Date: Thursday, June 5th
6:00 PM – reception with refreshments & video installations on view
7:00 PM – film screening, followed by Q&A
Location: Annie May Swift Hall, Northwestern University
1920 Campus Dr, Evanston IL 60201, click here for campus map
Free and open to the public. Free on-campus parking available after 4 PM in the open-air lot.
Join us for the premiere of ten short films and two video installations by the Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab’s 2025 Fellows! Ranging from fiction, documentary and experimental film to installations, these diverse media projects engage with the topic of mental health in unique, nuanced and unexpected ways. Whether through poetic imagery, comedy, or a non-fiction lens, each piece in this program takes a wholly original approach to exploring topics such as community mental health, body image, the trope of the “mad woman,” and internal experiences of grief, depression and isolation.
“Silent Harbor” by Blake Knecht
Included in the program are: Shawn Antoine II‘s The Red Line, which directs a moving lens on class, geography, and mental health to create an experimental portrait of a city in transit. Shot on 16mm film, Mary Belay’s How to Swim follows Toi, a Black genderqueer teen, as they discover tranquility and connection in the water after befriending Hai, a skilled swimmer. Digital Madness, Analog Women by Simone Spalding contrasts a layered exploration of the “madwoman” trope – from classic cinema to TikTok edits – with the intimacy and nuance of real-world conversations among female friends. Steeped in absurdist humor, Paul O’Connor’s Deliverance follows a pizza delivery driver as he chases a “missing” cat, while Blake Knecht’s poetic experimental 16mm film silent harbor is set during a winter storm, where a sailor seeks and a lighthouse beckons. Told with humor and warmth, PJ Fahrenkrug’s I Look Weird follows self-conscious tween Eli on a shopping trip for the perfect middle school dance outfit where they meet Gabe, a charming purple monster. Hand-drawn birthday cards and carefully crafted letters help incarcerated students in Chicago – the wrongful conviction capital of the country – bridge the distress of separation from their loved ones in Emilia Tamayo’s documentary Just Like Us. In Declan Franey’s Sylvia’s Stone, a disillusioned woman on a weekend getaway with her boyfriend discovers a mysterious stone that triggers an eldritch metamorphosis, forcing her to choose between mundane comfort and radical self-reinvention. Other Light by Max Milo is an atmospheric, painterly nighttime short, where a lonely person’s search for a brighter light leads to an unexpected encounter. Memory, space, and time overlap in Sophia Jackson’s documentary Echo Only, No Such Thing to paint the history of a strong and self-sustaining Black community in Evanston, IL, its light both bright and fading.
Rounding out the program are two video installations that will be on view starting at 6pm: in the quiet chaos of clouds of distortion and deterioration, a man trapped between radio frequencies tries to break free in Alex Choi’s Under the Waves. In Jennifer Ligaya Senecal’s That Which Is Guide Toward Her Unweathering, a vigilant healer seeks liberation from the spiritual, physical, and mental wounding of microaggressions through the ancestral wisdom within her body, which guides her toward her unweathering.