Light Matter Film Festival

Supported by the Dean’s Office of the New York State College of Ceramics (NYSCC) at Alfred University, the Institute for Electronic Arts, and Divisions of Art History and Expanded Media, the second annual Light Matter Film Festival will take place in Holmes Auditorium on the campus of Alfred University and the TS1/Harland Snodgrass Gallery from November 4-6, 2022. Light Matter 2022 will present 70 experimental films and media art works from 20 countries across eight programs and a special selection of works in the TS1/Harland Snodgrass Gallery. Highlights includes 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.

Light Matter is co-curated by James Hansen and Eric Souther. 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. There will be no virtual components.

Please visit lightmatterfilmfestival.com for complete program information. Press inquiries and additional questions can be directed to lightmatterfilmfestival@gmail.com.

Program One: Liquid Traits
November 4, 2022, 5:30 PM, Holmes Auditorium
Films by Vera Sebert, Maxime Hot, Patrick Tarrant, Justin Clifford Rhody, Mati Pirsztuk, Lewis Klahr, Stephanie Castonguay Michael Lyons & Haruka Mitani, Abigail Smith, Kasta Yazdani & Golrokh Hemmati, Jodie Mack, Owen Klatte, and NO1.

Spotlight: Larry Gottheim
Friday November 4 (7:30 PM) and Saturday November 5 (1 PM)
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 Entanglement. 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.

All films will be screened via digital file. Special thanks to the Dean’s Office of NYSCC School of Art & Design at Alfred University, the Divisions of Expanded Media and Art History, and the Institute for Electronic Arts.

Program Four: Within the Fold
Saturday November 5, 2022, 3:30 PM, Holmes Auditorium
Film 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 November 5, 2022, 5:30 PM, Holmes Auditorium
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 & Renato Coelho, and Sofia Theodore-Pierce & Grace Mitchell.

Program Six: Tilted Perception
Saturday November 5, 2022, 7:30 PM, Holmes Auditorium
Films by Stephen Wardell, Siegfried Fruhauf, Brandon Wilson, Maxime Hot, Noé Grenier, Lydia Nsiah, Linnea Nugent, and Alexandre Alagôa.

Program Seven: Fugitive Detectives
Sunday November 5, 2022, 1 PM, Holmes Auditorium
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 November 6, 2022, 3 PM, Holmes Auditorium
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.

"The humdrum becomes slowly and cumulatively fascinating across the three hours of Australian David Easteal’s quietly radical feature-length debut The Plains.” Neil Young, Screen Daily

"… an acute portrait of modern life—one in which otherwise unarticulated beliefs, regrets, and anxieties bring to light a shared humanity too often lost in the commotion of the world.” -Jordan Cronk, Film Comment

Light Matter Film Festival
TS1 / Harland Snodgrass Gallery
Alongside the shorts program, Light Matter 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 & 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.