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 2024 ++
  • Short Films by Lisa Truttmann

  • Past Programs
    MMC 2024 ++
    1. 16mm filmmaking workshop (in partnership with Detroit Narrative Agency)
    2. 16mm filmmaking workshop with Shanna Maurizi (in partnership with Carpenter Creative Cooridor)
    3. Gaza Ghetto (1984), Speakers: Umayyah Cable and Hannah Fahoome

    MMC 2023 ++
    1. 16mm filmmaking workshop with the Detroit Narrative Agency
    2. 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

     




    MMC36 06152019 / Remember to Remember
    with Derek Jenkins from The Niagara Custom Lab


    Co-presented by Mothlight Microcinema and Media City Film Festival

    Comprising films from the workers at Canada’s well-known film lab for artists, Remember to Remember showcases diverse approaches and techniques for engaging the analog moving image, from the lab’s beginnings to works-in-progress.

    Derek Jenkins, Filmmaker and Lab Technician at Niagara Custom Lab will be present to introduce the program and discuss the films after.
    Doors at 7. Films at 8.
    Admission is Free/Pay What You Want, with donations going to support Play House and help insure future screenings.



    Program

    Lab Movie. Sebastjan Henrickson. 16mm Colour. Sound. circa. 1996. (12 min.)
    A hybrid of experimental and wet-lab processes, Lab Movie documents the daily life of a lab worker through a collection of techniques that imbue the images with a bristling, fiercely independent response to the underbelly of commercial film production.

    A Frame, Sylvain Chaussée. 16mm. Colour. Sound. 2015. (5 min.)
    A Frame is a light study of a once beloved space, the old lab / house, on Dufferin street in Toronto, before its demolition.

    Muzzle. Ali Vanderkruyk. 16mm. BW. Sound. 2019. (3 min.)
    Muzzle is a story told through a muted mouth. Shot on 16mm film, scratched with a knife, and drawn with a red pen.

    The Shouting Flower. Derek Jenkins. 16mm. Colour. Sound. 2018. (12 min.)
    A work about collaboration and process, The Shouting Flower approaches political resistance from multiple subject positions--plant, child, filmmaker--in an attempt to model what Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing calls "work across difference." Using images processed in plant material that was gathered at key locations throughout the city, as well as direct animation and audio recorded on a child's toy, the film documents its own creation within a landscape of hostility and neglect.

    A+B Experiment #3. Adam Stewart. 16mm. Colour. Sound. 2019. (5 min.)
    I’ve been making some A+B rolls to be printed on our contact printer at the lab. Most of my work consists of multiple exposures made in camera. I wanted to carry that out in post by printing tw rolls on top of each other. I used marker / tape to mask out certain sections to allow the opposing roll to expose more. This is roll number two. Everything edited on the bench with original negatives and prints. A mix of B&W, Colour, Positive, Negative.

    Best Buddies. Sebastjan Henrickson. 16mm. Colour. Sound. circa. 1999. (4 min.)
    A work of mourning for a friendship divided by circumstance, Best Buddies exemplifies the deeply personal approach Henrickson has for lab work, taking as its subject a colleague and friend who left the lab for a life in Mexico. In the process, the filmmaker finds a contradiction: two inseparable dogs who despise each other.

    Chacallada. Sylvain Chaussée. 16mm. Colour. Sound. 2018. (5 min.)
    In the city of Puno in Peru, people gather in the main square to participate in a celebration of cultural tradition through music and dance. The wandering eye of the camera captures the vibrations of the scene, while the landscape which surrounds the city slowly closes in....

    Livestock. Derek Jenkins. 16mm. BW. Sound. 2019. (12 min.)
    Livestock is a documentary study of one stage in the production of motion picture film. Most of the animals at the Warren Livestock Auction will be sold for industrial meat production. Their bodies will be slaughtered and processed, their bones prepared for rendering into gelatin that might one day suspend silver halide on a strip of acetate.

    Remember to Remember. Sylvain Chaussée. 16mm. Colour. Sound. 2018. (8 min.)
    Shot over the course of one month, Remember to Remember is the diary of a film technician struggling to keep pace in the unique environment of a film laboratory. While obvious elements challenged the making of this film, it has become a testament of passion for analogue filmmaking.

    Mark