2026 Program

by Casey Carter (2025, US, 99’)

Tuesday 11 August 7 PM
Boedecker Cinema

Six rural communities are marked as candidates for an unthinkable fate: their land, a burial ground for 77,000 tons of nuclear waste. Against the impassive logic of government analysis and archives, a people’s history of resistance and stewardship emerges through a visceral journey across the landscapes, ecologies, and personal histories of the candidate sites.

This screening will be followed by a conversation with Casey Carter in-person.

Doors open at 6 PM with a catered reception (included with the cost of admission).

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A program of shorts by Dana Kavelina

Friday 14 August 8 PM
Boedecker Cinema

Animation becomes a practice of resurrection in Dana Kavelina's cinema, where collage, stop-motion, and archival fragments reanimate forgotten histories. People speak from mass graves and coal mines of the Donbas, rising to haunt us anew. Dolls begin to move, photographs flicker, and buried voices return to relay histories erased by official narratives. Negotiating grief and utopia, Dana Kavelina’s films imagine remembrance not as a fixed record of the past but as an ongoing act of repair. In these reanimated half-worlds, the dead remain present, asking us to carry their stories toward a more just future.

Program:

Mark Tulip, who spoke with flowers (2018, 15')
Letter to a Turtledove (2020, 21’)
it cannot be that nothing can be returned (2022, excerpt - 15')
Grey Earth (2026, 32')

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A workshop with Dana Kavelina

Saturday 15 August 10 AM
Seidel City

Dana Kavelina will ruminate on how time appears through ruptures and stoppages in stop-motion animation, and how characters can escape their fates in the spaces between seconds. She will invite participants behind the scenes to see how miniature worlds create refuge in times of displacement and war, and how to learn from the labor of nature as it echoes through toxic materials.

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Dana Kavelina (b. 1995 in Melitopol, Ukraine) works primarily with animation and video, but also installation, painting and graphic design. She graduated from the Department of Graphics at the National Technical University of Ukraine. Her work often addresses military violence and war regarding the position of a victim as a political subject—as well as the distance between historical and individual trauma, memory and misrepresentation.

Her 2020 film Letter to a Turtledove was acquired by The Museum of Modern Art in New York and featured in the exhibition Signals: How Video Transformed the World. Her works were featured in the Kyiv Perennial in Vienna, 60th Venice Biennale, and MHKA Antwerp. She is the Main Prize winner of the 7th edition of the PinchukArtCentre Prize and is shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize 2024.

Audio Hike

Wednesday 12 August 10 AM
Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge

Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge was established in 2007 on the former site of the secret, highly secured U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) facility that built the core triggers for nuclear weapons, infamously mishandling plutonium, enriched uranium, beryllium and other nuclear waste in the process.

This hiking and listening experience with Mimesis artists Casey Carter (To Use A Mountain, opening night artist) and Taylor Dunne and Eric Stewart (Off Country, closing night artists) features an audio program featuring oral histories recorded by Dunne and Stewart about the social and environmental legacy of the dismantling of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. These include interviews with The Environmental Information Network’s (EIN) Paula Elofson-Gardine and Susan Elofson-Hurstwith, who became activists when their family construction company was subcontracted to replace the roof at the still operational nuclear plant, and LeRoy Moore, a lay specialist on radiation effects and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center.

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Documentary Block

Wednesday 12 August 1 PM
Boedecker Cinema

Far from loved ones, people push external borders and stretch internal boundaries seeking safe havens – willingly or warily. Meanwhile, fantasies of return and tensions between here and there linger. Traversing the perpetual crossroads of nightmares and daydreams, home becomes a space of knowing and not knowing.

