming book The Documentary Audit (from Columbia University Press)\, explores the politics of listening in documentary\, asking how accented\, disabled\, and abolitionist practitioners trouble established documentary values of justice and accountability. Rangan co-edits the Investigating Visible Evidence book series at Columbia University Press and serves on the editorial board of the journal World Records; she also served as Board President of the documentary arts showcase\, The Flaherty. \nThis project was made possible through support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Humanities New York with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/jordan-lord-works-from-the-voice-of-democracy-with-pooja-rangan/ LOCATION:Squeaky Wheel\, 2495 Main Street\, Suite 310\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14214\, United States CATEGORIES:Artist Talk,Hybrid,Screenings,Virtual ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/an_all-around_feel_good-1080p-frame-at-7m48s.jpg GEO:42.8906261;-78.8721258 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Squeaky Wheel 2495 Main Street Suite 310 Buffalo NY 14214 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=2495 Main Street\, Suite 310:geo:-78.8721258,42.8906261 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20231206T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20231206T210000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191525Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191525Z UID:10001132-1701889200-1701896400@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Sharlene Bamboat's If From Every Tongue It Drips DESCRIPTION:Wednesday\, December 8\, 7 pm @ Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center and online\nPre-screening reception with catering at 6 pm\nFree and open to the public\nGet tickets for the online screening below\nSqueaky Wheel is excited to be a co-presenter of the screening of Sharlene Bamboat’s feature length hybrid-documentary\, If From Every Tongue it Drips. The film that follows a queer Urdu poet as she traces the connections between quantum physics and political movements in South Asia. The filmmaker will be present for a Q&A with Squeaky Wheel curator Ekrem Serdar. This event is presented by the Humanities Institute/Distinguished Visiting Scholars Program Film Series at the University at Buffalo\, and is screened as part of Squeaky Wheel’s event series [Speaking in Foreign Language]. \nIn-person attendees: The event will take place at 341 Delaware Ave\, Buffalo\, NY 14202. A catered pre-screening reception will begin at 6 pm. \nOnline attendees: Upon check-out\, you will receive an email titled “Your Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center order has been received!”. A private link will be included in that email; the event will be available at the link at the start date and time. You will have access to the event for 24 hours; Squeaky Wheel members receive 72 hour access. Not a member yet? Sign up here. \nConversation between Ekrem Serdar and Sharlene Bamboat\, introduced by Donte McFaddon. Special thank you to Tammy McGovern and Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center. \n \nSharlene Bamboat\, If From Every Tongue it Drips\, 68 min\, Canada\, Sri Lanka\, Scotland\, 2021\nIf From Every Tongue it Drips is a hybrid documentary film that uses the framework of quantum physics to explore the ways that personal relationships and political movements at once transcend and challenge time\, space\, identity and location. \nThe film follows the lives of a couple living in Batticaloa\, Sri Lanka; Ponni writes Rekhti\, a form of 19th century\, Urdu\, queer poetry; the other\, Sarala\, the camera operator. As their personal lives unfold on camera\, the lines between rehearsal and reality\, location and distance\, self and other dissipate and reinforce one another. \nSimultaneously\, through poet and camera operator’s daily lives\, interconnections between British colonialism\, Indian nationalism and the impact of both on contemporary poetry\, dance and music in South Asia is revealed. \nThe film explores both literal and figural translation as multiple ways of looking\, embedded within the filmmaking process\, which was all conducted long distance. The scenes were constructed in Montreal\, where Sharlene sent informal instructions to Sarala\, who then filmed Ponni\, who would then send the footage back to Montreal\, from which the next scene was written. This process continued for 6 months on a weekly basis\, after which most of the film was constructed. The sound was constructed between Montreal\, Batticaloa and the Isle of Skye\, where the sound designer Richy Carey resides. The film incorporates the sonic sphere of all three locations\, enhancing notions of quantum entanglement which are employed throughout the filmic process\, to showcase the interconnections between location\, geography\, self and other which continue to be intertwined. \nThis film nods to Sharlene’s ongoing interest in both the many ways that popular culture can be politicised\, as well as the sensuous possibilities of its reclamation. \nBiography of the filmmaker\nSharlene Bamboat is a moving image and installation artist based in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. Her practice engages with translation\, history\, and sound to uncover sensory and fractured ways of understanding the relationship between the self and the social in transnational contexts. \nHer works examine the role of colonialism\, globalization\, culture\, and desire through poetics\, abstraction\, and collaboration by working with artists\, musicians and writers to animate historical\, political\, legal\, and pop-culture materials. Her most frequent collaborator\, since 2009\, is Alexis Mitchell. In addition to her art practice\, Sharlene works in the arts-sector\, including artist-run organizations and collectives in Canada\, and with artists both locally and internationally. \nBanner image description: A still from If From Every Tongue It Drips by Sharlene Bamboat. A person sits on a wooden rocking chair in a bright orange room sunshine spilling in. The person in the chair is half out of frame arms holding a piece of paper. Yellow caption on screen reads: “hence\, matter is an infolding\, an in-volution. hmmmmmmmmmmm”. Image and description courtesy of the artist. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/sharlene-bamboats-if-from-every-tongue-it-drips/ LOCATION:Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center\, 341 Delaware Avenue\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14202\, United States CATEGORIES:Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/IFETID_Still_3-scaled.jpg GEO:42.8937279;-78.8753531 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center 341 Delaware Avenue Buffalo NY 14202 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=341 Delaware Avenue:geo:-78.8753531,42.8937279 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20231205T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20231205T210000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191538Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191538Z UID:10001125-1701802800-1701810000@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Surname Viet Given Name Nam DESCRIPTION:Tuesday\, December 5\, 2023\, 7 pm ET\n@ Journey’s End Refugee Services and online\nFree or suggested donation\nTickets available below\nAn essential work by one of the most influential filmmakers living today\, Surname Viet Given Name Nam (108 mins\, 1989) is presented as part of the series [Speaking in Foreign Language]. Vietnamese-born Trinh T. Minh-ha’s profoundly personal documentary explores the role of Vietnamese women historically and in contemporary society. Using dance\, printed texts\, folk poetry and the words and experiences of Vietnamese women in Vietnam—from both North and South—and the United States\, Trinh’s film challenges official culture with the voices of women. A theoretically and formally complex work\, Surname Viet Given Name Nam explores the difficulty of translation\, and themes of dislocation and exile\, critiquing both traditional society and life since the war. Presented with an introduction by curator Ekrem Serdar. Special thank you to Women Make Movies. \nFor in-person attendees: JERS is located on the fifth floor of Tri-Main Center; head left after you exit the elevator. Please note that you cannot enter Tri-Main Center after 7:30 pm. \nFor online attendees: Upon check-out\, you will receive an email titled “Your Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center order has been received!”