ICDOCS 2025

Forbidden City // Devin Jie Allen // United States

16mm outtakes depicting the last days of Detroit’s Chinatown reverberate across a history of forced displacement and violence present in the broader Chinatown project. Emerging from these outtakes is the unelaborated story of the filmmaker’s grandmother, a former Detroit Chinatown restaurant worker.

Refuse Room // Simon Liu // Hong Kong – United States

“Tangled spirals, rapid encounters, a quiet war between the vertical and the horizontal: Simon Liu’s Refuse Room captures Hong Kong’s architectural densities and lurid fluorescence through shadows, graffiti, and detritus, surfacing the tense and dizzying atmospheres of a city in anxious slumber, caught between fragmentation and solidarity.” – NYFF

Like a Tongue Knows the Mouth // Laura Ohio // Canada – United States

Time becomes a spiral when a freeway fire causes a city-wide traffic jam and leads the filmmaker to follow an elderly woman walking through Downtown Los Angeles. Ohio delves into the well of grief and brings back the solitude of being human, the presence of absence, and the inescapable nature of the first home.

Foot to Ground // Christopher Thompson // United States

Minimalist frontiers proliferate from acquisition. Larping utopia, shedding skins, forging new luxury amidst shards of past lives. Embracing shadows, sculpting stagnant futures in the flicker of ancient flames.

Into a Flame // Sun Parin // Thailand

Into a flame is an experimental documentary explores the space in textile factory in Thailand. When the lights are turned on, the machines start working, producing a never-ending noise, revealing the interconnected relationship between living and non-living entities, gradually merging with one another under the space where the light is.

A moth is one of creatures that reacts to and is attracted by light. When a light shines, its instinct responds by moving toward the light, unaware of whether it is heading toward a safe place or one that poses danger to its own life. Similarly, Humans are the same

Bogancloch // Ben Rivers // United Kingdom – Germany

Bogancloch is Jake Williams’ home, nestled in a vast highland forest of Scotland. The film portrays his life throughout the seasons, with other people occasionally crossing into his otherwise solitary life. Charting a subtly changing life in a radically changing world.

A Message From Humboldt // Matt Feldman // United States

Glances at an emptied apartment in Milwaukee drift into a psychodrama confronting fears of death and loneliness. Through the use of in-camera experiments, fractured imagery inquires into the hauntings and mysteries of the everyday.

rigmarole // Tristen Ives // United States

diary entries via walking around with a camera and reacting to immediate reality: light pulses, expressions of gender identity, moving across the country, and dancing like a slut.

I Think About My Body Too Much // Caitlin Lenz // United States

Based on diary entries written by the filmmaker, ‘I Think About My Body Too Much’ is a meditation on Lenz’s relationship to her body beginning in early adolescence. The film uses archival photos, notebook sketches, magazine pages, and various other mediums to examine beauty expectations on and violence against the female body. Further, it explores the complicated and self-destructive responses people have to enduring trauma.

Break no.1 & Break no.2 // Lei Lei // China

Photographs, snowy mountains, videotapes.
Two stories of love and death.
Episode 1: The Lost Photographs.
Episode 2: The unfound movie videotapes.

July Twenty-seventh, Tour of Suzhou Gardens // Getong Wang // China – United States

As one wanders through the garden on a leisure tour, they find what has been lost in the mists of light and shadow. July Twenty-seventh, Tour of Suzhou Gardens offers a personal path from the aesthetics of experimental cinema to a conversation within Chinese poetic tradition.

Our Cave // Heehyun Choi // South Korea – United States

Magritte doubted Plato’s allegory of the cave through his painting The Human Condition(1935). In the 18th century Joseon Dynasty, Shin Don Bok put together the anecdote collection Hak San Han Eon, which includes a story of two people willingly venturing deep into a cave rather than seeking light outside, eventually reaching a completely different world. In this film, the two people become women, and together, they load the film into the camera. In the utter darkness where only the sound of water is heard, images emerge. In that place where everything is inverse, the camera becomes a watering can, a mirror, and a teapot.

in place of a hollow tree // Eislow Johnson // United States

Migrating from the Amazon basin across northern Illinois, a flock of chimney swifts flutter without perching, using a natural form of radar to navigate. The pulse of infrasound from deep ocean waves vibrates the ground and emanates up, guiding the birds amid disrupted air. Various forms of tuning elicit a strained acoustic ecology between altitudes.

