Close-Up Film Committee Shorts & Performance Program

Contributing a range of voices to international conversations around identity in the digital age, the Close-Up program features 8 films and a performance exploring the mask of anonymity and the online re-shaping of identity through “archival tools” such as YouTube videos, Google Streetview, and video games.

TRIUMPH IN THE SKIES
Fang Di, 5 minutes
Three stewardesses explore changing their appearance into anyone else’s wish.

TRANS TALKS
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, 3 minutes
An experimental, animated talk show seeks to “get this trauma show on the road!”

MONUMENT OF DISTANCE
Saiyar Azar, 7 minutes
The artist deconstructs a video of a beloved Iranian-Azerbaijani singer through repeated copying.

TAKING IS TOO EASY, BUT THAT’S THE WAY IT IS (DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION?)
Alvin Luong, 2 minutes
An absurdist revolutionary embodiment, complete with Spice Girls and video games.

ON THE LINE
Tina Takemoto, 6 minutes
A queer meditation on the Japanese women employed at pre-war canneries in San Diego.

YOUR FATHER WAS BORN 100 YEARS OLD, AND SO WAS THE NAKBA
Razan Al-Salah, 7 minutes
Google Maps Streetview offers the only path back to a Palestinian grandmother’s hometown.

SIRA
Rolla Tahir, 6 minutes
Starting with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, this film tracks the displacement of a family through excavated footage and narration.

AYESHA
Yanyu Dong, 20 minutes
An imagined biography of the artist’s mother, who once dreamt in her youth of becoming a Bollywood dancer.

APOCALYPSE IN YOUR BEDROOM
James Knott, Live Performance
Layers of projection, audio, choreography, and stage props coalesce in a black-box style theatrical spectacle investigating the elusive and dichotomous nature of the artist’s identity.