. A private link will be included in that email; the event will be available at the link at the start date and time. You will have access to the event for 24 hours; Squeaky Wheel members receive 72 hour access. Not a member yet? Sign up here. \nBiography of the filmmaker\nTrinh T. Minh-ha is the recipient of numerous awards and grants (including the “Trailblazers” Award at MIPDOC\, Cannes; AFI National Independent Filmmaker Maya Deren Award\, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation\, the National Endowment of the Arts\, the Rockefeller Foundation\, the American Film Institute\, The Japan Foundation\, and the California Arts Council)\, her films have been given over fifty retrospectives in the US\, the UK\, Brazil\, Canada\, Italy\, Korea\, Spain\, the Netherlands\, Slovenia\, France\, Germany\, Switzerland\, Austria\, Japan\, India\, Taiwan\, Hong Kong\, Jerusalem\, and were exhibited at the international contemporary art exhibition Documenta 11 (2002) in Germany. They have shown widely in the States\, in Canada\, Senegal\, Australia\, and New Zealand\, as well as in Europe and Asia (including in Italy\, Belgium\, Spain\, Sweden\, Finland\, Japan\, India\, Taiwan\, Jerusalem\, Reassemblage was exhibited at The New York Film Festival (1983) and has toured the country with the Asian American Film Festival among other festivals. Naked Spaces received the Blue Ribbon Award for Best Experimental Feature at the American Int’l. Film Festival and the Golden Athena Award for Best Feature Documentary at the Athens International Film Festival in 1986; it toured nationally and internationally with the 1987 Biennial of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Surname Viet Given Name Nam has received the Merit Award from the Bombay International Film Festival\, the Film as Art Award from the Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art (SF Museum of Modern Art) and the Blue Ribbon Award at the American Film and Video Festival. Shoot for the Contents won the Jury’s Best Cinematography Award at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival and the Best Feature Documentary Award at the Athens International Film Festival\, and toured internationally with the 1993 Biennale of the Whitney Museum. A Tale of Love showed internationally in over twenty-four film festivals\, including Berlin and Toronto. The Fourth Dimension (Locarno\, Viennale\, Edinburg\, London) and Night Passage continue to exhibit widely (UK\, Austria\, Spain\, Japan\, Korea\, Shanghai). \nTrinh Minh-ha has traveled and lectured extensively—in the States\, as well as in Europe\, Asia\, Australia and New Zealand—on film\, art\, feminism\, and cultural politics. She taught at the National Conservatory of Music in Dakar\, Senegal (1977-80); at universities such as Cornell\, San Francisco State\, Smith\, and Harvard\, Ochanomizu (Tokyo)\, Ritsumeikan (Kyoto)\, Dongguk (Seoul); and is Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies and of Rhetoric at the University of California\, Berkeley. \nImage: A still from Trinh T. Minh-ha’s film\, Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989). A mostly dark image\, with a barely lit woman with black hair looking to the left of the image. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/trinh-t-minh-has-surname-viet-given-name-nam/ LOCATION:Journey’s End Refugee Services\, 2495 Main Street\, Suite #530\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14214\, United States CATEGORIES:Hybrid,Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/SURNAM_HERO.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20231103T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20231103T190000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191524Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191524Z UID:10001131-1699034400-1699038000@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Squeaky Wheel's 20th Animation Fest! DESCRIPTION:Friday\, November 3\, 6 pm ET @ Buffalo AKG Art Museum and online\nFree or suggested donation\nTickets for online screening below. In-person audiences can just come to the AKG!\nFeaturing 10 films made near and far\, the 20th edition of Squeaky Wheel’s Animation Fest features animations made in a variety of media\, forms\, and materials\, from stop-motion puppetry\, AI generated imagery\, hand-drawn works and more. \nThe 10 films in the programs present a smorgasbord of delights\, personal visions\, and topics\, including internet-era love letters\, surreal narratives\, family relationships\, and films both energetic and joyful\, and somber and quiet. The fest features work by Asparuh Petrov\, Birgit Rathsmann\, Claire Schlaikjer\, Emily Sasmor\, Ivana Bosnjak Volda and Thomas Johnson Volda\, Jeffrey Zablotny\, Jingyi Wang\, Kahstoserakwathe Paulette Moore\, Megan Young\, and Sarah E. Jenkins. The 20th Animation Fest was curated by Squeaky Wheel staff members Caroline Doherty\, Ekrem Serdar\, Mark Longolucco\, and Meg Specksgoor. \nFor in-person attendees: No tickets are required; the event is free as part of the museum’s First Fridays. The event will begin in the auditorium of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum at 6 pm. \nFor online attendees: Upon check-out\, you will receive an email titled “Your Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center order has been received!”. A private link will be included in that email; the event will be available at the link at the start date and time. You will have access to the event for 24 hours; Squeaky Wheel members receive 72 hour access. Not a member yet? Sign up here.\n
\n\nSarah Jenkins\, Disappearing Acts\, 4 min\, 2022\nDarkness encroaches upon a loggy landscape of animated tricks and turns.\nJeffrey Zablotny\, Sub Terra\, 8.5 min\, 2022\nA routine tree inspection unexpectedly gives way to a journey into the deep. Set in a hidden subterranean world\, ‘Sub Terra’ is the haunting mystery of a cryptic\, first-person perspective. \nIvana Bosnjak Volda\, Thomas Johnson Volda\, Remember How I Used to Ride a White Horse\, 10 min\, 2022\nA waitress goes about her daily routine serving coffee whilst having thoughts of escaping her reality. A costumer is constantly recording and listening back to the surrounding sounds of the café and is completely fixated by this task. Apathy is a condition that leads consciousness into stagnation\, but do either of them realise that they are themselves examples of this condition? \nClaire Schlaikjer\, Baking With Piggu\, 3.5 min\, 2023\nWarning: contains some flashing images. Piggu started life as a real stuffed pig\, sewn out of canvas and stuffed with recycled fabric insulation\, which I made in the spring of 2020. The pig gradually acquired a striking physical presence that I had not intended or expected. The sparseness of his construction made him enigmatic — he was a (literal) blank canvas whose staring eyes could suggest any emotion and contain any experience. He became a perfect muse\, as a physically pliable but spiritually unyielding subject. This led me to consider the complexity of our relationships with anything creature-like\, where familiarity is often confused with understanding. For this animation\, I wanted to explore this dynamic of misidentification\, and what it would be like if Piggu’s internal world was as real as I imagine it to be. In the story\, toys suffer the same unfulfilled desires and fantasies as people\, but their real tragedy comes from their inability to express themselves. Piggu inspires empathy\, but this empathy breeds relationships that can be as doting as they are callous. Through animation\, I was curious to see the effect of empathy towards creatures or objects which we cannot communicate with\, especially when those creatures are given the chance to react but not respond. \nBirgit Rathsmann\, Primitive Games: Love Letter\, 5 min\, 2018\nThree shapes created by an animator create havoc in her computer while she is on her lunch break. They write a love letter to their animator\, but since they don’t know what it’s like to have a body\, the letter is .. unusual.