Program:

Criatura (2025, GB, 9’)
Nitya Ramlogan Lopez

talking to Family (2025, CN/ZA, 11’)
Kwei Shun-yu

Notes From Brook House (2025, GB, 28’)
Alex Nevill

Bajo el Sol (Under the Sun) (2025, MX/US, 18’)
Jamilli Pacheco-Urquiza

Land of Cold (2025, CA, 17’)
Hervé Demers
*available virtually in the United States only

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Documentary Block

Wednesday 12 August 4 PM
Boedecker Cinema

An incarcerated crew fights fires for 70¢ an hour. A housebound mother struggles against the celebration of matrescent martyrdom. Observing and reenacting daily routines where human potential is bought and sold, these projects document their own production in contested terrain, confronting the exploitations of capitalist culture on the clock.

Program:

as the fires rage on (2026, US, 18’)
Sofia Stærmose Hardt

documentary (2026, US, 5’)
Ian Joseph Greene

Shaggy's Big Break (2026, US, 8’)
Maya Castronovo

DUST DREAM (2026, CN, 27’)
Changning Xu

Domestic Demon (2026, US/PT, 7’)
Anahid Yahjian

Independence (2026, GB, 31’)
Rachel Margetts

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Documentary Block

Wednesday 12 August 8 PM
Boedecker Cinema

A daughter's father. A mother's sons. Across time and space, the nuanced contours of grief are mapped between generations. From the intimate to the systemic, the films in this program explore meaning-making in the wake of loss and the paths of remembrance that loved ones create to sustain communities.

Program:

Ballad of Eighteen (2026, CN, 12’)
Haoxin Feng

in love, in memory (2026, US, 90’)
Shalon Buskirk and Drew Swedberg
*not available virtually

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Documentary Block

Thursday 13 August 10 AM
Boedecker Cinema

Structures of resistance are powered by the hopeful who inhabit them, like individual fibres of a muscle, contributing their strength to a collective resilience. Radical, expansive inclusion facilitates collaboration, imagining the future as a restored whole, with a history and home emancipated from colonial display.

Program:

I Wanna Be With You Everywhere (2025, US, 19’)
Andrea Yu-Chieh Chung and Adam Golfer

Jacob's House (2025, US, 21’)
Lucas Kane

the water was here (2025, BE, 15’)
Sophie Sherman and Némo Camus

Shards (2025, BO, 14’)
Luciana Decker Orozco

Rage Against the Archive (2024, US, 10’)
Anshul Roy

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Documentary Block

Thursday 13 August 1 PM
Boedecker Cinema

When distances are measured in time and oceans, we cannot simply quantify the gaps. Separated bodies are marooned and shipwrecked, waiting to be found. To be so far causes the heroes of these tales to set sail, testing the potential of presence through deep reminiscing, craving a specific flavor of happiness, and fearful of missing the yet to be met. When we visit memories like places, overdosing on nostalgia becomes a way of life.

Program:

Noli me tangere (2025, US/IR, 4’)
Mahda Purmehdi

Still Here, Still There (2025, US, 17’)
Wendy Xinran Tong

Presente en los Grandes Eventos (Present in the Big Events) (2026, US/PA/VE, 21’)
Pamela Martinez Barrera

Placeholder (2026, US, 12’)
Jesse McLean

Statues Rule the Waves (2025, NL/ID/BE, 35’)
Noah Isa Berhitu

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Documentary Block

Thursday 13 August 4 PM
Boedecker Cinema

An exploration of Colombia's geographies, peoples, and stories through the material and imperceptible intersections of the Spanish word "tierra" – land, soil, ground, and territory. From geological formations to coca-growing regions, unequal land distribution to mass graves, and Indigenous rituals to land re-appropriation efforts, Terra interweaves some of Colombia's most pressing issues in a montage of images that illustrate the poetic and sensuous possibilities of human-soil relationships.

Program:

Terra (2026, CO, 79’)
Carlos Tobón Franco
*only available virtually in the United States

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Performances/Installations/Opening Reception

Thursday 13 August 8 PM
Seidel City

Stay of Removal unfolds as a geography of displacement. In this context, geography is understood not just as territory or location, but as phenomena produced through processes of extraction and circulation. Bodies move through environments while environments also move through bodies, collapsing the distinction and its importance.

