Portland Dance Film Festival 2025 Picks 3
Run Time: 135 min.
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Doors 6:30 p.m.; Event 7 p.m.
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THE EXPERIENCE
Portland Dance Film Fest (PDFF) is back for its 9th year! This year’s three-day festival will include 25 film shorts showcasing a diverse range of films that use movement to tell stories. PDFF endeavors to foster the appreciation and creation of dance film in Portland and to connect us all more to the language of our bodies. Join us for 25 spectacular PDFF Picks, curated from 14 different countries.
We end our 2025 festival moving in elemental currents. We open with Breathless (United Kingdom), a study in balance and power performed within an enclosed circular space, the dancers caught in an infinity loop of relationship. Santa Bárbara (Spain) follows with the stark beauty of snow, ash, a red hat, and one singular figure pressing into the landscape.
In A Mother’s Odyssey (Netherlands), the primal bond between mother and child plays out in gestures of routine and of two bodies reaching for something to hold, and in dust (USA/Oregon) the theme of caretaking continues on, refined by the coastal wilds of Oregon into a shifting landscape of legacy and the rhythm of ushering each other in and out of life.
The second half begins with Somber Tides (Canada), a duet of birdlike figures in an eco-dance of survival and bone deep chill. In Adam (United Kingdom), a dancer generously offers a solo very near the death of her father, a longtime collaborator of Pina Bausch in an intimate choreography of feathers and tears.
your love: “walking” beside me (USA) evokes tenderness through the grainy Super 8 film and is a gentle honoring of love past that somehow still walks beside us. We close the night and our 2025 festival with Directions to the Other Side of the World (Ireland), in which one woman traverses the far reaches of rural Ireland to make peace with the darker edges of her spirit.
8 Films | Run Time w/Intermission: ~1 hour 20 minutes
ON SCREEN: Portland Dance Film Ferstival 2025 Picks 3
Breathless | Directed by Eve McConnachie & Choreography by Nicholas Shoesmith & Madeline Squire | 5:34 | United Kingdom
In 2023, Scottish Ballet did a call-out to its own company of dancers, asking them to pitch ideas for a short film that they would like to create and choreograph, with support from the production team and in-house film director Eve McConnachie. One of the films produced was Breathless. The dancers in Breathless are symbols of the themes that run through every relationship, such as balance, power, trust, and greed. The film is created as an infinite loop and shot in a fully enclosed circular space, reflecting the cyclical nature of life and relationships.
SANTA BÁRBARA | Directed by Bárbara Fdez & Choreography by Diego Pazó & Bárbara Fdez | 12:00 | Spain
In 2022, Navarre suffered devastating fires that were getting closer and closer to the city. More than 14,000 hectares were burned. In this documentary, a collective and anonymous voice reflects on the relationship we have as a society with nature.
A Mother’s Odyssey | Directed by Anna Fransen | 5:06 | The Netherlands
In A mother’s odyssey you see the dynamics between mother and child in their daily lives. In the safety of their own home, they both look for something to hold on to, using movements, sounds and their primal connection.
Dust | Directed & Choreography by Noelle Kayser | 9:47 | United States, Oregon Artist
dust is a dance film that explores themes of legacy and mortality in the cycle of intergenerational caregiving. It pays tribute to the compassion, reciprocity, and unconditional love present as we guide one another into and out of this life. It depicts the experience of caring for my father as he died of cancer.
-intermission-
Somber Tides | Directed & Choreography by Chantal Caron | 12:00 | Canada
Somber Tides is a cry from the species, startled into survival against the elements. One last breath before being trampled by the Earth or maybe conversely a battle to wage against winds and tides clutching on before extinction.
Adam | Directed by Samantha Shay | 3:44 Germany
Adam is a short dance film that emerges from rehearsals for the dance theater piece Life in this House is Over by director Samantha Shay. Exploring the social awkwardness of grief, and inspired by the writing of Anton Chekhov, the project gathers current and former artists of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, as well as the Grotowski Institute-based physical theater company Teatr ZAR, as a reflection on the lineages of Polish Jerzy Grotowski and German Pina Bausch, their relationship and how their work resonates today. This particular solo was shot very close to the death of dancer/choreographer, and longtime collaborator of Pina Bausch, Julie Anne Stanzak’s father, Adam Stanzak, the film is lovingly named and dedicated in his memory.
Your Love: ‘Walking’ Beside Me | Directed & Choreography by Ali Kenner Brodsky | 3:46 | United States
your love: ‘walking’ beside me is the first film in a triptych which captures the life cycle of love.
Directions To The Other Side Of The World | Directed by Derrick Belcham & Choreography by Kiley Dolaway | 12:00 | Ireland
A woman explores the far reaches of rural Ireland in an attempt to make peace with the darker aspect of her spirit. Shot on location in County Kerry, Ireland in 2025, Directions to the Other Side of the World is a blessing, in the style of noted Irish poet John O’Donahue, for those of us visited by a depressed and desolate spirit, a sincere wish for friendship with the greyer aspects of self, and the darker times of day and season. Narrated and accompanied by the modern master of the Sean-nós tradition of singing, Iarla ó Lionáird, and scored by contemporary Irish composers Linda Buckley and Hannah Peel, the film attempts to bridge generations of place and ritual into poetic and practical film of belonging and peace.
ON STAGE: Kailee McMurran, Tia Palomino, Jess Evans
Kailee McMurran / Festival Director
Kailee McMurran is an award-winning dance filmmaker, performer, and founder/director of Portland Dance Film Fest. A former principal with Rainbow Dance Theatre, she co-founded SubRosa Dance Collective and has performed with Do Jump! Extremely Physical Theater since 2011. She also runs Selkie Stationery, a stationery and watercolor studio.
Tia Palomino / Director of Operations
Tia Palomino is a performer, teacher, and co-founder of Portland Dance Film Fest. She has performed and taught with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Do Jump! Extremely Physical Theater, Polaris Dance Theatre, POV Dance, SubRosa Dance Collective, and A-WOL Dance Collective. She runs Trampoline Town, a circus studio in SW Portland, where she teaches aerial arts, trampoline, and acrobatics.
Jess Evans / Director of Communication
Jess Evans is a dancer, choreographer, somatic healer, and co-founder of Portland Dance Film Fest. She has created and performed work as a principal with Rainbow Dance Theater, SubRosa Dance Collective, push/FOLD, and as a solo artist. She is a Licensed Massage Therapist and Certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher.