\nBirgit Rathsmann: Writer\, Director\, Producer\, Animator\nBlue Shape: River L. Ramirez (Pervert Everything\, Los Espookys)\nWhite Shape: Mary Houlihan (CEO Skyscraper)\nRed Shape: Becket Bowes \nEmily Sasmor\, Flore\, 2 min\, 2022\nFLORE is a one act opera. Flore’s partner calls her up to declare their love to her in an endless night. \nAsparuh Petrov\, Trace\, 7 min\, 2022\nА young writer dedicates his nights to hunting entangled phrases with his pen. The moment he is confronted with the pregnancy of his wife his world collapses. Lingering fears and painful memories overwhelm him and he needs to trace the missing piece. \nKahstoserakwathe Paulette Moore\, The Clay She Is Made Of\, 2 min\, 2023\nThe Clay She Is Made Of draws parallels between the profound strength and creativity of Sky Woman from the Rotinonhsyón:ni / Haudenosaunee creation story and the filmmaker’s mother. This two-minute animated and live-action film is narrated all in Kanyen’kè:ha (Mohawk). \nMegan Young\, Carry On\, 3 min\, 2023\nThis piece is part of an ongoing project\, titled With What We Could Carry\, considering the responsibilities we embrace and what we shed as we travel across borders and through time. It explores the complexities of heritage\, labor\, and technological advancement through social practice and computational rendering. The resulting animation combines 3D mesh and models of myself\, my mother\, and my children collected through LiDAR and photogrammetry scans. Our flesh and figures are represented as overlapping and traversable landscapes reflecting themes of migration\, matriarchy\, and the dreams of our elders. (The looping animation was originally produced for viewing as a media installation.) \nJingyi Wang\, Good Old Days Part.1\, 5 min\, 2023\nGood Old Days Part.1” is a 5-minute experimental film that tells a story about a city with a collective memory of a bygone era and its tangled residents. It’s done through a series of absurd cinematic shots\, pixelated spatial transitions\, scenario-based sounds\, and symbolic graphical repetition. It is part of an ongoing experimental media project that plays around film and its extended forms\, which examines the rebellion of psychic structure against its environment in digital space. It keeps pace with time and ends when the end is near.\n
\n\nAsparuh Petrov (1981) developed a passion for animation after he graduated from the High School of Applied Arts in Trojan in 1999. Since 2007 he has worked as a freelance animation director\, and has been creating his own animation projects. Asparuh is one of the lead directors of Compote Collective productions. In 2016 he founds PHAZZA – a platform for examination of our problematic reality with the means of animation.\nWhile working on commercial animation\, motion graphics\, music videos and artists’ videos\, Birgit Rathsmann co-founded an Improv comedy group for shy visual artists. Now\, Birgit loves creating characters who navigate awkward situations with humorous results\, and this has resulted in a number of short films. Primitive Games”” is an improvised animated web series and a collaboration with comedians River L. Ramirez and Mary Houlihan. \nClaire Schlaikjer is an artist\, animator\, and illustrator from London\, England. She holds a BA in Visual Art and Computer Science from Brown University. As a freelance animator\, she has worked on projects ranging from science education to social advocacy\, and has collaborated with artists and arts institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver and Women & Their Work in Austin\, TX. Her personal artwork explores the place that animals hold in our collective imagination and the ways in which the evolution of their visual representations reflects our changing relationship with the natural world. \nEmily Sasmor is a new media artist based in Brooklyn\, NY. They create animated operatic visual albums telling stories about violence and the comforts upheld by it. Their work has appeared in various shows\, festivals\, and screenings including; Curyatid in Hudson Yards\, 20/92 Video Festival\, and Digerati Emergent Media Festival. They have been awarded a Cultural Counsel Video Grant\, and Guaranteed Income from CRNY. They run Single Channel\, an experimental art publishing house. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago\, and a BFA from Tyler School of Art and Architecture\, Temple University. \nIvana Bosnjak Volda (1983) graduated from the Graphics Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and Animation at the University in Volda\, Norway. Ivana has been professionally involved in various stop motion projects across Europe\, and has led animation workshops for children and students. Thomas Johnson Volda (1984) graduated in Time Based Media from the University of Wales Institute\, Cardiff\, and at the New Media Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. He is multidisciplinary artist often combining animation and performance art disciplines in his work\, and has created puppet performances at numerous festivals across Europe. Ivana and Thomas co-directed award-winning stop-animation short films Simulacra (2014)\, Imbued Life (2019) and Remember How I Used to Ride a White Horse (2022). \nJeffrey Zablotny is a director based in Toronto\, Canada. His film work is often marked by intricate sound design and unconventional use of visual effects as a way to explore how interior landscapes mirror a hidden world outside ourselves. His films have premiered at TIFF\, Austin Film Festival\, Hot Docs\, and internationally at festivals in Japan\, Germany\, and the United Kingdom. A member of VES (Visual Effects Society)\, his work has been made possible with support from the Canada Arts Council\, Ontario Arts Council\, and the NFB. \n镜伊Jingyi Wang is an artist and experimental filmmaker who lives and works in Shanghai and New York. Her work examines how psychic\, physical\, and symbolic structures imply and manifest themselves within everyday survival spectacles and sceneries. In her recent work\, she delves into the strangeness of private and public environments and the detachments of their subjects through film and computer graphics. \nKahstoserakwathe Paulette Moore is an independent filmmaker\, podcaster\, and educator. Moore is Kanyen’kehà:ka (Mohawk)\, a fluent Kanyen’kè:ha speaker (ACTFL intermediate/high)\, and an enrolled member of Six Nations of the Grand River territory. Moore is a founding member/co-owner of The Aunties Dandelion: a media-arts collective informed by traditional Onkwehòn:we (Indigenous) teachings and focused on revitalizing communities through stories of land\, language\, and relationships. She spent two decades in Washington\, DC as producer/director/writer with Discovery Channel\, National Geographic\, and others. Moore is a Banff 2023 Indigenous Screen Summit pitch participant and 2022 Banff Spark program participant for women who own media businesses. \nMegan Young is an interdisciplinary artist\, with a background in immersive and interactive design. Notable credits include ISEA in Hong Kong\, Open Spaces in Armenia\, Ammerman Center Biennial for Art & Technology at Connecticut College\, Open Engagement in Chicago\, and SPACES in Cleveland. She is a Lecturer and Digital Art Area Head at Indiana University and has previously taught for Cleveland Institute of Art and Kent State University. Young holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art + Media from Columbia College Chicago. \nSarah E. Jenkins is a queer Appalachian artist making work about extraction\, hidden labors\, and disappearance in an experimental animation practice. Their work has been shown at the MFA Boston\, Torrance Art Museum\, Emerson Contemporary\, and Wonzimer. Jenkins’ is a MacDowell Fellow and she was recently awarded a Changing Climate residency at SFAI. Their work is included in the forthcoming book Queering Appalachia’s Visual History: A Collection of Queer Appalachian Photographers\, University of Kentucky Press. Jenkins lives in Northampton\, MA with her darling cat\, Nessie.\n \nSponsors\nSqueaky Wheel’s Animation Fest is presented with generous support from the Richard W. Rupp Foundation\, FGI Landscaping\, PUSH Buffalo\, TriMain Center\, Rigidized Metals\, BreadHive\, Buffalo Expendables\, Buffalo State College Communication Dept\, Rose Jade Consulting Coop\, Lumpy Buttons Gifts\, Good Neighbors Credit Union\, and Villa Maria College. The North Park Theater event is presented with generous support from Councilman Joel Feroleto. \n\nBanner image: A red and white still from the film Trace by Asparuh Petrov. Three hand drawn faces looking to the right; their faces are intercut with lines like a comic strip. