Saturday, April 25 | 4pm | OKCMOA | 415 Couch Dr | FREE ADMISSION
Program 3:
You Are Here
Inhale, directed by Lagha Ghavam & Mohsen Pouryousefian
WOEFF’s Program 3 encompasses more than the simple location; filmmakers in this program treat location as an extension of self, meshing identity with the place it was discovered, or the place it was altered or taken away.
In Inhale, directed by Lagha Ghavam & Mohsen Pouryousefian, we see a body — the same body — splayed across a cold landscape so void of specificity it could almost be seen as any were, making it easy for the audience to attach their own memories of a cold place to this landscape. The woman never moves on-screen yet is seen in numerous locations, including indoors and outdoors. The context of her collapse is never made explicit, but the feeling of entrapment and paralysis is clearly potent. In each appearance, the woman appears discarded, forgotten.
The filmmakers featured in Program 3 take different approaches to their themes, treating distance and person as relative to experience. Digital Durham, directed by Cal Young, treats the town it focuses on as its protagonist,evoking the feeling of returning home for the first time in a while. The film is almost like a love letter, almost, though one that moves nearly too fast to follow along. In a traveller’s lament, directed by Faye Shu, the audience follows a narratorthrough a collection of old, ruined cities and stunning landscapes. We see and feel the abandoned memories and the search for what has been forgotten.
Program 3 is an honest testament to the similarities that exist in the vast diversity of human experience in how humans feel longing, belonging, and place Sometimes we have no choice to be where we are, and these films say "You Are Here."
- Analise Rodriguez, BFA On-Camera Acting '26 Oklahoma City University
Sous le soleil exactement, directed by Noa Blanche Beschorner
Sous le soleil exactement
directed by Noa Blanche Beschorner
Taking the form of language exercises, Sous le soleil exactement is a tribute to the city symphonies of Berlin - a city whose inhabitants, streets and movements inspire the traveler's observations. Noa Blanche Beschorner returns to her native Germany and, through editing, creates a dialogue between spaces - sometimes populated, then deserted. A meditative film, where time and space set the tone.
a traveller's lament
directed by Faye Shu
a seagull made a bet.
The Phalanx
directed by Ben Balcom
Filmed on the former site of Ceresco, a 19th-century agrarian commune in Ripon, Wisconsin, this lyrical, experimental film revisits the utopian aspirations of a community striving to live "in association," guided by principles of harmony and shared ownership. Founded in 1844 and disbanded in 1851, Ceresco was one of several communes across North America inspired by the writings of French philosopher Charles Fourier. These fleeting but potent attempts to imagine alternative ways of living now serve as a lens to explore the fragility of collective ideals.
Weaving together archival materials, literary adaptation, and a performative collaboration with students, the film lingers in the echoes of this brief, failed experiment in communal living. Against this historical backdrop, it reflects on the quiet fractures of contemporary community and the lingering melancholy for spaces once brimming with possibility. Situated in Wisconsin, the film contemplates the resonance of place, inviting viewers to consider the enduring relevance of utopian thinking in a fractured world.
Inhale
directed by Lagha Ghavam & Mohsen Pouryousefian
A young woman is trapped in emotional limbo after years of social suppression in Iran. She is suspended in stillness as life echoes faintly around her. Distant explosions punctuate her isolation, and every attempt to move forward is disrupted by external forces. As she gradually dissolves into nature, the film meditates on the fragility of human existence. Though the seasons shift from winter to spring, she remains frozen in silence and solitude.
Structural Changes
directed by Jonah Primiano
A camera moves through the architecture of the renowned private art school, California Institute of the Arts, while a man touches up paint on the neglected exterior. Somewhere inside, the upper administration drafts increasingly dire emails to send to its faculty and staff.
Conversations in Brooklyn
directed by Ingrid Stobbe
10 days in Brooklyn and a series of introspective dialogues. Where do we turn to sustain ourselves, and how does art keep community in times of crisis?
Digital Durham
directed by Cal Young
Back home for a week.
The camera responds to the city.
In the first sequence, digits in Durham's landscape determine the exact number of frames shot.
Next, unseen cars trigger digital movement.
Finally, crosswalks count down the last moments of daylight.
Silence
directed by Toni Mešrović
Silence is the period between two compositions in the space of shipbuilding heritage with an uncertain future.
Due to the long-standing process of restructuring and privatization, political interventions and the governing structures' corrupting malfeasances, the workers of the 3. maj (3rd of May) shipyard stayed at home without pay for a full year, and the production facility went silent. That moment of silence in a facility that is usually filled with sound is the starting point for the portrayal of a specific space and time. Revealing the beauty of the spatial and auditory narratives of an industrial space, in the absence of workers and work processes, contextualizes the frightening socio-economic consequences of the “silence” and “emptiness” phenomena. After months-long negotiations in the fall of 2019, production continues with an uncertain future.