A stay is an order to stop or a choice to remain; in either case, here it involves being present with your body, memories, and conditions. This act of staying embodies its own kind of movement, accumulates time, collects histories, and transforms both the individual who stays and the things they engage with.

Schedule:

7-8:30 PM
Doors open, installations on view.

8:30-9:30 PM
Live performance of Goodbye, Crescent Moon and All My Time is Lying on the Factory Floor

Please note, the exhibition will also be open Saturday 15 August, 9 AM-12 PM

Program:

Goodbye, Crescent Moon (2025, CN/US, 18’)
Xiaolu Wang
Live performance

All My Time Is Lying on the Factory Floor (GB, 43’)
Mars da Silva Saude
Live performance

Holding Rivers, Becoming Mountains (2025, TH, LA, CN, CH, 23’)
Solveig Qu Suess
Installation

Stomach, Thighs, and Ass (2026, CA/FR, 6’)
Matthew Lancit
Installation

RAPTURE I - VISIT (2025, FR/DE, 18’)
Alisa Berger
Installation

RAPTURE II - PORTAL (2025, FR, 19’)
Alisa Berger
Installation

Telescope TV (2026, US, 7’)
Cal Young
Installation

Mine Series (2020)
Dana Kavelina

More info

Documentary Block

Friday 14 August 1 PM
Boedecker Cinema

Fragments, movements, and radical unselfing coalesce in a collective treatise on the poetry of charged spaces. A hazy screen marks a violence that cannot be traced. Felled trees drift along a bayou tributary, in search of a disappearing home. Childhood excursions are revisited, unearthing obscured truths from spring-fed rivers and snow-capped mountains. Strained desire and brute force commingle in the cramped quarters of a hostile hostel.

Program:

Hiding Places (2025, US, 12’)
Magdalena Bermudez

COLORADO (2026, US, 13’)
Liz Roberts

Sonder (2026, ZA, 26’)
Thuthuka Sibisi

Same Water (2026, US, 22’)
Martine Granby

kouri vini (you came, i went) (2026, US, 8’)
Rock Jacquet

Break All The Vases, Steal All The Flowers (2025, US, 4’)
Michael Alexander Morris

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Documentary Block

Friday 14 August 4 PM
Boedecker Cinema

Mickey spent the last ten years exploring her transition process within the conservative context of Sinaloa, Mexico. Through digital archives, artistic reenactments, and deeply personal encounters, the film moves between tenderness and rage, transforming memory into an act of freedom. An exploration of self-perception and a non-punitive confrontation with the past.

Mickey (2026, MX, 75’)
Dano Garcia

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Documentary Block

Saturday 15 August 1 PM
Boedecker Cinema

The past persists in trembling images, unsettled ground, restless bodies, and repeated gestures. From a devastating street protest to a cryonics facility, these projects deny demands for resolution. They dwell instead in limbo between reversal and return, the solid and the spectral, preservation and decay, embracing absences that continue to shape the present. 

Program:

As I Lay Dying (2025, IR, 15’)
Mohammadreza Farzad and Pegah Ahangarani

tempus fugit (2025, US, 31’)
rebecca shapass

And if the body (2025, US, 27’)
Toby Lee

The Unconscious Collective (2024, US, 7’)
Kara Hearn

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Documentary Block

Saturday 15 August 4 PM
Boedecker Cinema

Small-gauge tactility reveals interlocking patterns of landscape, activism, and everyday life, highlighting how meaning emerges through relationships. Energies of the George Floyd Uprising, Anishinaabe Seven Fires Prophecy, and Dakota 38+2 Memorial Ride are transmitted through the intimate conversations and kinetic montage of Surrendur. Bay Area Sampler Quilt makes an in-camera mosaic to mimic the form of a cherished social ritual. Images are joined into forms at once fragile and enduring. They offer a way of seeing community not as a destination, but as something continually woven into being.