Chronotope Earth 1985 to Future // Georg Koszulinski // United States

Carl Sagan time travel poem folds present moment back to 1985.

[sun]film // Derek Taylor // United States

An arrangement of found image sources from the 16th Century onward, the film looks at the changing representations of the giant star at the center of the solar system. From celestial maps to telescopic photos, the film traces the sun as a natural constant, a mirror of human curiosity, and a radiant symbol of mystery.

Plastic Aortas // Malic Amalya // United States

Created with support from Atelier 105’s post-production residency at Light Cone; Paris, France.

Plastic Aortas is a portrait of the black plastic encasing the Fells Reservoir in the unceded land of the Massachusett, Pawtucket, and Naumkeag indigenous peoples. The lining was placed there by conservationists in order to mitigate the invasive Common Reed, which is killing native plants. However, the lining also interferes with wildlife and contaminates the water.

The film’s title references Roland Barthes’ 1957 essay, “Plastic,” in which he writes, “The hierarchy of substances is abolished: a single one replaces them all: the whole world can be plasticized, and even life itself since, we are told, they are beginning to make plastic aortas.” 65 years after Barthes’ essay was published, in 2022, microplastics were found in human blood and, in 2023, in human heart tissue.

In this 16mm film, tension rises between the benefits and hazards of plastic or, as Barthes describes, between plastic and “life itself.”

Midsummer // Masha Vlasova // Finland – United States

Midsummer is a cyanotype photogram film, where the sunlight, along with plants, insects, and water, are all employed in the process of filmmaking. The landscape here is both material and collaborator, where its physicality is literally imprinted into the filmic surface. I began the production of the film during a month-long residency in Finland. My time in Finland coincided with Juhannus, the celebration of the longest day of the year in Finland, when the sun doesn’t set.

Basilisk // Zuzanna Krysta, Carsten Saeger // Germany

Let us be there, where we were afraid and built courage. – Inspired by the mythological figure of the basilisk, four protagonists embark on an audiovisual journey through inner and outer landscapes and form together a creature from their personal experiences dealing with discriminations, loss, pleasure and moments of resistance.

What the Gardener Missed // Alan Medina // Mexico – United States

Using the photo archives of the Lynden Sculpture Garden near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, What the Gardener Missed follows a wandering groundskeeper and an unseen companion in a not-so-distant future, in search of signals that can answer the question: “Who thought of putting a garden outside the forest?” Disoriented by an unstable landscape, the question is addressed cryptically through an encounter with a pine tree that sheds light on the history of the land.

Anima Natura // Andrea Gudiño // Estonia – Mexico

A landscape disappears and the wind begins to transform what it seems immovable: sometimes like a breathe of life, sometimes like a disaster. A notebook of landscapes voraciously strives to document these changes.

Otherhood // Deborah Stratman // United States – Jordan – Brazil

Mother and child confront the other. Meanwhile, some ladies are thinking.

Marija + Toma // Eluned Aiano, Greta Rauleac, Alesandra Tatić // Serbia

Serbian pensioners Marija and Toma found each other in their 60s but are as smitten as teenagers, so much so that they invented a 15-month anniversary to be able to celebrate their love with their friends. The party takes place on the monument that Toma built to commemorate a great personal loss, drawing on the funds he acquired through years of working abroad. On this special day, the happy couple talks us through the lives and loves that led them here. The film is part of a series exploring aesthetics, architecture and identity among Gastarbeiters (migrant workers) throughout the Balkans.