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/squeaky-wheels-20th-animation-fest/ LOCATION:Buffalo AKG Art Museum\, 1285 Elmwood Avenue\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14222\, United States CATEGORIES:Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Trace-Animation-Fest.jpg.jpg GEO:42.9324531;-78.87566 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Buffalo AKG Art Museum 1285 Elmwood Avenue Buffalo NY 14222 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=1285 Elmwood Avenue:geo:-78.87566,42.9324531 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20231017T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20231017T210000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191524Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191524Z UID:10001123-1697569200-1697576400@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Echolocations: Films in translation and transcription DESCRIPTION:Tuesday\, October 17\, 7 pm ET\n@ Journey’s End Refugee Services (2495 Main St #530\, Buffalo\, NY 14214) and online\nFree or suggested donation\nTickets available below\nGathering nine short films\, this screening looks at how voice and language are made legible across borders and power. Bringing together essay films and personal non-fiction films\, historical analyses and experimental films\, the filmmakers’ approaches to subtitles\, captions\, translations\, and interpretation grapple with the histories\, present\, and futures of imperialism\, colonialism\, racism\, and ableism. Alternately playful\, angry\, contemplative\, utopian\, and generous\, the films help us imagine new relationships\, between films and audiences\, and between each other\, across languages and voices. \nFeaturing films by Alex Dolores Salerno\, Astria Suparak\, champoy\, JJJJJerome Ellis\, Johann Diedrick\, Nadia Shihab\, Saif Alsaegh\, Sky Hopinka\, and Buffalo filmmaker Olivia Ong Evans who will be in person. Presented as part of [Speaking in Foreign Language]. \nThis event will take place in person at Journey’s End Refugee Services (JERS) and online. \nFor in-person attendees: JERS is located on the fifth floor of Tri-Main Center; head left after you exit the elevator. Please note that you cannot enter Tri-Main Center after 7:30 pm. \nFor online attendees: Upon check-out\, you will receive an email titled “Your Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center order has been received!”. A private link will be included in that email; the event will be available at the link at the start date and time. You will have access to the event for 24 hours; Squeaky Wheel members receive 72 hour access. Not a member yet? Sign up here. \nAccessibility: For in-person audiences: ASL interpretation can be requested with 3 days notice for the Q&A with Olivia Ong Evans. For both in-person and online attendees: Several of the films have open captions. Some of the films\, such as champoy’s english is yr mother tongue and Astria Suparak’s On the Neon Horizon have no spoken dialogue\, while Nadia Shihab’s Echolocation elects not to translate moments where Iraqi Turkmen is spoken. The subtitles in Sky Hopinka’s wawa actively think through the act of translation from Chinuk Wawa to English. Alex Dolores Salerno’s El Dios Acostado provides captions and audio descriptions in English and Spanish. Please see individual film notes below. \n
\n\nThe total program length is ~85 minutes. Program notes courtesy of the artists.\n\nchampoy\, english is yr mother tongue\, 4 min\, 2020 \nWhen the American colonial education system in the Philippines imposed English as the sole language for teaching\, suppressing indigenous languages and turning classrooms into sites of linguistic dominance. How did we learn to embrace translation as a playful act? How did we reclaim our agency as a people and assert our own identities in the face of oppressive language policies? How How De Karabaw De Batuten. \nSaif Alsaegh\, 1991\, open captions\, 12 min\, 2018 \n1991 revolves around a conversation between the filmmaker\, an Iraqi asylum-seeker living in the US\, and his mother Bushra\, an Iraqi immigrant who was living in Turkey while she awaited approval to immigrate to the US. Both are in uncertain positions regarding their immigration statuses and have not been able to see each other for years. 1991 navigates the distance between them. Through a facetime phone conversation\, the film expresses the ways that a relationship becomes virtual and symbolic across forced distance. 1991 is set in a cabin where the filmmaker lives a semi-imaginary\, peaceful life\, building fires\, cooking\, and dancing. The central phone conversation details Bushra’s memory of the filmmaker’s birth in the middle of the 1991 Gulf War and the danger and suffering she went through. Through poetic juxtaposition of the virtual landscape of the phone\, the calm landscape of the cabin\, and the chaotic landscape of memory\, the film paints a cruel image of the horror of war\, displacement\, and separation. \nNadia Shihab\, Echolocation\, open captions\, 9 min\, 2021 \nThe rain in Oakland\, my grandmother’s home in Baghdad\, my aunts’ voices in What’s App\, my daughter learning to count to 10\, my brother playing the darbuka\, the cicadas in Texas\, the walls of my studio\, the search for new forms.\nNote: Dialogue in Iraqi Turkman is intentionally not translated / subtitled. \nJJJJJerome Ellis\, Impediment is Information\, open captions\, 15 min\, 2021 \nThis music-video-poem work centers on an 18th century newspaper advertisement for the recapture of a fugitive slave with “an impediment in his speech.” A handheld camera captures blurry conifers; a saxophone prays to a mountain. By rearranging the words of the advertisement to create lines of poetry\, I am seeking new meanings and sites of resistance in the archive. The work was commissioned by ISSUE Project Room in New York City. It premiered on Juneteenth\, a day that recognizes the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States. In creating this work for the occasion of Juneteenth\, I wanted to celebrate Black freedom practices. I think these practices divinely exceed official proclamations\, emancipatory and otherwise. \nJohann Diedrick\, Dark Matters\, 2021 \nDark Matters exposes the absence of Black speech in the datasets used to train voice interface systems in consumer artificial intelligence products such as Alexa and Siri. Utilizing 3D modeling\, sound\, and storytelling\, the project challenges our communities to grapple with racism and inequity through speech and the spoken word\, and how AI systems underserve Black communities. \nAstria Suparak\, On the Neon Horizon\, 8:27 min\, 2023 \nOn the Neon Horizon is a short video essay that takes one of the world-building tics of white science fiction — gratuitous signage in Asian languages — to consider its utopian potential and dystopian applications. \nFantastical mise en scène\, breathtaking B-roll footage\, and special effects deliriums from four decades of mainstream sci-fi by white American\, Australian\, Canadian\, European\, and New Zealander filmmakers craft an insidiously Asian futurescape — sometimes achieved by simply shooting in a present-day Asian country or a North American Chinatown. In aggregate\, these productions inextricably tether non-white cultures to criminality and contagion\, portraying Asian cultures and people as existential threats to white Western ideas of freedom. \nSky Hopinka\, wawa\, open captions\, 4 min\, 2014 \nFeaturing speakers of chinuk wawa\, an Indigenous language from the Pacific Northwest\, this film begins slowly\, patterning various forms of documentary and ethnography. Quickly\, the patterns tangle and become confused and commingled\, while translating and transmuting ideas of cultural identity\, language\, and history. Courtesy of Video Data Bank. \nAlex Dolores Salerno\, El Dios Acostado\, 11 min\, 2020 \nEl Dios Acostado entangles conversations of rest\, care\, and colonialism\, and asks us to consider what the land has to teach us about rest. The video incorporates access as part of its aesthetic. Adding to the slow pace of the video\, all of the visual descriptions and narration are repeated twice\, once in Spanish and once in English\, with a doubling of large captions centered in the frame. The video begins with a nap alongside the mountain “Mandango”\, meaning “dios acostado” or “sleeping god”\, and describes the gentrification of the small town of Vilcabamba\, which was dubbed “the valley of longevity” by European and North American researchers in the 70s who the artist’s mother encountered as a child. The video then cuts to her hometown\, San Pedro de la Bendita\, a nearby town spared from worldwide recognition. Introduced through a view of family tombstones at the town’s cemetery\, the artist’s mother describes her relationship to her hometown\, highlighting the love and care that can flourish with a relationship to land and community. \nOlivia Ong Evans\, Identity Karma\, 11 min\, 2021 \nIdentity Karma is an abstract video project that emerged from a period of research and reflection on Suharto’s New Order Era in Indonesia. Creating the video was a way to reflect on the intergenerational consequences of cultural repression\, and the personal effects of anti-Chinese discrimination. It is an homage to my ancestors\, to my mother\, and to the land. The video was guided by the question: What happens to our cultural and racial identities when we are alone? It jumps between over-saturated\, multi-layered moments and landscapes removed from social context\, and scattered words in English\, Bahasa Indonesia\, Simplified Chinese\, and Hokkien. The distance and frustration of miscommunication co-exists with the closeness and familiarity that can be expressed through language. Footage from Bogor\, Indonesia and Haudenosaunee land in Buffalo and Western New York interact throughout the video. \n
