Material Matters

Material Matters is a screening at Millennium Film Workshop curated by Sonia Rosa Kahn dedicated to the enduring presence and poetic potentials of analog film. The program brings together a selection of 16mm films investigating the duality of “matter”—as both substance and significance. Rooted in the analog medium, each work in the program foregrounds the physicality of film as a tool and surface for exploration.

The films showcase a wide spectrum of analog techniques, each rooted in a commitment to the medium as a site of memory, observation and self-expression. From hand-processing, laser-cutting and screen-printing to burying, direct animation, mordançage and in-camera experiments, many of these works employ the tangible substance of film as a point of investigation and contention. Included are also films engaging with matter as meaning: filmmakers reflecting on histories held in bodies and landscapes, as well as the mechanisms of documentation and disappearance, and the intimate…