Heart Shaped // Sofia Theodore-Pierce // United States

Heart Shaped examines the transient lives of seven guests staying at a themed hotel in Wisconsin. Self and strangers overlap through shared spaces and intimate choreography. Letters between the two filmmakers offer an additional layer of blurred identity and the erotics of collaboration. “One hand on the clit the other on the mind.”

Exit Danish Flat // Natasha Woods // United States

Shot in Cisco, Utah, Exit Danish Flat explores friendship and speculative futures in the desert through a variety of “translations” of the space. An ephemeral landscape film that takes place in the former ghost town centering the sole resident, Eileen Muza, and their visitors George Ananchev and Lucio Arellano.

Someone Else’s Life // Umi Aravena// Chile

Through a journey through her memories, Umi reconstructs her parents’ memory thanks to the record they kept of their days, discovering the family they tried to build and the dreams that were buried.

In “A’ is for Another Woman,” Writer Hannah Bonner brings together three disparate filmmakers who are neither linked by formal concerns nor themes. Therefore, this program is a capacious approach to, and exploration of, women as actresses, symbols, classes, or figures. By reveling in multiplicities, “A’ is for Another Woman” seeks to broaden, rather than narrow, the vexed application of “woman.”

After the screening, join us for a conversation with Hannah Bonner, Laura Paul, and Ayanna Dozier

Featured Shorts

Elixir // Amy Halpern

Bounded Intimacy // Ayanna Dozier

It’s Just Business Baby // Ayanna Dozier

Forever Your Girl //Ayanna Dozier

#27 // Amy Halpern

Ginko Yellow // Amy Halpern

Recordando El Ayer // Alexandra Cuesta

a film with sound (take three) // Josh Weissbach // United States

A father and daughter make a new movie after the daughter requests to make a film with sound after making a silent one the previous year.

Bells // Aleksandrs Vasks // Latvia

“Bells” is a short poetic documentary film fashioned in the vein of Riga’s poetic documentary films from the 20th century. The film delves into the relationship between humans and bells, exploring the role of a bell ringer as a profession in decline and the significance of bells in our lives today.

Discrete Kinesis No. 1 // Eislow Johnson // United States

The first of an interlude series within the multiple potential interstitial states of string harmonics. Hand processing and 16mm-to-digital scanning are treated as points of intervention and compositional instruments.

A Speedway Story // Philippe David Gagné // Canada

A day at the race track.

Mysterious Purple House // YATES // United States

A liminal sanctuary where the mundane warps into the mystical.

A Short Film About a Chair // Ibrahim Handal // Palestine

A lonely chair on an abandoned balcony, a photographer watching it days and nights, a strange thing happens that will change the life of the chair for ever.

The Individual // Sara Sowell // United States

A speculative reimagining of Dada happenings, artworks, and events between 1912-1923, 100 years later. Paradoxes between image-making, gender, representation, photography, and capital are examined and embodied. Appropriating Man Ray’s autobiography as a point of departure, the film receives text interventions from Rosalind Krauss, Claude Cahun and Kathy Acker.

A Black Screen Too // Rhayne Vermette // Canada

“After Black Rectangle was created, a racist joke was found to have been inscribed in Black Square, which revealed it was a direct reference to a comic by French artist Alphonse Allais.” – Joshua Minsoo Kim

The sequel to Black Rectangle. Acts of discipline in celebration of destruction.

Shifting Patterns

In the Middle of a Heartache // Christina Nguyen

Infinite Blue // Christina Nguyen

Parallel Inquiries // Christina Nguyen

Film for Optical Sound no 1 // Christina Nguyen

You Don’t Own Me // Christina Nguyen

Phytochrome // Christina Nguyen

No Image Field // Christina Nguyen

It Felt Like Night // James Hollenbaugh // United States

The Great North American Eclipse occurred on April 8, 2024. Some things went according to plan. Some did not.

