Wraiths and Reveries

The Easter Rain, by Milly Yencken

Los Angeles Filmforum presents
 
Wraiths and Reveries

Saturday August 24, 2024, 7:30pm
 
At 2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90057
 
In person: MARAL, Annapurna Kumar, Jackie Turpin, Ellie Thatcher, and curator Sam Gurry; Martha Colburn and Danski Tang, schedules permitting

Four premieres!

New and old animated films by Martha Colburn, Danski Tang, Annapurna Kumar, Jackie Turpin, MARAL, Ellie Thatcher, Petra Freeman, Brenna Murphy, Milly Yencken, Evelyn Jane Ross. 

The thickness of late summer melts everything. Thawing colors, forms, and textures coalesce into one. Even our minds feel hazy and everything is harder to parse out. To dream, to be certain. An unsteady foot crosses a mountain, a dimly lit doll sits in an alcove, and a wall of rock seems to have sprung up around you. Wraiths linger in the quiet corners of our reveries, where we become kings in lands of endless possibilities.

Showcasing a variety of techniques, this program features films that feel like an oddly familiar hand slipping into yours. Seeping impasto fog meets ragged digital edges, creating a visual symphony that is both jarring and comforting. These films explore the boundaries of the erotic, the mundane, and the sacred, weaving them together into a tapestry of sensory experiences. Each piece invites you to lose yourself in its dreamlike narrative, where the line between reality and imagination fades, and you are left to navigate the shifting landscapes of your own perception.

Join us for a cinematic journey through the melting pot of late summer's essence, where the familiar becomes strange and the strange becomes familiar. Embrace the blur, the uncertainty, and the beauty of these films as we melt together.

We’re delighted that several of the filmmakers will be joining us in person!

Notes and Program by Sam Gurry

Biographies:

Petra Freeman grew up in Cornwall. Studied at Falmouth School Of Art, Wimbledon School Of Art and the Royal College Of Art. After leaving college Petra has continued to work on animated films and other art projects as well as teaching in Art Schools. Married with two children, she currently lives and works in Bath, Somerset.

Originally from China, Danski Tang is an animation filmmaker and artist now based in Los Angeles. Specializing in 2D hand-drawn animation, visual art, and experimental documentary, Danski uses animation as a means to investigate themes of memories, subconscious, cultural indoctrination, and body politics. Her work has been shown in numerous international film festivals such as MoMA DocFortnight, Melbourne International Film Festival, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Annecy International Animated Film Festival, Hiroshima International Animation Festival, Vienna Shorts Festival. Her latest film “Umbilical” won the Pardino d’argento (Silver Leopard) SRG SSR at the International Competition at the 72 Locarno Film Festival, the Eileen Maitland Award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Best Animated Short at the San Diego Asian Film Festival 2019, and Honorable Mention for Documentary Short at Slamdance 2020, the Best Short Documentary at DOXA Documentary Film Festival 2020. Danski holds an MFA in Experimental Animation from California Institute of the Arts and a BFA in animation from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art. She currently teaches at Cal Arts and Cal State University Long Beach.

Born in rural Pennsylvania, Martha Colburn is an artist and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, CA. She has a B.A. from Maryland Institute College of Art and was a resident at the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunst in the Netherlands. In 2010 two of her films joined the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Her work is in museum and private collections and she has performed with music and film projections since her early 20’s. Currently she performs with the group Tedious Limbs, and is producing music films for Brian Marsella and other composers and/ or musicians. She has an upcoming solo exhibit at Dat Bolwerck (NL) in 2025 and is currently in the Paper Biennale 2024 titled ‘Animal Farm’ at Museum Rijkswijk (NL).

Annapurna Kumar is a filmmaker whose work is largely inspired by machines and gaming, but which manifests as diaristic, playful fantasies with a very human touch. Themes of fertility and mortality, ecological utopia, erotic fantasy, maze navigation, and a preoccupation with plastic recur throughout her short films, which are fast-paced, non-linear, and at times, totally abstract. Her work blends CGI and drawn animation, 16mm filmmaking techniques, and camera-stand stop-motion. She is currently a Visiting Lecturer at UCLA Design Media Arts and an adjunct faculty member in the Cal Arts Experimental Animation Department. 

Jackie Turpin is an artist living in Los Angeles, CA. Her practice is rooted in animation and takes the form of saturated, hyper-kinetic short films, installations, and performances that explore the interweaving of personal mythology, pop culture, and media history. Her work has been shown in film festivals, galleries and museums.

Ellie Thatcher is an experimental self-taught animator and musician based in Chicago, IL. Her work focuses on exploring moody and surreal alternate worlds, and the feeling of unfamiliarity through her hybrid human and animalistic characters.

Milly Yencken is a softly spoken artist, retracing her ancestral roots. Her work fuses traditional techniques of animation, with contemporary methods of painting. For her aim is to tell wordless stories, evocative and devoid of any clear narrative structures. Yencken is based in Australia.

Evelyn Ross is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on claymation and stop-motion animation. She's had experience with Aardman Animations, LAIKA, Nickelodeon, and Shadow Machine. She's a BAFTA nominated director from the 2017 Student Film Awards. Her graduation film “Adam” has screened at more than 100 festivals worldwide and has won several awards. She recently animated on Guillermo Del Toro's academy award winning film "Pinocchio".