Enigmatic
EXPERIMENTAL FILMS
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Craig M Taylor
A writer discovers a library within his house containing copies of all of the books he ever failed to write.
Lucia Lambarri Barberis
This visual essay combines animation and live-action footage to guide the audience through the Andean mountains and snowy peaks of Cusco, Peru. The film reflects on the director’s walking as a means to embrace life’s fragility and constant transformation. It revisits Andean relational animism, rituals, miniatures, and pilgrimage to question modernity and our place in an era of melting glaciers, while celebrating the shared journey with others.
Sam Ryley
Set to an original, emotionally rich score, the film features five dancers with PIMD (profound intellectual and multiple disabilities) in duets with dance artists, creating collaborative choreography rooted in empathy, attentiveness, and embodied communication.
Through shared presence, eye contact, gesture, breath and pause, the film invites the audience to witness personalities revealed, showing that trust, respect, and choice can be powerfully conveyed without words.
This is not performance imposed, but dance emerging from mutual understanding. Each frame honours the dignity and creativity of people too often spoken for rather than listened to.
The film challenges assumptions about communication.
It also challenges assumptions of what dance can be.
“The film shows what can happen when movement, embedded in sound can become the topic, the conversation. How foolishly restrained we can be in our typical interactions – so rigid, so unembracing of vitality. Be unapologetic and proud in this dancing conversation. The film also shows how the word “sensory” means so much more than a passive recipient of another’s objects… to engage in senses means temptation, exploration, anticipation, attention… to be absolutely sensual in its core meaning. To be in the senses can be delicate and mighty. Breathtaking.” Sheridan Forster – PMLD Communication Expert https://sheridanforster.com.au/
Karlijn Reynaerts
A film that plunges viewers into the disorienting world of a person with Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). Food, for them, is not sustenance but a trigger for overwhelming anxiety and disgust. The world around them bombards them with distorted textures, smells, and tastes, a sensory labyrinth they desperately try to navigate.
The film employs a striking visual style. Fragmented images, rapid cuts, and distorted close-ups create a sense of unease, mirroring the protagonist’s internal struggle. The narrative unfolds through a poetic tapestry of visuals and sounds.
Keyonda Smith
“When Elevators Were Racist” is a participatory experience, groundbreaking, experimental, and interactive documentary that explores the intersections of the initiation of racial segregation, economics, and urban modernization in a unique way, redefining how stories of social justice and progress are told. Through its innovative choose-your-own-path format, the film empowers audiences to navigate the storylines and themes that resonate most deeply with them, creating a personalized journey through history.
The documentary sheds light on the overlooked yet profound impact of civil rights advancements on urban infrastructure and equity in mobility. It explores the unexpected and unthinkable intersections of urban modernization and racial segregation while examining the Jim Crow era’s pervasive racial exclusion. This was a time when African Americans were relegated to service stairs and freight elevators, denying access to the primary vertical pathways of public and private spaces. Moreover, it highlights the transformative power of the Civil Rights Movement, which opened elevators to all and ushered in a new era of growth for industries, such as elevator manufacturing.
Through vivid storytelling, historical accounts, and cutting-edge interactivity, this documentary reveals how desegregation expanded customer bases and fueled economic opportunities in unimaginable ways. Integration reshaped urban landscapes and infrastructure from department stores to apartment complexes, demonstrating the interconnectedness of social progress and economic development. At its core, “When Elevators Were Racist” encourages reflection on how removing physical and societal barriers has led communities toward more significant equity and prosperity in previously unexpected ways.
Stephon Stewart
PW: psyche2025
Adrift in limbo, a young woman and computer embark on a quest to uncover the meaning of life.
Mara awakens in a desolate desert with no memory of how she got there. The only thing in sight is a vintage 1980s computer, which communicates with her, proposing a series of puzzles to escape. With no other options, Mara embarks on a journey across a dystopian landscape.
As she deciphers cryptic clues, Mara and the audience are drawn into an unfolding mystery. Is she alive, dead, or trapped in a hallucinatory nightmare? Each step deepens the tension, keeping everyone guessing. What starts as a sci-fi thriller transforms into an introspective journey of self-discovery and redemption, as Mara confronts her buried trauma.
A mind-bending journey through a visually stunning dystopian landscape, the film blends mystery with psychological exploration. Like SOLARIS, THE MARTIAN and MOON, it shifts the focus from outer space to a haunting earthbound limbo, where a solitary protagonist grapples with existential questions, offering a fresh twist on the sci-fi thriller genre.
Jaewon Park
Earth is the name of the planet’s era between the 5th and 6th mass extinctions, given by humans. Dusts are pilgrims that travel through the Earth’s time, witness the Anthropocene, and arrive at the death of the Earth with their planetary memory. As Earth passes away, Dusts gather and perform the ancient ritual of funeral, which is the ceremony to close the past era and to celebrate the birth of the new era. https://www.instagram.com/jaewonparkart
Heather E Andrews
A moving image and sound portrait of the aura; seizures in focused parts of the brain that result in sensory, physical and emotional disturbances, sometimes acting as warnings for convulsive seizures that may occur. Told through the voices of individuals who experience this phenomena, the film provides an intimate discussion on the different forms of aura experienced, the social stigma around these and the potential positive impact it can make on artistic expression.