The Motherfucker’s Birthday // Saif Alsaegh // United States

Through dancing, the Motherfucker’s Birthday shows the evil of the dictator and the horror people endure under powerful political leaders. The film presents dancing, a universal and uniquely human activity often representing joy, with eerie footage of Saddam and his sons’ torture tools while they dance. Bush also dances with a smirk across the screen while announcing a war that would destabilize a whole region. Contrasting the dancing of these powerful men, who seem disturbingly unconcerned with the lives they impact, with the dancing of the people of Iraq amplifies the fear, control, and horror the general public lives under. Everything becomes a gesture of dance: the torture, the hesitant political humor, and the war.  Everyone becomes a dancer, the dictator and the oppressed performing a distorted version of this human act. Saddam dances, Bush dances, so what’s left for the Iraqi people except to join in.

I’m Free in Algeria // Karine Bille // France

Through an intricate process of picture in picture, this animated documentary explores the situation of Algerian women this past decades

London’s Rocketship Launchers // Julia Mervis // United Kingdom

A filmmaker’s investigation into the true identity of the 200 ft circular metal frame infrastructures that sculpt London’s skyline. And why no one cares.

To See Myself, To Create, Myself. // Eli Garcia // United States

A mix of archival footage, artwork and an interview that explore the importance of trans and queer history and documentation.

Inside, The Valley Sings // Nathan Fagan // Ireland

Trapped in the never-ending horror of prolonged solitary confinement, three prisoners seek comfort and escape in the boundless vistas of their own imaginations.

Butterfly Maneuvers // Gor Margaryan // Germany

Private film footage of fighter pilots’ military training is permeated by the alluring details of fluttering butterfly wings. The graceful flight is marred by the awareness of navigational tasks as preparation for target acquisition and the military engagement of machines.

The Phalanx // Ben Balcom // United States

Letters from the Ceresco community trace the fragility of harmony, the dream of life in association, the frictions that give way to fracture. Members of the phalanx drift apart, lingering in private corners, suspended in speculative time.

refrigerator hum // Jade Wong // United States

An artist collects and processes images of their mother’s restaurant kitchen and their grandmother’s daily life. Memory and embodied knowledge is reanimated through various image formats: 35mm portraits on oscillating lenticular prints, laserjet prints of 35mm film transferred onto 16mm loops, and photographic prints on polystyrene. An intergenerational critique unfolds.

Unless the Eye Catch Fire // Brandon Poole // Canada

On Oct 24th, 2018, in Belliveau Cove, Nova Scotia, an eagle fell from the sky into the back of a man’s pickup truck. Within a week, the man, his dog, and the eagle all died. Their deaths are diffracted through the memories of the man’s sister, over the well in the spray-foamed basement of their family home, and between the pine-slatted walls of the eagle rehabilitation centre.

Le Chien de Mémé // Tristan Francia // France

In a small village in Brittany, Geneviève, 88, lives completely independently in her barnyard and vegetable garden. She has just lost Gypsy, her pet dog. To avoid sinking into loneliness, she tries to find a new one with the help of her daughter Christiane. But there is no dog like Gypsy.

Father Archie // Todd Fraser // Canada

Accompanying partially destroyed 16mm images of the local parish, my grandfather narrates – switching between English and Scottish Gaelic – a story of witnessing a miraculous act of remedy performed by a priest whose reputation as an alleged healer is commonly known in the area. The film was shot in Broad Cove, Nova Scotia, and buried in the garden.

Susan Through Corn // Kathleen Laughlin // United States

Filmmaker Kathleen Laughlin’s short experimental film follows her sister on a spirited excursion through a tall August cornfield about to be harvested.

Mexico Will No Longer Exist // Annalisa Donatella Quagliata Blanco // Mexico

A frenetic view runs over a convulsed Mexico City, a colossal metropolis sustained by the myth of “mestizaje” and other colonial forms of violence. Past and present weave a flurry of images; fragmented memories of this land. Ancient deities are incarnated, while dreams overlap among intimacy, complicity and the tumult. This is an erratic film that invites us to reimagine the complex relationship we have with the constructed “mexicanidad.”