\n\nAlex Dolores Salerno (b. 1994\, Washington D.C.) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn\, NY. Informed by queer-crip experience\, community\, and culture\, they work to critique standards of productivity\, notions of normative embodiment\, 24/7 society\, and the commodification of rest. Salerno received their MFA from Parsons School of Design and their BS from Skidmore College. They have exhibited at the Museum für Moderne Kunst (Frankfurt)\, Espacio de Arte Contemporáneo de Castellón (Castellón)\, ARGOS centre for audiovisual arts (Brussels)\, Art Windsor-Essex (Canada)\, The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation’s 8th Floor Gallery\, the Ford Foundation Gallery (NYC)\, among others. Salerno is a recipient of the 2022 Wynn Newhouse Awards\, and their work has been featured in the New York Times and Art in America. They recently participated in the Visual Artist AIRspace Residency at Abrons Arts Center (2022-2023)\, and they are currently in residence at BRIClab: Contemporary Art Residency Program at BRIC (2023-2024). \nAstria Suparak is an artist and curator based in Oakland\, California. Her cross-disciplinary projects address complex and urgent issues (like institutionalized racism\, feminisms and gender\, and colonialism) made accessible through a popular culture lens\, such as science fiction movies\, rock music\, and sports. \nchampoy (pronouns: they/them/he/him/she/her/siya ) is a Filipinx interdisciplinary artist\, filmmaker and educator weaving historical and personal narratives through film\, installation and performance.” \nJJJJJerome Ellis is a proud stutterer. Through music\, literature\, performance\, video\, and photography he researches relationships among blackness\, disabled speech\, divinity\, nature\, sound\, and time. His body of work includes: contemplative soundscapes using saxophone\, flute\, dulcimer\, electronics\, and vocals; scores for plays and podcasts; albums combining spoken word with ambient and jazz textures; theatrical explorations involving live music and storytelling; and music-video-poems that seek to transfigure archival documents. Born in 1989 to Jamaican and Grenadian immigrants\, he lives in Norfolk\, Virginia\, USA with his wife\, ecologist-poet Luísa Black Ellis. They like walking in the woods and drinking tea together. \nJohann Diedrick (he/him) is an artist\, engineer\, and educator who makes listening rooms for encountering new sonic possibilities off the grid. His performances\, installations\, and sculptures surface resonant histories of past interactions inscribed in material and embedded in space\, peeling back vibratory layers to reveal hidden memories and untold stories. He shares his tools and techniques through listening tours\, workshops\, and open-source hardware/software. \nNadia Shihab is an artist whose work explores the personal\, the relational and the diasporic. Her first feature documentary Jaddoland was awarded five festival jury awards including the Independent Spirit “Truer than Fiction”” Award in 2020. Her recent short films include Sister Mother Lover Child (2023)\, Echolocation (2021) and Amal’s Garden (2012). Her work has screened internationally\, including at Cinema du Réel\, Walker Art Center\, Berkeley Art Museum\, Black Star Film Festival\, Images Festival\, DOXA\, Camden International Film Festival\, Kassel Dokfest and Cairo International Film Festival. Her creative practice is preceded by a decade of work as a community practitioner and housing advocate in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was raised in west Texas by immigrant parents from Iraq and Yemen and is an Assistant Professor in Film in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. \nOlivia Ong Evans is an artist living in Buffalo\, New York on Haudenosaunee homelands. Her video art often explores themes of migration and identity construction through experimental glitch. To shape identity from change\, to find meaning in misunderstanding\, to imagine home. Her video Identity Karma was created as part of the Squeaky Wheel Workspace Residency in the Summer of 2021. \nSaif Alsaegh is a United States-based filmmaker from Baghdad. Much of Saif’s work deals with the contrast between the landscape of his youth in Baghdad growing up as part of the indigenous Chaldean minority in the nineties and early 2000s\, and the U.S. landscape where he currently lives. His films have screened in festivals including Cinéma du Réel\, Kurzfilm Hamburg\, Kassel Dokfest\, Aesthetica Short Film Festival\, and in galleries and museums including the Wisconsin Triennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and Rochester Contemporary Art Center. \nSky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) was born and raised in Ferndale\, Washington and spent a number of years in Palm Springs and Riverside\, California\, Portland\, Oregon\, and Milwaukee\, Wisconsin. In Portland he studied and taught chinuk wawa\, a language indigenous to the Lower Columbia River Basin. His video\, photo\, and text work centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and landscape\, designs of language as containers of culture expressed through personal\, documentary\, and non fiction forms of media. His work has played at various festivals including Sundance\, Toronto International Film Festival\, Ann Arbor\, Courtisane Festival\, Punto de Vista\, and the New York Film Festival. His work was a part of the 2017 Whitney Biennial\, the 2018 FRONT Triennial and Prospect.5 in 2021. He was a guest curator at the 2019 Whitney Biennial and participated in Cosmopolis #2 at the Centre Pompidou. He has had a solo exhibition at the Center for Curatorial Studies\, Bard College\, in 2020 and in 2022 at LUMA in Arles\, France. He was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University in 2018- 2019\, a Sundance Art of Nonfiction Fellow for 2019\, an Art Matters Fellow in 2019\, a recipient of a 2020 Alpert Award for Film/Video\, a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow\, and was a 2021 Forge Project Fellow. He received the 2022 Infinity Award in Art from the International Center of Photography\, and is a 2022 MacArther Fellow. \n \nAstria Suparak\, On the Neon Horizon\, 8:27 min\, 2023Saif Alsaegh\, 1991\, 12 min\, 2018Alex Dolores Salerno\, El Dios Acostado\, 11 min\, 2020Johann Diedrick\, Dark Matters\, 2021Nadia Shihab\, Echolocation\, 9 min\, 2021Olivia Ong Evans\, Identity Karma\, 11 min\, 2021JJJJJerome Ellis\, Impediment is Information\, 15 min\, 2021Sky Hopinka\, wawa\, 4 min 2014champoy\, english is yr mother tongue\, 4 min\, 2020\nImages from left to right\, top to bottom: Astria Suparak\, On the Neon Horizon (2023); Saif Alsaegh\, 1991 (2018); Alex Dolores Salerno\, El Dios Acostado (2020)\, Johann Diedrick\, Dark Matters (2021); Nadia Shihab\, Echolocation (2021); Olivia Ong Evans\, Identity Karma (2021); JJJJJerome Ellis\, Impediment is Information (2021); Sky Hopinka\, wawa (2014); champoy\, english is yr mother tongue (2020).\nBanner image: JJJJJerome Ellis\, Impediment is Information (2021). URL:https://squeaky.org/event/echolocations-films-in-translation-and-transcription/ LOCATION:Squeaky Wheel\, 2495 Main Street\, Suite 310\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14214\, United States CATEGORIES:Hybrid,Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/impediment-still-1.jpg GEO:42.8906261;-78.8721258 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Squeaky Wheel 2495 Main Street Suite 310 Buffalo NY 14214 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=2495 Main Street\, Suite 310:geo:-78.8721258,42.8906261 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230928T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230928T210000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191523Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191523Z UID:10001115-1695927600-1695934800@squeaky.org SUMMARY:The Animation Fest: A Retrospective @ North Park Theatre DESCRIPTION:Thursday\, September 28\, 7 pm ET\n$7\nPurchase tickets to in-person screening at North Park Theatre (or just show up!)