Alfred University News

Second annual Light Matter Film Festival to be held over three days at Alfred University

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Alfred University will host the second annual Light Matter Film Festival Nov. 4-6. The three-day event will present 70 experimental films and media art works from 20 countries.

Alfred University will host the second annual Light Matter Film Festival Nov. 4-6. The three-day event will present 70 experimental films and media art works from 20 countries.

The festival is supported by the New York State College of Ceramics (NYSCC) at Alfred University, the Institute for Electronic Arts, and Divisions of Art History and Expanded Media. Light Matter is co-curated by James Hansen, assistant professor of Art history, and Eric Souther, associate professor of video art. Dedicated to the integration of experimental film and media art worlds, Light Matter seeks to bring together often disparate voices and highlight the work of international, emerging, and underrecognized artists.

All programs are in-person and free to attend. Please visit Light Matter Film Festival website for complete program information.

Festival highlights will include an in-person visit from legendary avant-garde filmmaker Larry Gottheim, alongside the World Premiere of his new video Entanglement, as well as four additional World Premieres, fourteen North American Premieres, nine US premieres, and twenty-one New York premieres.

Following is a schedule of events:

  • Program One: Liquid Traits—Friday, Nov. 4, 2022, 5:30 p.m., Holmes Auditorium, Harder Hall. Films by Vera Sebert, Maxime Hot, Patrick Tarrant, Justin Clifford Rhody, Mati Pirsztuk, Lewis Klahr, Stephanie Castonguay Michael Lyons and Haruka Mitani, Abigail Smith, Kasta Yazdani and Golrokh Hemmati, Jodie Mack, Owen Klatte, and NO1.
  • Spotlight: Larry Gottheim—Friday, Nov. 4, 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, Nov. 5, 1 p.m., Holmes Auditorium, Harder Hall Light Matter is proud to welcome legendary avant-garde filmmaker Larry Gottheim to the festival for two programs curated by the artist himself. The first includes recent video work, including the World Premiere of a new video. The screening will be followed by a conversation with Light Matter co-founder and co-programmer James Hansen. The second program includes two earlier films followed by a lecture on Four Shadows from Gottheim.
  • Program Four: Within the Fold—Saturday, Nov. 5, 3:30 p.m., Holmes Auditorium, Harder Hall. Films by Brandon Wilson, Kalpana Subramanian, Chap Edmonson, Carlos Velandia, Nuria González Pimentel, Abinadi Meza, Sounak Das, Ben Russell, Masha Vlasova, Justin Clifford Rhody, and David Witzling.
  • Program Five: Potential Spaces—Saturday, Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m., Holmes Auditorium, Harder Hall. Films by Alix Blevins, Leonardo Pirondi, Amanda Katz, Mandy Eugeniou, Crystal Z Campbell, Federico Cuatlacuatl, Lucía Malandro & Daniel Saucedo, Christopher Tym, Carleen Maur, Priscyla Bettim and Renato Coelho, and Sofia Theodore-Pierce and Grace Mitchell.
  • Program Six: Tilted Perception— Saturday, Nov. 5, 3:30 p.m., Holmes Auditorium, Harder Hall. Films by Stephen Wardell, Siegfried Fruhauf, Brandon Wilson, Maxime Hot, Noé Grenier, Lydia Nsiah, Linnea Nugent, and Alexandre Alagôa.
  • Program Seven: Fugitive Detectives—Sunday, 6, 1 p.m., Holmes Auditorium, Harder Hall. Films by Lilian Robl, Mary Helena Clark, Maxime Corbeil-Perron, Josh Weissbach, Lucrecia L. Henrique, Tulapop Saenjroen, DOPLGENGR, and Simon Liu.
  • Program Eight: The Plains (David Easteal, Australia, 2022, 180 minutes)— Sunday, 6, 3 p.m., Holmes Auditorium, Harder Hall. Every evening a man in his late 50s commutes home at the end of the working day in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. As the seasons pass in gentle rhythm we observe dramatic events of his life as well as mundane quotidian details, and learn more about the man, his inner conflicts and the relationships in his life – with his wife, his mother, deceased sister, and a younger co-worker whom he occasionally drives home. Within the microcosm of the car the film ultimately becomes a meditation on the passage of time, memory, work, and how love and the relationships in our life sustain us.

 Alongside the shorts program, Light Matter Film Festival is proud to present a selection of works specially curated for the TS1 / Harland Snodgrass Gallery from October 31 to November 6. Films, videos, and media art works by Karen Donnellan, Mark Reynolds, Jen Kutler, Monica Duncan and Senem Pirler, Charline Dally and Gabrielle Harnois-Blouin, Crystal Z Campbell, Yvette Granata, Victor Galles, Wrik Mead, KT Duffy, S4RA, VLM, Rosita Piritore, Chris O’Neill, JesterN, Alex Broadwell, Parnian Donvari, Genadzi Buto, April Lin, Yanbin Zhao, Christine Drake, and Colleen Keough.