On Saturday 7 June 2025, Ontsteking presents a short film program featuring experimental 16mm shorts from around the world that explore themes of fragility, natural environments, transformation, and loss.
20:00h | join us in the garden of Bar Bricolage for Sofa Sessions
21:00h | start screening
PROGRAM
PETAL TO THE METAL by Emily Pelstring
(2021 I 3min I Canada I 16mm)
Synopsis : This hand-processed 16mm film reflects on botanical animism. It is a song written for night-crawlers, compost, and shadows, inspired by human flower-lust. Water, fire, earth and air are interwoven with the garden's creature crew. The work draws a parallel between the photographic alchemy of cinematic experiments and the photosynthetic processes of plants.
THE DEPARTING IMAGES by Ana Edwards
(2023 I 11 min I Chili I 16mm)
Synopsis : Between ethnography and reverie, La Partida de las Imágenes immerses itself in-between the spaces of dreams; the light and dark, the visible and the invisible, matter, spirits and images. An ecological reflection alongside a Mapuche family in the south of Chile that observes the human and nonhuman social maps that arise through dreaming.
UNSTABLE ROCKS by Ewelina Rosinska
(2025 - 25 min - Poland/Germany - 16mm)
Synopsis : "Between 2018 and 2023, Polish filmmaker Ewelina Rosinska travelled through Portugal with Nuno Barroso, her Bolex, and, occasionally, a group of artists and environmental activists. Intuitively edited, following the rhythm of the seasons, Unstable Rocks is a sensitive reflection on the ambivalent nature of human presence in natural environments.
A MESSAGE FROM HUMBOLDT by Matt Feldman
(2024 I 11 min I USA I 16mm)
Synopsis : 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.
SAME STREAM TWICE by Lynne Sachs
(2012 I 5min I USA I 16mm)
Synopsis : My daughter’s name is Maya. I’ve been told that the word "maya" means illusion in Hindu philosophy. As I watch her growing up, spinning like a top around me, I realize that her childhood is not something I can grasp but rather — like the wind — something I feel tenderly brushing across my cheek. — L.S.
HOLD MY HAND ('work-in-progress') by Sophie Sherman
(2025 I 17 min I Belgium/France I 16mm)
Synopsis : Filmed with a 16mm bolex during the COVID-19 pandemic, families are confined between England, France, and Belgium. Marked by a birth, a suicide attempt, and a death, the film explores, through acts of care and human contact, the grace of shared moments as well as the fragility and tenderness of human relationships.