\nPurchase tickets to online screening via Eventbrite\nJoin us at the legendary North Park Theatre for a special retrospective screening that brings together 10 short films from the past 20 years of our Animation Fest! The short films collected here exemplify our little fest’s promise and potential: Personal visions and experiments\, and surprising and poignant uses of tools and technologies; and social and political commitment and critique. Open to young people and adults\, this special screening is Squeaky Wheel’s big fundraiser for the year – we invite our communities near and far to join us in celebration! \nThe 10 filmmakers present a vital cross section of our many communities\, from legends of the field to former Squeaky Wheel students from Buffalo and beyond\, including films by Adele Han Li\, Amanda Bonaiuto\, Ayoka Chenzira\, Hannah R.W. Hamalian\, Helen Hill\, Jazmyn Palermo\, Jodie Mack\, Leslie Supnet\, Maria Zjaia\, Miranda Javid\, and Robert C Banks. \nBegun as an outdoor screening in 2004\, the fest celebrates animation in all its forms. Often organized by emerging guest curators\, the fest has featured hundreds of classic and cutting edge animated works. All funds from this event go towards our award-winning exhibition\, education\, and equipment access programs. Join us! \nPlease note that the final two films\, X: The Baby Cinema and Second Sun feature flickering effects. Jodie Mack’s Unsubscribe #4: The Saddest Song in the World will not be available online\, and will only be screened in person. The total duration of the in-person screening is ~53 minutes; the online screening duration is ~50 minutes. \n
\n\nMaria Ziaja\, One Speck in the Universe\, 1 min\, open captions\, 2013\nMaria Ziaja\, Flying Bird\, 1 min\, 2013\nMaria Ziaja created these two videos during her time taking a Stop-Motion Animation class as part of Squeaky Wheel’s Tech Arts for Girls program\, taught by Alice Alexandrescu; the two films were included in the 2013 edition of the Animation Fest\, programmed by Squeaky Wheel’s 2013 staff and interns\, including Jax Deluca\, Mark Longolucco\, and Ryan Crowley. \nHelen Hill\, Madame Winger Makes a Film: A Survival Guide for the 21st Century\, 10 min\, 2001\nMadame Winger wants you to make a film about something you love. She shows you her favorite low budget filmmaking techniques\, from camera less animation to processing your own film in a bathtub. Filmed in 16 mm. Helen Hill’s work was featured in the first edition of the Animation Fest. Special thank you to Mark Johnson and the Harvard Film Archive. \nHannah R.W. Hamalian\, The Golden Age\, 9:58 min\, open captions\, 2021\n“An experimental documentary examining the traumatic history of being a woman at work in the animation industry. I put myself into conversation with a generation of women who experienced restricted creative opportunities in animation and a lack of acknowledgement as artists. Each manipulated frame is an ode to the disregarded labor of women\, wielded to create films that told young girls to dream.” – Hannah R.W. Hamalian. The Golden Age was included in the 2022 edition\, curated by Ekrem Serdar and Zainab Saleh; her work was previously included in the 2017 edition guest curated by Savion “Ineil Quaran” Mingo. \nAyoka Chenzira\, Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy Headed People\, 10:26 min\, open captions\, 1985\n“I was very concerned with the question of black women in this country and self-image aesthetics. If you look at all the commercials that come out and tell you how to fix yourself\, they are all based on the idea that there is something wrong with you. And so\, having a child\, these things became very glaring\, and I think that’s a part of Hairpiece. Hairpiece is funny\, but it comes from a position of real anger.” – Ayoka Chenzira. Included in the 2004 edition of the Animation Fest\, Hair Piece was one of the twenty-five films selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2018. The film received a 4K restoration by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation with funding from the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation\, which is the version that is on view. Film courtesy of Kino Lorber and Milestone Films. \nAdele Han Li\, Chella Drive\, 3:29 min\, digital video on projection\, sound on speakers\, 2016.\n“A dreamlike memory of a teenager’s summer complacency and the luscious suburban environment that surrounds her. Made using hand drawn animations projected onto real life settings and rephotographed frame by frame.” – Adele Han Li. Chella Drive as included in the 2016 edition curated by Ekrem Serdar. \nJodie Mack\, Unsubscribe #4: The Saddest Song in the World\, 2:50 min\, 2010\n…broken-hearted and mashed up. – Jodie Mack. This film was included in the 2012 edition of the Animation Fest; Mack’s films were included also in the 2016 edition of the fest. Film courtesy of Canyon Cinema.\n \nAmanda Bonaiuto\, Batfish Soup\, 5 min\, 2016\n“Wacky relatives give way to mounting tensions with broken dolls\, boiling stew and a bang.\nDIRECTOR’S NOTES:\nBatfish Soup is a fictionalized absurdist film based on memories of freakish childhood visitations with my grandparents. Though the film’s spark was autobiographical\, the film transformed over the course of its production into something more fictional. This film epitomizes my interest in the darkly humorous underpinnings of domestic drama. I produced this film as my first year film in the MFA Experimental Animation Program at California Institute of the Arts.”\nBatfish Soup was included in the 2017 edition of the Animation Fest\, guest curated by Jean Zhu. Bonaiuto work was additionally screened in the 2019 edition\, guest curated by Leanne Goldblatt. \nMiranda Javid\, What Humans Do\, 6:40 min\, 2023\n“A macro view of human-actions\, as told from within a singular body. The film is a catalog of homo sapien instincts; its sequences interlace extractive qualities of our species with embodied sensory experience\, in favor of a mindful awareness of what humans do to their habitats and planet Earth at-large.” – Miranda Javid. \nJazmyn Palermo\, Teenie Hams’ Adventures in Genderland\, 9:54 min\, 2018\n“Teenie Hams’ Adventures in Genderland is a stop-motion animation that explores a transgender perspective of finding oneself. As Teenie enters a world of fairies\, witches\, creatures\, ghouls and vampires\, they find themself on an adventure in the world of people they have only heard of in scary stories. They find friends and helpful hands along the way on their adventure of exploration and self discovery.” – Jazmyn Palermo. Teenie Hams’ Adventures in Genderland was included in the 2020 edition\, guest curated by Tabia Lewis. \nRobert C Banks\, X: The Baby Cinema\, 5 min\, 1992\nDrawing by hand directly on 16mm film\, Banks challenges commercial appropriations of the image of Malcolm X. The film was included in the 2007 edition of the Animation Fest\, guest curated by Kerry Maeve Sheehan.\n \nLeslie Supnet\, Second Sun\, 3 min\, 2014\n“The rising sound of drums emphasizes flashes of lights\, images of the solar system and a post-apocalyptic imagining of the birth of our Second Sun.” – Leslie Supnet \n“Leslie Supnet’s hand-drawn animation piece is an extension of her previous work First Sun (2014)\, with the monochrome drawings of the latter giving way to bright primary pencil colours. Like its predecessor\, Second Sun extensively employs basic geometrical shapes to represent cosmic phenomena and is scored to an exhortative percussive soundtrack hinting at a ritual\, a summoning. The figures move strictly horizontally or vertically on checkered paper as though underscoring their mathematically precise cyclicity\, with the central solar circle spawning clone stars\, moons\, planets and an entire solar system. The overall impression is that of witnessing a trance-inducing cultic invocation.” – Experimenta India” \n
