ArtYard Live Animation Festival: Early Cinema with Melissa Ferrari and Stacey Steers 

Join us for afternoon performances focusing on early cinema featuring Melissa Ferrari and Stacey Steers. ArtYard’s inaugural Live Animation Festival is a weekend of unique cinematic experiences blending live performance and animated films held Sept. 22 to 24 at ArtYard’s McDonnell Theater.

Highlights include:

Relict: A Phantasmagoria by Melissa Ferrari

Relict: A Phantasmagoria is an experimental documentary performed with antique magic lanterns and hand-drawn animation. Invoking the history of magic lantern phantasmagoria as an exercise in belief and perception, Relict explores the zeitgeist of pseudoscience, fake news, religion, and documentary ethics within contemporary cryptozoology. Adapting modern cryptozoological lore such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster to hand-drawn magic lantern slides, Relict employs the visual language of magic lantern phantasmagoria through slides based on antique designs, including geared slides and dissolving views. “She deftly reveals the big emotions lurking within seemingly tiny details” (Joel Del Signore, The Gothamist).

A Trio of Early Cinema Films by Stacey Steers

Phantom Canyon (2006)

Phantom Canyon is an exploration of memories and a personal reflection on a pivotal journey taken years ago. The film metaphorically circumnavigates this experience and is a surreal meditation on the filmmaker’s process of interpretation. Music and sound by Bruce Odland.

Night Hunter (2011)

In this meticulously crafted film, the actress Lillian Gish is scrupulously lifted from silent-era cinema and plunged into a new, haunting role. Night Hunter summons a disquieting dreamscape drawn from allegory, myth, and archetype to create an evocation of the uncanny and a reflection on the creative process. Music and sound by Larry Polansky.

As Evening Falls (2023)

The philosopher Hannah Arendt believed that wonder is the source of all meaning. This is the first 5 minutes of a new, still incomplete section of the new film that reflects on this idea.

Tickets for this event are $15 or $45 for a full festival pass.