UnionDocs is thrilled to host Talena Sanders to explore themes of longing and performative desire in a program of short films from her practice and sphere of influence.
Talena Sanders makes films that explore individual and collective senses of identity. From essay films to diaristic personal work, her films weave together disparate audiovisual source materials to dig into the complexity of lived and shared experiences.
Alongside her work, Sanders has chosen a selection of short films that shift between self-presentation and considering how one is seen by a lover and by the wider world. The program includes historical queer films created by Bay Area film artists that trace a lineage for a project she is currently developing. These works are screened in dialogue with contemporary works that plumb the depths of depicting desire, sensuality, and longing.
This event is co-presented with the Museum Of The Moving Image as part of their First Look Festival.
Program
Cleansed II
Barbara Hammer 1969 7:43min.
Shot in Northern California on the Sonoma Coast and in the woodlands, the beauty and sparkle of silent Super8 is breathtaking and wondrous reminding the viewer of a time before depletion and pollution marked the landscape.
Reasonable Watchfulness
Talena Sanders 2018, 7min.
Transitions while longing for other places and people, like a fox on the run.
Audition
Karen Yasinksy 2012 4:12min.
Radiating with deep melancholy, the alternation of a woman prancing across a strip club stage in bright colours with a black-and-white sequence of a hand leafing through an old photo book remains utterly enigmatic. Questioning our perceptual habits, both the visuals and the soundtrack oppose distortion with clarity.
Rehearsal
Talena Sanders 2019 2:34min.
Silent. Preparations for performances.
Between My Flesh and the World’s Fingers
Talena Sanders 2018, 31 mins.
Inspired by queer proto-feminist turn of the century writer Mary MacLane, director Talena Sanders creates a dreamy, incantatory essay film. A tactile collage of MacLane’s still bold diary entries, archival material, recreation, and contemporary landscape photography of MacLane’s Butte, Montana, the film melds past and present, biography and autobiography, iconoclasm and experimentalism.
We Have Always Been on Fire
Sasha Wortzel 2018, 6min
Inspired by queer proto-feminist turn of the century writer Mary MacLane, director Talena Sanders creates a dreamy, incantatory essay film. A tactile collage of MacLane’s still bold diary entries, archival material, recreation, and contemporary landscape photography of MacLane’s Butte, Montana, the film melds past and present, biography and autobiography, iconoclasm and experimentalism.
84 min