\n\nWorking in painting\, video\, and installation\, Adele Han Li explores creating immersive and evocative environments through mixing materials and colliding surfaces. Her work has been exhibited at festivals and galleries throughout the US and internationally. Beyond her own creative projects\, Adele was previously programmer and festival manager of the Slamdance Film Festival\, and is passionate about cultivating inclusive and nurturing spaces for fellow artists. She studied animation at CalArts and painting at Yale and is now playing with textiles\, projectors and ceramics in her home studio just outside Los Angeles\, California. \nAmanda Bonaiuto (b. 1990) is an animation director\, artist\, and educator living in New York. She is best known for her short films and commissioned pieces which have screened at film festivals and galleries worldwide. She’s inspired by humor and tilted realities. She received a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts\, Boston in 2012 and an MFA in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts in 2018. She is an assistant professor of Illustration at Parsons School of Design\, and makes films and commissions in her studio. \nMeet Ayoka Chenzira\, the multi-talented and award-winning filmmaker\, Emmy and NAACP nominated television director\, and digital media artist.\nAs a child\, Ayoka discovered her interest in storytelling while listening to women talk in her mother’s Philadelphia beauty parlor. With a background in modern dance\, photography\, and music\, she discovered her passion for filmmaking after being taken to every age-inappropriate movie that her cinephile parent could find. Since then\, Ayoka is known to work across a range of genres\, including drama\, science fiction\, documentary\, animation\, and interactive cinema. As an actor’s director\, able to work with various acting styles and degrees of experience\, Ayoka’s visionary style of storytelling and character development takes center stage as does her ability to emotionally and visually elevate a story. Read more here. \nHannah R.W. Hamalian (she/her) is an artist intrigued by how complicated the world is. In her animation and film practice she tends towards an experimental and poetic mode of expression\, working with the movement of animation in collaboration with dance and landscape to represent paradox and complexity. She uses an interdisciplinary approach to aim for the emotional core of an experience and craft immersive soundscapes that create a space specifically designed for asking questions.\nHannah’s work has screened and shown at festivals internationally\, including ADF’s Movies by Movers\, KLIK Amsterdam Animation Festival\, Athens International Film and Video Festival (Ohio\, USA)\, and the Squeaky Wheel Animation Fest (New York\, USA). She received her BA from Carleton College and her MFA from UW-Milwaukee\, and she currently teaches at Lane Community College in Eugene\, OR. \nHelen Hill (1970 – 2007) was an experimental animator\, filmmaker\, educator\, artist\, writer and social activist who lived her last years in New Orleans\, Louisiana. A native of Columbia\, South Carolina\, Hill revealed her artistic talents at an early age\, making her first short\, animated Super 8 films when she was eleven. While studying English at Harvard (BS ’92)\, she minored in Visual and Environmental Studies where she made three 16mm animated short films: Rain Dance\, Upperground Show and Vessel. After receiving an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in Experimental Animation\, Hill\, along with her husband Paul Gailiunas\, moved to his native Canada where he was studying medicine and where she continued to create films and teach film animation at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (now NSCAD University) and at the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative (AFCOOP). Soon after\, Hill and Gailiunas moved to New Orleans where Gailiunas would found a medical clinic for artists and low-income patients and where Hill\, meanwhile\, co-founded the New Orleans Film Collective and taught filmmaking. Read more here. \nJazmyn Palermo is a visual and expanded media artist living and working in Buffalo\, NY. They studied Fine Art at Alfred University with a focus in photography and video art. Their work explores a transgender perspective on fairy tales\, folklore\, and horror themes incorporating a stop-motion process and a lot of papier-mache. Their process includes asking their friends to put on a wig and move very\, very slowly. Jazmyn is inspired by the wonderful people they know and the beautiful place they live. They would like their work to create a comfortable place to enjoy the magic of finding yourself. \nJodie Mack (born 1983; London\, UK) is an experimental animator. Her films unleash the kinetic energy of material remnants of domestic and institutional knowledge to illuminate the relationship between decoration and utility. Straddling the boundary between rigor and accessibility\, her cinema questions how we ascribe value to things.\nMack’s 16mm films have screened at a variety of venues including the Locarno Film Festival\, the Toronto International Film Festival\, the New York Film Festival\, the Jeonju International Film Festival\, and the Viennale. She has presented solo programs at the 25FPS Festival\, Anthology Film Archives\, BFI London Film Festival\, Harvard Film Archive\, National Gallery of Art\, REDCAT\, International Film Festival Rotterdam\, Shenzhen Independent Animation Biennale\, and Wexner Center for the Arts among others. Her work has been featured in publications including Artforum\, Cinema Scope\, The New York Times\, and Senses of Cinema. She was a 2017/18 Radcliffe Fellow; a 2019 Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts; a 2021 MacDowell Fellow; and a 2022 Visual Studies Center Fellow. She is a Professor of Animation at Dartmouth College. \nLeslie Supnet is an experimental filmmaker who creates media works that explore loss and change. Using animation\, live-action\, found footage and material exploration\, Supnet’s process is guided by lyricism and personal affect\, often bending analog and digital techniques. Leslie completed her MFA in Film at York University in 2016. Leslie’s works have screened at festivals such as TIFF\, International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)\, International Film Festival Oberhausen\,Images Festival\, Onion City\, The Edge of Frame Weekend at the London International Animation Festival and as part of special programmes at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec\, Art Gallery of Hamilton and the AGO. She has created commissions for Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival\, ArtSpin/Pleasuredome\, Film POP!/POP! Montreal and Plug In ICA. \nMaria Ziaja is from Buffalo\, NY\, and is most passionate about Sustainability and Environmental Policy. She graduated from Vassar College with a degree in Environmental Studies and Russian and has worked in environmental consulting\, non-profit conservation initiatives\, and EHS policy for energy companies. She currently works at the Greenway Institute\, where she is helping reshape engineering education around goals of equity and sustainability. Before moving out of Buffalo for college\, Maria spent her formative years taking TechArts classes at Squeaky Wheel\, both at the Ansonia Building and Market Arcade locations. She feels that over the years these classes helped her grow creatively and develop an appreciation for the arts that still influences her work (now in the education sector). She is honored to be part of the Animation Fest! \nMiranda Javid (she/her) is an animator\, curator\, and art-educator currently living in Kingston New York. Her animations describe topics like cognitive experience\, human bias\, and the relationship between individuals and their communities. \nRobert C. Banks Jr. was born and raised in Cleveland\, Ohio in 1966\, and has attended Cleveland Institute of Art and Cleveland State University\, and has also served in the U.S. Air Force. Inspired by his father\, Banks is an experimental filmmaker\, cinematographer\, and teacher of filmmaking and photography at numerous colleges and universities. Banks’ films have been screened at numerous prestigious film festivals and art institutions\, both domestically and abroad\, such as Sundance Film Festival\, SXSW Film-Music Festival\, International Film Festival Rotterdam\, Museum of Modern Art\, The Robert Flaherty Film Seminar\, Chicago Underground Film Festival\, and Ann Arbor. He is a recipient of numerous awards\, including Filmmaker of the Year at the Midwest Filmmaker’s Conference\, and his film retrospectives have been featured at The BBC British Short Film Festival\, The Cleveland