Prismatic Ground is a New York City film festival centered on experimental documentary and avant-garde film, co-hosted by Maysles Documentary Center and media partner Screen Slate. 2022 marks the second ever and first hybrid edition of the festival, with physical events taking place at Maysles, the Museum of the Moving Image, and Anthology Film Archives. The majority of films will simultaneously be available free, worldwide on-demand during the festival dates at http://www.prismaticground.com. New Yorkers are encouraged to attend in person; each program will feature live filmmaker Q&As.
Note: “wave” tickets are purchased as a whole, but patrons are free to come and go during the noted breaks. Once sold out, a limited number of tickets for each program will be available on a first-come basis at the door, and seats that are vacated after breaks will be re-sold. All “waves” screen at Maysles Documentary Center.
wave 1: look at that round ass shit is screening in the cinema on 5/5 for $15/$7 reduced.
Screenings include:
Memory Playthrough (Sim Hahahah, 2 min.)
Someone demonstrates a formula to recount memories. The process is safe and virtually painless.
Contour (Fabio Andrade, 10 min.)
“Open the leaves I will see my body turned into flower.” - Gabriel Joaquim dos Santos.
That Was When I Thought I Could Hear You (Matt Whitman, 9 min.)
That was when I thought I could hear you: on petals, on fire, and on the edge of the bridge.
Global Fruit (G. Anthony Svatek, 5 min.)
Tropical fruits and vegetables radiate on a blizzard-struck street corner in Brooklyn, NY. A visual oxymoron, tugging at the edge of an interconnected and collapsing global order.
Wasteland No. 3: Moons, Sons (16mm in person) (Jodie Mack, 5 min.)
A world tender and unhatched, Future chaos in repose, in slumber…
vs. (Lydia Nsiah, 8 min.)
Recordings from server farms and data centers, which are the result of various translation processes between World Wide Web, expired 16mm films, and digital video, are sent into a metaphorical and literal maelstrom - becoming a mechanical eye that looks back and looks at us, the viewers.
Constant (Sasha Litvintseva, Beny Wagner, 40 min.)
A journey through the social and political histories of measurement.
