Sunday, April 26 | 1:30pm | OKCMOA | 415 Couch Dr | FREE ADMISSION
Program 5:
Living
Through It
HOWW TO WAYT, directed by Johanna Winters
“Living Through It” stands as the title for Program 5, the penultimate screening of WOEFF 2026, marking a bittersweet statement as the festival nears its close for the year. We have journeyed through politics, diary films, and personal films, but now it is time to get weird. With a combination of humor, sincerity, psychedelia, and encapsulated memory, Program 5 is the most eccentric blend of films from this year's festival. This program stands for what experimental film can do for us through all of our emotions and senses.
The most intriguing and fun part about Program 5 is the unexpected nature of what will follow the previous film. HOWW TO WAYT, directed by Johanna Winters is sensual, hilarious, and heartbreaking as it follows a large-headed human/puppet character. It is immediately followed by Children of the Chicken, directed by Jessi Kyle, a film made entirely out of classic KFC advertisements that is bound to have the audience laughing. Program 5 takes the audience through waves of emotions from start to finish and is undeniably human at its core.
The idea of being human means it could maybe relate to anyone watching it. With this program, there is hopefully something for each audience member to grab hold of. Perhaps it is the idea of being a parent and the profound love that comes with that, perfectly put on display in Dance Film, directed by Kelly Gallagher. Some might find relatability in a grieving artist in Chicken Salad, directed by CK Thornton. No matter the level of humor or sadness in a certain film in this program, each one displays itself as profound.
Program 5 is avant-garde filmmaking at its utmost potential. It is what makes displaying experimental cinema for an audience so delightful and engaging. All can familiarize themselves with the films on display in this program. By the end, Living Through It shows how heartfelt and human the avant-garde is.
- Gabe Wyatt, BFA Film Production '26
Note: Program 5 will be followed by a live performance by ut mutem, accompanying Myein, directed by Andrew Lee.
The Golden Bough, directed by Luke Thompson
Half Halt
directed by Sofia Theodore-Pierce
“pause spewing pause/ to learn the grammatical fact––/there is no going forward alone”––Rosie Stockton
In horsemanship a half halt is a pulse on the rein to say, hey I’m still here, holding you. It indicates something around the bend, a warning and a reassurance. Here, a series of interruptions are held together by those who catch me when I'm falling. Rosie reads their poem. Grace and I brave the dark. Camera slips. Record skips. Lovers reunite through a viewfinder. We’re all filming each other on horseback. A meditation on intimacy in times of offscreen emergency, both personal and political. Seizures as elevators.
Chicken Salad
directed by CK Thornton
In this Surrealist cinema poem, a woman processes the waves of grief and finds solace in becoming one with her art.
The Golden Bough
directed by Luke Thompson
An elegiac diary of a summer. A meditation on distance. A presage of tragedy and ecstasy.
Absolut
directed by Caroline Rumley
As Covid dims and the war in Ukraine does not, there remains just one absolute.
des rêves des rives
directed by Louise Luck & Harry Bracho
A young woman leaves the city and strolls along the banks of the river like the last moments of doubt and melancholy, before perhaps continuing on her way.
HOWW TO WAYT
directed by Johanna Winters
A puppet-protagonist performs her sensuality for the camera while readying for a possible encounter with an imagined romantic interest.
Children of the Chicken
directed by Jessi Kyle
A comedy made entirely from old KFC commercials, Children of the Chicken is a story of corruption and revenge.
Sunspots
directed by Abinadi Meza
Sunspots utilizes cameraless direct animation on 16mm film to investigate material thresholds of energy. The work flows as a stream of cosmic weather; an incandescent field of sound and color where pigment applied directly to the substrate produces branching electrical forms and shifting solar bodies. These material phenomena replicate the turbulence of coronal mass ejections, chromatic intensities, and solar voids. Charged with planetary electromagnetism, the crystalline frequencies generate a state of granular sonic heat. Sunspots is a zone where micro and macro form a circuit; a collapsing of distance between observer and observed where the impossibility of vision meets the blinding proximity of the infinite.
Dance Film
directed by Kelly Gallagher
This animated film playfully upends the traditional focus of most avant-garde choreography films by turning its attention on the spectator of a dance instead of the dancer herself. This film is about the act of watching, and what it means to look at someone with love, tenderness and openness. This film is a small and mighty affirmation of life. "There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.” - Nelson Mandela
These Shirts Are Not Mine
directed by Lily Tucker
These Shirts Are Not Mine is an experimental short comprised of photographs taken on 35mm of different clothes I have collected over the years from other people.
All of This Must Be Paid For
directed by Gabi Rubin
The wellness universe evaluates the spiritual mechanics of the pain-body as it searches for answers.
MYEIN
directed by Andrew Lee
Note: This film will be accompanied by a live performance by ut mutem