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IDFA on stage: Spectral Transmissions: Love Bends Time

Michael Palmieri & Donal Mosher (USA)
Tue 14 Nov ’23 and Wed 15 Nov ’23
An evening of deliciously spooky tales. Rather than focusing on horror, the filmmakers, musicians and storytellers in this cinematic performance share their unconventional ghost stories exploring the unfathomable, sometimes uncanny power of love.
Tue 14 Nov ’23
and
Wed 15 Nov ’23

Two years ago, IDFA on Stage featured Spectral Transmissions, a multimedia piece by performer-filmmakers Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher in which ghost stories offered solace in the anxious days of COVID. Now they are back with a new edition. Rather than focusing on fear and horror, this time they explore the unfathomable and sometimes uncanny power of love. In many ghost stories it is the power of love—for childhood friends, for family members, for animals—that bends time.

osher and Palmieri have invited musicians, filmmakers and visual artists to contribute work around this theme. Multimedia artist Chloe Abrahams explores the strange world she enters when sleepwalking. Film theorist Dorota Lech tells an intimate tale about an heirloom that embodies family traditions, Polish folklore, an epidemic and a war.

Documentary filmmaker Jeanie Finlay and author and filmmaker Steven Sheil bring a tale of lost siblings connected by an uncanny tape recorder. While watching a 1950’s werewolf film two boys explore sexuality, violence, and the shifting moral positions of fantasy. These stories and more make up this year’s program.

  • Premiere: Tuesday 14 November
  • Run time: 70 min
  • Spoken language: English, French

Credits

created by Michael Palmieri, Donal Mosher director Michael Palmieri, Donal Mosher production  Wishbone Films key collaborator Lynne Tillman, Dorota Lech, Jeanie Finlay, John Cohen, Steven Sheil, Chloe Abrahams, D.L. Alvarez coproduction Aaron Rosenblum cinematography Michael Palmieri, Matt Uhry animation Work-Order editing Michael Palmieri designer Peter Ksander, Nelson Lowery sound Michael Palmieri, Donal Mosher
sound design Michael Palmieri, Donal Mosher music Michael Palmieri screening copy Wishbone Films

About IDFA

IDFA strives to strengthen the international documentary climate by focusing more than ever on documentary film as an art form. This focus includes documentary films with an original visual language or structure, films that show lesser-known cultures or are filmed from a non-Western perspective, and interactive or immersive documentaries that innovate the field.

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