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Mothlight Microcinema
About —
  1. an artist-run, nomadic film series screening experimental and avant-garde, fiction, documentary, and animated film + video in Detroit, Michigan since 2012.
  2. screening schedules and program line-ups can be found here and on our Facebook page. 
  3. Stay connected by subscribing to our newsletter!


Upcoming Events
MMC 2023 ++
  1. 16mm filmmaking workshop with the Detroit Narrative Agency


Past Programs
MMC 2023 ++
  1. 60th Ann Arbor Touring Program, Q&A with Jerrod Willis

MMC 2022 ++
  1. 59th Ann Arbor Touring Program, Q&A with Ahya Simone 

MMC 2021 ++
  1. Malni: towards the ocean towards the shore, Q&A with Sky Hopinka
  2. Film About a Father Who, Q&A with Lynne Sachs

MMC 2020 ++
  1. The Wolf House (virtual, co-presented with The Film Lab and Cinema Lamont)
  2. Vitalina Varela (virtual, co-presented with The Film Lab)

MMC 2019 ++
  1. Films in Space (Cosmos + shorts on 16mm)
    Curated by Raul Benitez
  2. Remember to Remember: New and Old Films from Niagara Custom Lab
    Curated by Derek Jenkins

MMC 2018 ++
  1. Chicagoland Shorts, Vol 4 
    Curated by Full Spectrum Features
  2. Based in Havana: Documentary Shorts
    Curated by Mary Pena
  3. Clicks Inside My Dreams: Short Films by Margaret Rorison, Q&A with Rorison
  4. Image Bearings: New Video Work by Women in the Midwest
    Curated by Sally Lawton, Q&A with Bree Gant

MMC 2017 ++
  1. The Maribor Uprisings, Q&A with Maple Raza
  2. Kairos Dirt and the Errant Vacuum, Q&A with Madsen Minax
  3. INAATE/SE/, Q&A with Adam Khalil
  4. ANTI-ETHNOGRAPHY, Q&A with Adam Khalil
  5. Untitled (Just Kidding), Q&A with Jesse Malmed

MMC 2016 ++
  1. Chicagoland Shorts
    Curated by Full Spectrum Features
  2. Films by Mothlight Filmmaker-in-Residence Jayne Amara Ross, Q&A with Ross
  3. Films by Ephraim Asili, Q&A with Asili
  4. SÖFNUN: Mothlight Microcinema in Iceland
  5. Seeking: Missed Connections & Loose Associations, Q&A with Chris Collins & LJ Freeza
  6. Films for One to Eight Projectors: Multiple Projector Experiments by Roger Beebe, Q&A with Beebe

MMC 2015 ++
  1. Itinerant Spaces: Films by Stephen Connolly, Q&A with Connolly
  2. Minority Report
    Curated by Nazli Dincel, Q&A with Sky Hopinka
  3. Frenkel Defects III
    Curated by Kevin Rice
  4. Handmade Emulsion workshop with Process Reversal (led by Kevin Rice)
  5. Cellular Cinema VI: Mothlight in Minneapolis
  6. Films by Filmmaker-in-Residence Dan Smeby, Q&A with Smeby
  7. Tale of Two Syrias: Films by Filmmaker-in-Residence Yasmin Fedda, Q&A with Fedda
  8. Paradise: Films by Filmmaker-in-Residence Lydia Moyer, Q&A with Moyer
  9. Failure: Experimental Animation by Kelly Sears, Q&A with Sears
  10. Projection Instructions: Selections from Filmmakers Coop Curated by Josh Guilford, performed by Mothlight

MMC 2014 ++
  1. Synchronicity, Q&A with Jason Sudak
  2. Films by Julie Murray, Q&A with Murray
  3. Films by Fern Silva, Q&A with Silva
  4. Form/Fragment, Q&A with Jen Proctor
  5. 51st Ann Arbor Film Festival Touring Program

MMC 2013 ++
  1. Moving: 16mm shorts
  2. On Holiday
    Curated by Brandon Walley
  3. Peninsulam, Q&A with Jack Cronin
  4. Handmade (Animation)
    Curated by Gary Schwartz, Q&A with Dustin Grella
  5. Portraits of America, Part II, Q&A with Katie Barkel & Oren Goldenberg
  6. Portraits of America, Part I, Q&A with Brandon Walley

MMC 2012 ++
  1. Maximal Minimal (16mm)
Mark






MMC06 08302013/ On Holiday
Curated by Brandon Walley

This month's screening is curated by Corktown Cinema's Brandon Walley who notes, "this program has shaped up to be pretty special for me, something I've been wanting to do for a while."As always, this event is free and open to all, so feel free to bring your friends and fellow cinephiles. Ring the white doorbell on John R to be let in. Hope to see you there!

ON HOLIDAY

A Distant Horizon, Ryan Marino
6:42, 16mm, 2012
Remote landscapes elicit fragments of strata and sediment suggesting an existence marked not by man but by time. A vibrant sun illuminates the contours of the land providing a natural show of light and shadow play.
"We are lost between the abyss within us and the boundless horizons outside us." - Robert Smithson

I Have Always Been A Dreamer, Sabine Gruffat
78:00, 16mm transferred to video, 2012
I Have Always Been A Dreamer is an essay film about globalization and urban ecology using the examples of two cities in contrasting states of development: Dubai, UAE and Detroit, U.S.A. Within the context of a boom and bust economy, the film questions the collective ideologies that shape the physical landscape and impact local communities.

ALL I EVER WANTED, Scott Northrup
5:00, 8mm transferred to video, 2013
False memories harvested from found 8mm travel films.

Mirrorhole, Matt Rossoni
7:00, dual 16mm, 2013
The use of dual non-overlapping screens that "spread" the ontological stability of a single image across multiple spaces that fade in and out in metrical rhythms foregrounds issues of similarity and difference both spatial and temporal.

A Park for the City, Nicole Macdonald
35:00, Video, 2013
Belle Isle, on the Detroit River, is the largest urban island park in North America. The center of the island is twenty acres of wild nature that was originally a Victorian zoo, established as a diversion for city dwellers over a hundred years ago. Now boarded up and closed due to shortfalls in Detroit city funding, the zoo is sealed off by high cyclone fences and padlocked gates, a no-man's land of flora and fauna left undisturbed to form an ecology of its own design.

Passage Upon the Plume, Fern Silva
6:30, 16mm, 2011
“Those who go thither, they return not again.”
Plumes dust the arid land, east to west, shapeshifting as they lift in ascension. Something lowers. An ark ran aground where revolution took root: ropes raise stones in baskets. Hearts heavier and lighter than the feather, permitted passage. Tethered or freed, resting from life or dawning anew. - Charity Coleman
Mark

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