Cinematheque\, and The Walker Center for the Arts. One of Banks’ best-known works is the 1992 short film X: The Baby Cinema\, which chronicles the commercialization of Malcolm X’s image and legacy. Some of his other films include Motion Picture Genocide\, My First Drug\, the Idiot Box\, Outlet\, Goldfish and Sunflowers\, AWOL\, Autopilot\, and Don’t Be Still\, all of which were shot and edited on 16 and 35 mm film. Several of his short films have been added to the private collections of institutions such as The Yale University Film School and The Walker Center for the Arts. Most recently\, Banks has completed his first 35 mm feature film\, Paper Shadows\, which was seven years in the making. \nSponsors\nSqueaky Wheel’s Animation Fest is presented with generous support from the Richard W. Rupp Foundation\, FGI Landscaping\, PUSH Buffalo\, TriMain Center\, Rigidized Metals\, BreadHive\, Buffalo Expendables\, Buffalo State College Communication Dept\, Rose Jade Consulting Coop\, Lumpy Buttons Gifts\, Good Neighbors Credit Union\, and Villa Maria College. The North Park Theater event is presented with generous support from Councilman Joel Feroleto. \n\nBanner image: Hannah Hamalian\, The Golden Age. Yellow\, green\, and black paint is smeared into an abstracted version of a familiar cartoon dog character. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/the-animation-fest-a-retrospective-north-park-theatre/ LOCATION:North Park Theatre\, 1428 Hertel Avenue\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14216\, United States CATEGORIES:Fundraiser,Hybrid,Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/hamalian_golden-age_02-scaled.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20230728 DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20230829 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191506Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191506Z UID:10001111-1690502400-1693267199@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Call for submissions: Squeaky Wheel's 20th Animation Fest! DESCRIPTION:Deadline: August 28\, 2023\, 11:59 PM\nNotification Date: October 1\, 2023\nSqueaky Wheel announces the call for submissions for our annual Animation Fest! Celebrating its 20th year\, we are proud to continue a festival showcasing artworks made in a diverse variety of animation techniques such as stop-motion\, claymation\, 3D animation\, hand-painted film\, special effects\, and motion graphics. Past festivals have showcased work from both rising artists as well as established artists. \nThe 20th Animation Fest will be held online and in-person on Friday\, November 3\, 2022\, an in-person screening at the Buffalo AKG Museum and a virtual screening through Squeaky Wheel. Films in the virtual program will be accessible for 24 hours thereafter for general audiences\, and 72 hours for Squeaky Wheel members. If selected\, you will be asked for a downloadable copy of your film. \nEach individual submission should not exceed ~10 minutes.\nThere is no submission fee.\nAll selected artists will receive a screening fee of $100 per selected film. (International applicants must have a Paypal account to receive their screening fee).\nAll selected artists will receive a one year membership to Squeaky Wheel.\nMultiple submissions per artist are accepted. Multiple submissions per artist are accepted. Artists who are African/Black\, Indigenous / Native / Aboriginal\, POC\, creatives with disabilities\, women\, 2SLGBTQIA+\, and artists who face systemic and structural barriers are highly encouraged to apply. \nClick here to submit\nPlease direct any questions about the application process and your submissions to Ekrem Serdar at ekrem@squeaky.org \nBanner image: An illustration of a red film projector against a starry backdrop. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/call-for-submissions-squeaky-wheels-20th-animation-fest/ LOCATION:Squeaky Wheel\, 2495 Main Street\, Suite 310\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14214\, United States CATEGORIES:Open Call,Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/AnimationFestBanner.jpg GEO:42.8906261;-78.8721258 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Squeaky Wheel 2495 Main Street Suite 310 Buffalo NY 14214 United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=2495 Main Street\, Suite 310:geo:-78.8721258,42.8906261 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230413T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230413T210000 DTSTAMP:20260502T143106 CREATED:20251230T191451Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251230T191451Z UID:10001093-1681408800-1681419600@squeaky.org SUMMARY:Soon-rye Yim's 와이키키 브라더스 (Waikiki Brothers)\, with Molly Hyo Kim DESCRIPTION:Thursday\, April 13\, 2023\, 6–9 pm\n@ Journey’s End Refugee Services (2495 Main Street\, Suite #530)\nFree or suggested donation\nPresented as the opening of the symposium Genre\, Gender and Language in Korean Film and Drama\, Soon-rye Yim’s 와이키키 브라더스 (Waikiki Brothers\, 109 min\, 2001) is about high school friends who form a band and struggle to find success\, relationships and happiness. The screening will be followed by a lecture by Molly Kim of Hanyang University about the film’s writer and director\, Soon-rye Yim. The lecture\, “Korean Cinema and The Single Woman: Korean Women Filmmakers through Yim Soon-rye\,” will be the opening keynote lecture of UB Asia Research Institute’s Korean studies symposium\, followed by a Q&A with Margaret Rhee\, assistant professor of Media Studies at SUNY Buffalo and The New School\, and Ekrem Serdar\, curator at Squeaky Wheel. Special thank you to Kathy Spillman and Journey’s End Refugee Services. \nMolly Hyo Kim is Adjunct Professor of the College of Humanities at Hanyang University. She earned a Ph.D. in Communications from the University of Illinois\, Urbana-Champaign\, an M.A. in Cinema Studies from New York University\, and a B.A. in Communication and Culture from Indiana University at Bloomington. She has published her works in Acta Koreana\, the Journal of Cultural Studies\, the International Journal of Korean History\, and more. \nMargaret Rhee is a poet\, scholar and new media artist. Rhee’s debut poetry collection\, “Love\, Robot\,” was published in 2017 and has been named a 2017 Best Book of Poetry by Entropy Magazine and awarded a 2018 Elgin Award by the Science Fiction Poetry Association and the 2019 Best Book Award in Poetry by the Asian American Studies Association. \nAs a new media artist\, her project The Kimchi Poetry Machine is exhibited at the Electronic Literature Review Volume III and included in the anthology Art as Social Practice: Technologies for Change(Routledge\, 2022). From 2008 – 2018\, with collaborators from the San Francisco Department of Public Health\, she co-lead the participatory project From the Center which focused on digital storytelling\, women of color\, and HIV/AIDS education in the San Francisco Jail. \nRhee is an assistant professor at The New School in the School of Media Studies. Prior to The New School\, Rhee held a faculty appointments at the University at Buffalo-SUNY\, Harvard\, and University of Oregon. Rhee earned her Ph.D. from the University of California\, Berkeley in ethnic studies with a Designated Emphasis in new media studies\, and her B.A. in Creative Writing/English from the University of Southern California. \nThis symposium Genre\, Gender and Language in Korean Film and Drama will feature scholars from the U.S\, Asia and Europe examining a wide range of topics in Korean film and television\, including sexuality\, LGBTQ representation\, translation\, violence\, and popular productions like Squid Game and Parasite. This event is sponsored by the UB Asia Research Institute\, Academy of Korean Studies\, and Squeaky Wheel. Cosponsors include the UB Departments of Media Study\, English\, Global Gender and Sexuality Studies\, Art\, and Linguistics\, UB Asian Studies Program\, Global Film Studies Minor Program\, and Gender Institute. \nImage: A still from Waikiki Brothers. Four young people looking off to the side of the camera lens on a sunny day. URL:https://squeaky.org/event/soon-rye-yims-%ec%99%80%ec%9d%b4%ed%82%a4%ed%82%a4-%eb%b8%8c%eb%9d%bc%eb%8d%94%ec%8a%a4-waikiki-brothers-with-molly-hyo-kim/ LOCATION:Journey’s End Refugee Services\, 2495 Main Street\, Suite #530\, Buffalo\, NY\, 14214\, United States CATEGORIES:Screenings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://squeaky.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/waikiki-brothers.jpg END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR