An evening of film, video, and animation
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion. The event is
free and open to the public.

Short films include:
Holding This For You / Marissa Niederhauser (19:45 minutes)

Synopsis: Exploring violent yet persistent themes in women’s lives
choreographer Marissa Rae Niederhauser creates an otherwordly film as
beautiful as it is unsettling. A solo female dancer in a gauzy white
dress is alternately intoxicated and threatened by an unseen
presence. The small red room she inhabits is flooded with thousands
of keys that embody a sinister presence of their own. Produced, choreographed,
performed and edited by M. Niederhauser, with cinematography by Be
Kasulke, score by Jason Staczek, violin by Ella Marie Gray, sound
design by Vinny Smith and foley by Caoimhe Doyle.

Bio: Marissa Rae Niederhauser splits her time between dancing and
filmmaking. She finished her first film, Holding This For You, last
autumn. So far it has screened in France, Chile and Brazil in
addition to here in Seattle. Her current film project, Tracings,
received a 2008 4Culture grant and is scheduled to be completed
sometime this summer. She is a graduate of Cornish College of the
Arts with a BFA in dance. She has performed in works choreographed by
Dayna Hanson, Haruko Nishimura (Degenerate Art Ensemble), and Alex
Martin (Better Biscuit Dance) among others. More information and film
stills can be found online at – http://marissaniederhauser.blogspot.com

Nicole Prowell (2 shorts)

Bath Time Follies (1:59 minutes)

Synopsis: Bath Time Follies is a confrontation with a woman’s fears
about responsibility, adulthood, marriage, and motherhood. Includes
footage from the 1980s educational film, Babies Are People, Too.

Dear Sister (1:29 minutes)

Synopsis: Dear Sister is a short experimental documentary about lost
childhood and infertility.

Bio: Nicole is an independent documentary filmmaker living in
Boston. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Experimental Documentary
at Emerson College, where she completed her MA in Documentary Video.
In addition, Nicole has studied filmmaking at FAMU in the Czech
Republic. Her recent projects include a personal documentary about
traveling across the country in search of happiness, entitled Happy
Hunting, which screened at the 2009 Emerson Film Festival in LA and at
the 2009 New Hampshire Film Festival. Nicole is a Board member of
Women in Film & Video/New England and a member of Connect the Docs.

Seahorse / Molly Allis (5:48 minutes)

Synopsis: „Seahorse‰ is about a girl drawn on a piece of paper, who
peels herself off and enters through a doorway into a series of
magical cardboard worlds. She travels farther into undiscovered
dimensions, until she finds herself on a small planet in outer space,
very far from where she began. It is a fantastical journey into the
unknown! This music video is made using stop-motion animation for
numerous sets and puppets, all made out of different kinds of paper
and cardboard. It looks a lot like a moving collage of a fantastical
children’s story.

Bio: Molly Allis attended New York University’s Tisch School of the
Arts, where she majored in Directing/Design for theater. She has
worked for Great Small Works puppet company (Brooklyn), the Bread and
Puppet Theater (Vermont), and has done numerous street theater
projects. She has been a drummer and singer in multiple bands,
including HUFF THIS! (New York), and The Rude Mechanical Orchestra
(Brooklyn). Molly is equal parts musician/composer and visual artist,
which is why she enjoys directing and designing music videos. She is
currently making an “animated experimental folk opera” about a journey
to the inner-most part of the human heart. Molly feels grateful to
have worked with so many talented artists and musicians on various
throughout the country.

Nafad (Arabic, Shake off) / Katherine Toukhy & Rashin Fahandej (5
minutes)

Synopsis: The first of a series of short pieces, Nafad (Arabic)/Shake
off, places an ever-present iconic female figure at the center of a
stream of images referencing life, loss, and power. The artists seek
to highlight the place of women and women‚s rights on a world stage
dominated by polarizing forces of western imperialism and eastern
fundamentalisms.

Bios: Having grown up in Iran and then moving to United States,
Rashin Fahandej is interested in bridging gaps and concentrating on
commonalities of the human condition in the world. As a result she
has been interested in creating collaborative projects, physically
bringing artists from different backgrounds together to co-create
works concerning shared ideas. The process of artmaking, in this
context, for her becomes a site to study personal, social, and
political ideas and identities. Rashin is pursuing her MFA at San
Francisco Art Institute; and she works primarily in video installation.

Katherine Toukhy‚s work in painting and video draws upon her
experiences as a first- generation Egyptian American. Referenced by
media, historical, and natural images, her work seeks to express
existential ideas through figurative abstraction. Katherine‚s work is
consistently grounded in the study of the human figure from a feminist
perspective. She is currently working on a series of paintings from
Colonialist photos of Œharem women.‚ Katherine has also been involved
in community arts organizing and art education in Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, and the Middle East.

Gladys Monterroso / Sara Alfaro-Franco (8:20 minutes)

Synopsis: In March 25th, 2009, Gladys Monterroso, a mother, wife,
lawyer, and professor was abducted, tortured, and raped in Guatemala.
She survived. She was invited by the Guatemala Human Rights
Commission-USA to give a speakers‚ tour on the inequality and inequity
that women face in Guatemala. The Washington Post asserts that
„Monterroso’s kidnapping has become a symbol of Guatemala’s collective
trauma as the nation suffers through a huge surge in abductions and
killings that has gone largely unnoticed internationally…‰ She is
speaking out. She wants justice.

Bio: Sara Alfaro-Franco is a boston-based filmmaker. She is
passionate about visual storytelling and oral history. She has a
lifelong interest in human rights issues.
Twist of Fate / Karen Aqua (8:40 minutes)

Synopsis: This 35mm experimental animated film explores the
transformative experience of being diagnosed with a life-threatening
illness. This expressionistic piece captures impressions of such an
experience: upheaval, uncertainty, a sense of physical intrusion, and
loss of control. Exploring this emotional and physical landscape, the
film visualizes an internal world inside the body, imagined on a
cellular level. Soundtrack: Ken Field. Music: Birdsongs of the
Mesozoic with Encanti. „Twist of Fate‰ has screened at: Telluride
Film Festival, 2009, Ottawa International Animation Festival, 2009,
Starz Denver Film Festival, 2009, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA),
Boston, 2009, Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2010, Black Maria Film & Video
Festival, 2010: Director’s Choice Award, Big Muddy Film Festival,
2010, Medical Film Symposium, Philadelphia, 2010

Bio: Karen Aqua has been making independent animated films since her
graduation from Rhode Island School of Design in 1976. Her award-
winning films have screened worldwide, at festivals in Europe, Asia,
North and South America, New Zealand, and the Middle East. She has
received fellowships from American Film Institute, the MacDowell
Colony, Millay Colony for the Arts, Fundación Valparaíso (Spain), New
England Film/Video Fellowship Program, LEF Foundation, Berkshire
Taconic Trust, and the Puffin Foundation. Aqua has taught animation
at Boston College, Emerson College, and at workshops and residencies
around the United States. She has served as a juror for film
festivals in Japan, the US, and Canada, and has presented numerous one-
person screenings of her work. In 2005, a special program of Aqua’s
animated films was presented at the Tehran International Animation
Festival, Iran. Since 1990 she has directed and animated 22 segments
for the acclaimed television program “Sesame Street.” For more
information visit: karenaqua.com

Le Bain (The Bath) / Silas Shabelewska (18 minutes)

Synopsis: LE BAIN is a visual poem with images and sound. The entire
film happens in a bathroom. A golden bathroom. There, in a large
bathtub lies a woman. All is quiet or so it seems…until she tells
her lover she is pregnant… The symbol of bathing and water are
omnipresent through the entire film, the cleansing of the body and the
soul. The pain of the woman is expressed through two intense dance
scenes, one with flamenco, and one with a Butho dancer…

Original music by Edward Bilous.

Bio: Silas Shabelewska is Polish-American, born and raised in The
South of France. Silas studied at The School of the Museum of Fine
Arts in Boston and New York University Tisch School of the Arts. She
worked in Film Production for many years and has been exhibiting her
photographic works for more than a decade in New York, Antwerp, and
Miami. Her most recent work, PEACE & LOVE was published in O The
Oprah Magazine (June 2008 p. 179) and also was exhibited at the New
Orleans Museum of Art from May to October 2009. The exhibition
travels to 3 other Museums in 2010 and 2011. Her short film Le Bain
was her NYU Thesis film in 1988-89 and won Superior Achievement in
Filmmaking at the First Run Festival in 1989. Shabelewska lives &
works in New York City.

Palindrome / Eva Quintas Froufe (7 minutes)

Synopsis: Palindrome is a story that could be understood in two
ways. The protagonist, Ana, is a 10 year-old girl whose world seems
to be falling apart after she gains literal understands of some
words. Her struggle is related to a palindrome she is obsessed with.

Bio: Eva is a writer and director of the short films: Prize (2006),
Palindrome (2007), and Seize the day (2006). She is a PhD candidate
in Advertising, audiovisual communication and public relations at the
University of Vigo, Spain, and an MFA candidate at Columbia
University, NYC.

Thursday, April 29th, 6:30-8:30pm, at the Somerville Public Library on
79 Highland Ave, Somerville.

Curated by: Rinat Harel, featuring artists: Marissa Niederhauser,
Nicole Prowell, Molly Allis, Katherine Toukhy & Rashin Fahandej, Sara
Alfaro-Franco, Karen Aqua, Silas Shabelewska, Eva Quintas Froufe.