Shorts Program 6: Solve for X

Q&As with Frances Scott and Jenny Brady at the Oct. 6 screenings. Joined by James N. Kienitz Wilkins at the 1pm screening.

PHX [X is for Xylonite]
Frances Scott, UK, 2019, 13m
World Premiere
Frances Scott explores the history and usage of plastic in this imaginative essay film. Using three-dimensional animations, distorted vocal recordings, and the words of Roland Barthes, she connects the founding of the first plastics factory in 1866 and the development of cellulose nitrate, a key element in the creation of film stock.

Receiver
Jenny Brady, Ireland, 2019, 15m
U.S. Premiere
Jenny Brady’s film surveys over 100 years of deaf history from the controversial and damaging Milan Conference of 1880 to a modern-day protest at a university for the hard of hearing. Drawing on a wide range of archival recordings in which communication breaks down and would-be civil conversations devolve into public altercations, Receiver bears out the old maxim that those who speak loudest rarely listen—and those with the most to say are seldom heard.

Saugus Series
Pat O’Neill, USA, 1974, 35mm, 18m
U.S. Premiere
Landscape imagery, archival footage, and animation are hybridized in this dazzling experimental film from 1974, a showcase for Pat O’Neill’s pioneering work with the optical printer. Restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation with funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation.

This Action Lies
James N. Kienitz Wilkins, USA, 2018, 32m
U.S. Premiere
James N. Kienitz Wilkins applies his loquacious and self-reflexive sensibility to a frequently hilarious work of cinema as intellectual inquiry. Training his 16mm lens on a foam coffee cup (recalling the austerity of a Warhol screen test) while holding court on a myriad of subjects ranging from the history of Dunkin’ Donuts to new fatherhood, Wilkins offers a dizzying disquisition on looking, listening, and the slippery nature of truth.