Short Film Festival: New Works of Puppetry and Animation

HANDS IN FRAME is an exciting evening of short films, specifically short films featuring experimentation in animation and puppetry. These films utilize various mediums and modes of both live and animated object manipulation to push storytelling boundaries and activate the imagination. The same full program of films will be shown both nights (19th and 20th), and several of the filmmakers will be present to share insight into their process.

THE FILM LINEUP

Mine by Shayna Strype -  In the world of MINE, objects have perspective, nature is sentient, and all matter is vibrant. To examine the human urge to claim, own, and dominate ‘things’, creator/performer Shayna Strype takes audiences through space and time.

Our Bodies Like Dams by Sarah Finn - Our Bodies Like Dams is a live multimedia performance set in a handmade, flooding city. This part love-story, part eco-fantasy, imagines a woman’s unexpected metamorphosis in the face of romantic and coastal decay, as her and her partner’s apartment floods entirely.

Out Of Office by Emma Wiseman and Emily Zemba - Out Of Office is a short film based on a puppet show. It is about office supplies achieving dominance as humans succumb to apocalypse.

Amass by Andrew Murodck - Using techniques in puppetry, Amass explores loss, loneliness, and the fragile human psyche in the wake of Covid-19. Featuring original music by Sean Devare. Commissioned by Art Yard (Frenchtown, NJ). 

Handwritten by Jaime Sunwoo- After discovering old diaries and notebooks, artist Jaime Sunwoo examines her shapeshifting penmanship and wonders why she's never had a consistent style. Through playful paper puppetry and animation, she reflects on what handwriting means to her personally, its significance throughout history, and its relevance in our computerized world.

Equality Tea by Jaime Sunwoo- Throughout America, women organized tea parties for meetings and fundraisers to support the suffrage movement. The Woman’s Suffrage Party sold ceylon, young hyson, gunpowder, and oolong tea under their charitable brand “Equality Tea.” Yet the history of tea is steeped in inequality, driven by colonialism, war, and appropriation. In her short film, Equality Tea, Jaime Sunwoo brews tea while drawing parallels between the fraught histories of the tea trade and the suffrage movement.

This program is supported in part by the Charles R. Wood Foundation.