South Sound Experimental Film Festival ENCORE Edition
- Fri, Feb 20
Run Time: 140 min.
TICKETS $15
Doors 6:30 p.m.; Event 7 p.m.
Select Showtime to Purchase Tickets
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THE EXPERIENCE
Returning to the Tomorrow Theater, the 2026 South Sound Experimental Film Festival ENCORE edition will present an evening of thought provoking, visually stimulating, and performative art making. The evening begins with a live soundtrack by musical artist Ceremonial Abyss to the 1972 short film Athanor by avant garde French director Philippe Garrel followed by an opportunity to explore a curated selection of books on film from Passages Bookshop. The evening culminates in a mesmerizing short film program bringing together artists from Portland and the Pacific Northwest, offering a cross-regional platform that celebrates the region’s vibrant cultural landscape. This program is always a treat for immersing one’s self into a world of imaginative techniques and tellings.
Since 2021, SSEFF has provided an annual space for unconventional, queer, and intermedia films – supporting filmmakers whose works might otherwise be pushed to the fringe due to identity, lack of resources, or unconventional techniques.
As the festival continues to grow, it remains committed to creating a network that emphasizes the development of new film technique, hybrid forms of storytelling, and diverse voices in cinema. SSEFF’s intention is to harbor a community for the exploration and development of the creative potentialities of the growing medium. In addition to screening experimental films, SSEFF also serves as an essential venue for interdisciplinary arts, mentorship opportunities, collaborative projects, and most importantly, friendship. SSEFF is not only a key cultural event for Portland but also contributes to the broader international network of filmmakers pushing the boundaries of cinema.
ON SCREEN: South Sound Experimental Film Festival ENCORE edition
Athanor with live score by Ceremonial Abyss – Athanor is an experimental, silent, avant-garde short film by French director Philippe Garrel (1972), starring musician Nico as a mysterious figure seeking fire, exploring themes of desire, transformation, and alchemy through dreamlike, visual vignettes featuring mirrors, tombs, and castles. It’s known for its stunning, minimal, and powerful imagery, showcasing Garrel’s early artistic vision with its focus on raw, visual storytelling. A live score to this film will be provided by Portland based composer Ceremonial Abyss.
Short Film Program –
Anadromous – dir. Ari Grubs – Tacoma WA, 5 min. – anadromous [ uh-NAD-ruh-muhs ]adjective (of fish) migrating from fresh water to sea water to spawn.
When they find themselves evolving out of their aquarium home, two fish set off on a musical journey of self-acceptance and queer joy, and find community in a freaky fish gay bar in the deepest depths of the ocean.
An Angel Will Appear – dir. Elish Gore – Portland, OR, 6 min 46 sec. Three realities converge in order to prevent an angel’s deathly message.
Touch.mov – dir. Deb Seitz – Portland, OR, 5 min. 8 sec. – This film is my exploration in the idea of touching my own art. As a video artist, I find in modern times I have been stripped of the opportunity of actually touching my own art with my own hands. With this film, I play with 8mm and 16mm film, direct animation and video synthesis in an attempt to actually put my finger print in my product. Even the sound consists of drawings I put through a 16mm film projector. As an artist in times where AI controls a lot of the decisions we are made to have, I want to go back to the basics and make something “real”.
Look back at me – dir. Ariella Tai – Portland, OR, 8 min. – This film uses digital glitch and analog video processing tools to create visual and sonic altars for Black femme pleasure, play, revenge and possibility. “look back at me” utilizes and appropriates canonical pop culture film and media images of Black lesbians and queered femmes, featuring concert footage of Janet Jackson from her Velvet Rope tour, Chrystale Wilson as Ronnie in the 1998 film The Players Club and the inimitable Grace Jones, amongst others. “look back at me” lays in the messy interstices that inextricably link power, pleasure, violence and desire.
The Girl in the Rocking Chair – dir. Josie Saint Josephine – Portland, OR, 4 min. 39 sec. – An avant garde erotic short film. An embodiment of the lure and beckoning call of the void. Leading to a girl’s surreal fornication with it. Shot on camcorder transferred to vhs tape.
The Incantation of Gradiva – dir. Hali Autumn – Portland, OR, 16min. 30 sec. – Operating as a mythopoeic film, the sacrificial script is imposed upon the feminine. Drawing on the spirit of Helene Cixous’s fascination with Wilhelm Jensen’s Pompeian fantasy novel Gradiva, as well as on Sigmund Freud’s essay Delusion and Dream…, these moving images interrogate theological narratives that have historically conscripted women into cycles of self-erasure. The camera acts as an incantation, invoking and releasing an untethered Gradiva carried into non-linear time. Through division, dissolution, a Third Body, and through becoming, the body emerges as a medium that generates language through transmission and renewal.
Bramble On – dir. Sean Whiteman – Portland, OR, 8min. 45 sec. – A man confronts the creature living inside his blackberry brambles. He finds the thorns dig deeper than he expected.
I Saw the Mountain – dir. Akila Fields – Portland, OR, 6min. 14 sec. – From a taxi window in New York City, the sight of a yellow moon sparked a poem – the first thread of what would become this multidisciplinary project. Set in and around Portland, Oregon, ‘I Saw The Mountain’ expresses a weary hopefulness through intersecting spoken word, dance, and music.
Fog Mirror – dir. Chris Freeman – Portland, OR, 4min 26 sec. – Fog Mirror is a cut up video using photos from Flickr from 2004-2014 as raw material. It explores nostalgia and cultural memory, pulling from the forgotten archive of times gone by.
Pleasure of Real ‘99 – dir. Jeffrey Sundin – Portland, OR, 11 min. 30 sec. – After a chance encounter with Mother’s Kiss, O-Jackie hears the familiar voice of Richard Price while lost in a foreign, digital zone near Golden Greene’s coastal lounge.
Fire Walk With Me: A Recap by Fire Walker Texas Ranger – dir. Angelo Scott – Portland, OR, 22 min. 10 sec. – A recap of David Lynch’s tragic film, Fire Walk With Me as told by Fire Walker Texas Ranger. The video and sound was first performed by Fire Walker Texas Ranger on July 22, 2023 at The Fixin’ To in Portland, Oregon, for Laura Palmer’s Birthday. The video was edited and selected from 4 hours of projections that were used during the event. The projections were made from improvisational color mixing and chroma keying using a Panasonic video mixer from roughly 1989, re-routed into a feedback loop system. The sound was created, recorded and mixed by Angelo Scott, with audio mastering by Christopher Paul Klarer. Fire Walker Texas Ranger is Angelo Scott. Laura Palmer’s natal birth chart shows that her Sun is in Cancer, Moon in Sagittarius, Ascendant in Leo, her Chiron in Aries. She was born July 22, 1971 and died February 24, 1989.
@s.s.e.f.f
The South Sound Experimental Film Fest is an accessible channel for experimental filmmaking from local artists in the Pacific Northwest.
Our intention is to harbor a community for the exploration and development of the creative potentialities of the growing medium.
We celebrate independent work which may otherwise get pushed to the fringe due to identity, insufficient resources, or qualifications of practice or technique.