SPECTRAL TRANSMISSIONS
SPECTRAL TRANSMISSIONS: LOVE BENDS TIME
IDFA on STAGE - NOV 14-15 2023, 8:30pm, Frascati Theatre
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE!
Contributors:
Jeanie Finlay
Dorota Lech
Chloe Abrahams
Lynne Tillman
D.L. Alvarez
Steven Sheil
Michael Palmieri
Donal Mosher
In the traditional ghost story terror and trauma can alter time, cause it to loop, extend the resonance of an incident or experience long beyond its initial duration. But in many ghostly tales love too has the power to bend time. This edition of Spectral Transmissions presents nine stories demonstrate how the strength of physical, emotional, and creative passions can shape our futures, reshape our pasts, and alter our relationships with time itself. Family bonds, childhood friendships, compassion for animals: these are not typical gothic fare but these stories reveal that the human heart may be most uncanny thing of all.
Moonshiner’s Ghost - Michael Palmieri, John Cohen
Despite the best intentions, every filmmaker has a film that got away from them. But do these projects truly disappear? This dreamlike portrait of musician, photographer, and folk archivist John Cohen the ways that uncompleted work haunts and shapes our creative lives.
Save Me From the Pious and the Vengeful - Lynne Tillman
The winner of the 2022 Katherine Ann Porter Award reflects on shifting nature of consciousness, trauma, and time in this poignant and deeply personal essay .
Low Star - Donal Mosher
A family’s oral traditions have a ghostly influence on a fateful night in the rural American South.
Lost Dogs - from the Spirit Phone community interactive project.
In a haunted coastal town a man gives redeeming love to the ghosts of abused dogs that inhabit his home.
Drowning Marzanna - Dorota Lech
Film Scholar and programmer Dorota Lech gives an intimate account of a family heirloom from a grandmother who died of Covid that embodies family tradition and Polish folklore.
My Enemies Have Sweet Voices - Steven Sheil and Jeannie Finlay
Documentary filmmaker Jeannie Finlay and author and filmmaker Stephen Sheil bring a tale of lost siblings connected by an uncanny tape recorder.
Limbo - Chloe Abrahams
Multimedia artist and filmmaker Chloe Abrahams turns a personal experience of sleepwalking into exploration of desire and the strange places that exist between waking and dreaming.
Regan Era - D. L. Alvarez
Artist, author, and queer activists D.L. Alvarez brings us to a San Francisco gay bar where The Exorcist, Ronald Reagan, and classic gay porn intertwine in a meditation on cinema, grief, and sensuality.
What Music They Make - Donal Mosher
While watching a 1950’s werewolf film two boys explore their sexualities, their response to the violence of their worlds, and the shifting moral positions of fantasy.
PAST PROGRAMS
Portland Art Museum, May, 2023
Artists in Residency shows, PAMCUT
Museum of the Moving Image, March 2023
Working On It: Spectral Conversations
Museum of the Moving Image, March 2022
Working On It: Spectral Conversations
IDFA: On Stage - November 2021
Contributors:
Kirsten Johnson & Dick Johnson
Jeanie Finlay
Steven Sheil
Courtney Stephens
Maya Daisy Hawke
Charlotte Selb
Dodie Bellamy
James Davis
Michael Palmieri
Donal Mosher
I. Marseilles
By Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher
Narration by Charlotte Selb
Robots turn to a magical belief system to expand their consciousness using the Tarot. Narrated by documentary programmer and translator Charlotte Selb. In French with English subtitles.
II. Strange Gardens
by Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher
Live narration by Donal Mosher
Using personal experience and the uncanny history of medical and visual technologies, Strange Gardens explores the links between dream states experienced during the current pandemic and those experienced by long term HIV survivors.
III. Improvement
by Robert Ashley
Adapted by Courtney Stephens
Live narration by Courtney Stephens
A spoken-word version of Robert Ashley’s dreamlike libretto.
IV. Ghosts
by Dodie Bellamy
Narration by Dodie Bellamy
With special appearance by a disembodied mystery guest
Celebrated novelist, critic, and experimental writer Dodie Bellamy explores paranoia, information overload, and pop culture in gentrifying San Francisco.
V. The Woman in the Screen
Written by The New York Times staff, 1953
Live narration by Michael Palmieri
A true story of a spectral television phenomenon as reported in the New York Times in 1953.
VI. The Lover
By Marguerite Duras
Original narration by Maya Daisy Hawke
Live narration by Courtney Stephens
Filmmaker, editor and multimedia artist Maya Daisy Hawke shares a haunting passage about time, love, and displacement from the classical novel by Marguerite Duras.
VII. Sprite Limits
by James Davis
Narration by James Davis
Poet and media critic James Davis looks at video game ghosts and childhood memories.
VIII. My Enemies Have Sweet Voices
Written by Steven Sheil
Narration by Jeanie Finlay
Writer and director Steven Sheil gives a contemporary take on the classic ghost story in which a cassette player holds the key to tender memories and a sinister mystery. Performed by the renowned documentary filmmaker Jeanie Finlay.
VIV. Night Wind Remembers
By Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher
LIve narration by Donal Mosher
Created as a special live cinema performance for the First Look Festival at the Museum of the Moving Image, Night Wind Remembers is both a personal story and a reflection on performing in the midst of the pandemic that interweaves the classic film Fantastic Voyage with a meditation on aging, concepts of the body, and the power of breath itself.
X. Phone Call from the Future
Narrated by Kirsten Johnson and Dick Johnson
Adapted by Michael Palmieri
Award winning Filmmaker Kirsten Johnson and her father (Dick Johnson of Dick Johnson Is Dead) negotiate disembodied space and attempt to connect through a series of voice messages left when calls to one another go unanswered.
Spectral Transmissions Nightstream Edition, Winter 2020
This special festival program features a host of filmmakers and writers explore memory, technology, and how the past and the future haunt us today.
Featuring works by Steven Sheil and Jeannie Finlay, Maya Daisy Hawke, Dodie Bellamy, James Davis, Christine Shields, Donal Mosher, Michael Palmieri, and special mystery guests.
Directed by Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher
Original Score composed and performed by Michael Palmieri
Tickets and program at: