Mills Folly Microcinema will present a program of short films by acclaimed filmmaker Paige Taul on Wednesday, June 14 at 7:00 p.m, followed by a remote Q & A with the filmmaker after the screening. Admission $5.00, free for ALL members. Seating is limited, and doors open at 6:30 p.m. A $1 fee will be added for single admission credit card charges, but no fee for multiple admissions ($10 or more).
Paige Taul is an Oakland, CA native who received her BA in Studio Art with a concentration in Cinematography from the University of Virginia and her MFA in Moving Image from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her work engages with and challenges assumptions of black cultural expression and notions of belonging through experimental cinematography. As a part of her filmmaking practice she tests the boundaries of identity and self-identification through autoethnography to approach notions of racial authenticity in veins such as religion, style, language, and other black community-based experiences.
Taul's work has been exhibited at venues and festivals including UnionDocs, Crossroads at SFMOMA, BlackStar Film Festival, Prismatic Ground, and the Virginia Film Festival.
The Q & A will be moderated by poet Grace Ruo.
This program was originally scheduled in February, and postponed due to inclement weather.
71 | 2022 | 19 minutes
71 is about the sensibilities of the black middle class as observed by Jessica Taul and Pamela Patterson, the filmmaker's mother and aunt, respectively. They discuss their differing tastes, definitions of class, frogs, and other qualifiers they consider in their evaluation of the space that they live in: a suburban-like outcropping of identical housing units. Through direct quotation and phenomenological relation to Bill Greaves's seminal film, Still A Brother: Inside the Negro Middle Class (1968), 71 navigates the temporal gaps in conformity and respectability politics between 1968 and 2022.
Reid's Records | 2018 | 4 minutes
An interview with David Reid, current owner and inheritor of Reid's Records in Berkeley, California reflecting on the impact of gentrification on business and the neighborhood.
10:28,30 | 2019 | 4 minutes
10:28,30 examines the relationship between myself and my sister, and our relationship to our mother. I am interested in the dissonance of our lives apart and the tension in the desire to be together.
Too Small to Be a Bear | 2020 | 5 minutes
My mother describes a profound event in her father's life. She reflects on the event being the possible cause for his demeanor. The second half features my grandmother, Dorothy Taul. She guides us through her memories of the players and the era that she met Cub, Jesse Taul, her husband.
Goat | 2021 | 3 minutes
About a girl and her j's. A meditation on the politics of style, collectivity, and personal taste.
The Promise | 2019 | 6 minutes
An exploration of power and control of one's own life and others in it. Illustrated in my mother's retelling of a near death experience.
DiviNation | 2017 | 10 minutes
A conversation with Tyneeka about her feelings on community, fraternity and sorority life, and the complicated social expectations of belonging.
Transit | 2017 | 3 minutes
A conversation with University of Virginia alumni about the Transition Program during Black Alumni weekend. *Transition Program: A summer program in which select students take classes before their first semester to ensure they are academically to see and can adjust to University life.
Maciré | 2020 | 4 minutes
Maciré details her experience as an Afro-German woman in Germany. Filmed in Berlin, Germany as a resident of the Institut für Alles Mögliche.
I Am | 2017 | 3 minutes
An interview with my mother about her relationships with her family, religion, and blackness.
ABOUT MILLS FOLLY MICROCINEMA
Mills Folly Microcinema showcases nationally recognized experimental film and video art work from the festival and microcinema circuit. We network with regional filmmakers and organizations to bring filmmakers and guest programmers to Madison for screenings. And we incubate local experimental filmmaking by providing screen time at Project Projection events.