Program:

Bay Area Sampler Quilt (2026, US, 10’)
Amy Reid

Surrendur (2026, US/IN, 86’)
Karthik Pandian

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Documentary Block

Saturday 15 August 8 PM
Boedecker Cinema

A speed ramp between quotidian rhythms and accelerating consumerism materializes in the endless mirror of lakes and rivers, the windshield of a city bus, and the ever-expanding physical infrastructure of cloud computing. Superimposing tradition and transformation, layers of space and time transmute water into data at the velocities of slow-growth lichen and break-neck scrolling.

Program:

Nothing in Particular (Unboxing Video)(2026, US, 8’)
Morgan Adamson

Where Clouds Once Formed (2025, TW, 14’)
Su Yu Hsin

Intersection (2025, US, 10’)
Meijuan Foo and Valerie Neck

The Day Is Not Lost (2026, US/BG, 15’)
Kay Hannahan

Tuktuit : Caribou (2025, CA, 15’)
Lindsay McIntyre

Another Earth (2025, FR, 11’)
Ben Russell

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Documentary Block

Sunday 16 August 10 AM
Boedecker Cinema

Carefully constructed walls fall to the irresistible forces of storm and fire. In the aftermath, we see one another more clearly. Lines of connection grow between broken hearts, charting routes of restoration and solidarity. Humanity blooms beautiful through mutual aid and the endurance to keep showing up, radiating the love that appears when we shelter and hold.

Program:

Hurricane Season (2026, US, 6’)
Michelle Trujillo

When The World Is On Fire (2026, US, 3’)
Devon Narine-Singh

Dwarf Neon Mayfield (2026, US, 81’)
Leland Nally

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Documentary Block

Sunday 16 August 1 PM
Boedecker Cinema

Triumphs fade, future tribulations loom large. Disappointment looks inevitable, but navigating by desire, you persevere. Each attempt sets its own pace, each a new opportunity for the same old mistakes. It becomes clear that some people will never learn. Vulnerable, you try again. Ending is not a failure, and what remains will be enough.

Program:

Mortal Copy (2026, US, 11’)
Meesh Kislyakov

scrape (2025, US, 10’)
Sierra Grove

Buckskin (2026, US, 17’)
Mars Verrone

On Ye Monkey's Branch (or pink sands unlimited) (2026, US, 10’)
Walter Smits

Learning from Learning from Las Vegas (2025, US, 18’)
Sam Taffel and Gillian Waldo

explant / implant (2025, US, 3’)
Josh Weissbach

God-and-a-half (2024, PO, 25’)
Margarida Coelho de Assis

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Documentary Block

Sunday 16 August 4 PM
Boedecker Cinema

Languages are carried beyond words, in a glance, a game, or a ritual. Through a disintegrating tongue and a capella songs, we think about the nature of communicating and try to narrate ourselves back to life. Cinema becomes a space to understand survival, selfhood, and alterity. Here, storytelling is an act of relation, and an image speaks the patient language of care.

Program:

CASINO! (2026, US, 15’)
Izzy Leung

Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (2026, BR/PT, 4’)
Leonardo Pirondi

Katelin Describes a Crisis (2026, US, 10’)
Stephen Wardell

Contacto y probando (2026, US, 26’)
Thea Chung

Language Decay (2025, US, 3’)
Zazie Ray-Trapido

Looking at You Looking at Me (2025, US/AU/FR, 37’)
Max Bowens

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Documentary Block

Sunday 16 August 8 PM
Boedecker Cinema

Microscopic manifestations of extraction and unchecked experimentation are breadcrumbs that lead us into the void. Examining the granular boundaries of environmental disaster, these projects capture atomic mementoes, outrage, and kinship through silver halides and Bayer arrays.

Program:

Flow Attachment (2026, US, 9’)
Tijana Petrović

Good Neighbors Care (2025, US, 4’)
Kate E. Hinshaw

Fog Eaters (2025, US, 19’)
Kyle Baker

A Film About a Tree I Like (2026, US, 4’)
Emett Casey

Off Country (2026, US, 55’)
Taylor Dunne and Eric Stewart

More info