Mills Folly Microcinema presents Project Projection Spring 2025, a program of locally produced film and video, Wednesday, April 30, 2025, at 7:00pm. Free admission, donations encouraged.
Join us for an evening of experimental films, short documentaries, music videos, and animation produced by filmmakers who reside in Madison and Dane County. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. A Q&A session with the filmmakers in attendance will follow the screening.
UPDATE: We have reached a 90 minute program time for the April 30, 2025 screening. All new submissions will be considered for the next Project Projection screening in approximately six months. Questions? Contact James Kreul at james@artlitlab.org.
This list is in alphabetical order by filmmaker name. The order of the films will be announced at the screening.
Looking for the Ghosts: The Very Black History of American Heavy Metal Music | Selena Baker | 2025 | 8:44
Looking for the Ghosts examines Delta Blues culture as the proto for heavy metal music. In particular, the film looks at the artists Pat Hare, Screamin’ Jay Hopkins, and Ice T’s band, “Body Count”, and Robert Johnson. In the film, I look at influence to include sound, aesthetic, and lore.
Selena Baker is a soon to be graduate of the University of Wisconsin Madison where she will be earning a BA in Communication Arts. Selena looks to be the griot of her community and focuses her work on overlooked or buried aspects of Black history & culture.
A Painted Wire | Blake Barit | Work in Progress | 8:00
Hand painted 16mm film paired with the drone of an experimental electronics project Barit is currently refining.
Glitch Dance | Blake Barit | 5:00
Found video is transformed into a visual and auditory trip that focuses on artifacting found inside digital media.
The Return to Cuba | Lew Blank | 2025 | 3:43
This January, I visited Cuba — home to the kindest, warmest, and most vibrant people on earth. While visiting, I tried to notice things I wouldn't catch if I were racing from attraction to attraction. This film is a compilation of what I saw, set to the song "Brother" by Koudlam.
I am a 25-year-old Madison resident with little formal training in filmmaking, but a lifelong interest in making short films for YouTube. I have a deep passion for telling stories in a creative way and that connect with viewers on an emotional level.
Mumbumper–F*ckin Leaf Blowers | Taylor Cherry | 2025 | 2:17
Music Video of Mumbumper's song “F*ckin Leaf Blowers,” featuring the entire band Taylor Cherry, Calvin Cherry, Jake Fisher and Dan Mark. This music video was inspired by a famous scene in the 1999 film Office Space, but instead of a printer, the band showcases their dislike of Leaf Blowers. Filmed and Edited by Taylor Cherry. Total budget of this video was under $30.
Taylor Cherry graduated from UW-Madison in 2014 with a double major in Communication Arts and Psychology, and in 2016 with a Masters degree in Industrial Engineering. Her undergraduate focus was more in film research and studies, with limited experience with filmmaking, though she always loved being part of film projects. She loves the whole process of making movies, especially loves combining video with music, and values low-budget yet effective techniques.
Neuroview | Brandon Coventry & Claudia Krogmeier | 2023 | 3:00
Four participants listened to jazz music while their brain activity was recorded. Frontal alpha asymmetry scores were used generate unique video representations of each participant's brain activity. This video shows the videos generated from the participants' brain activity.
LOUKA–Inside Out, Upside Down | Austin Duerst | 2025 | 3:38
In this sequel to LOUKA's "In My Tea", the gatekeeper of a digital art gallery finds himself at the center of a skeleton revolution. Austin Duerst and Louka Patenaude are creators working in Madison, Wisconsin.
The unseen | Tim Geurkink | 2020 | 4:02
Humanizing: The current situation. It has also touched me personally. When I first heard this song from Erin Rae it made me think of that super sad photograph and how powerful a message it sends.
Do Not Stop | Tim Geurkink | 2018 | 5:08
This is a song that's helped me get through hard times, and I put together the video to inspire others to not stop.
Honky Tonk Angels | Meggen Heuss | 2025 | 3:48
A psychedelic, fly-on-the-wall perspective of the garish & the glamor of humanity’s whimsy. A visual accompaniment to the poetry of Chicago author, poet and musician, Westley Heine. “Honky Tonk Angels” is a poem from Westley’s latest book Cloud Watching in the Inferno.
In Mind | Claudia Krogmeier | 2024 | 2:34
Designed to experiment with light, shadow and absence, In Mind features original choreography by Côme Tanguy. Music is 9 Ghosts I by Nine Inch Nails and is unmodified (Creative commons license).
Mother Knows | Claudia Krogmeier | 2024 | 2:06
Mother Knows manipulates footage from several short films found in the Prelinger Archives. This new edit of old film further emphasizes the female lead’s clumsy infatuation with a boy her age, distorting her simple mindedness into a sickening, false fantasy. The music is a 2-minute excerpt from the song “Being,” by SPIRIT FINGERS used with permission from the artist.
Some Sugar | Claudia Krogmeier | 2024 | 2:23
A conversation in dreaming, a relationship stifled before it was born. Some Sugar is an experiment with symbolic, subconscious or stream-of-consciousness writing to explore a feeling. Interpretation of the relationship or lack thereof between the two sleep talkers is left open to the viewer.
Unlearning | Claudia Krogmeier | 2025 | 2:47
An exploration of structural filmmaking for processing emotional memories, Unlearning mimics memory encoding through distortion which arises from repeated access. Is it possible to reduce the emotional power of memories through such distortion, or is the experience of such new, manipulated memories impactful in a different way?
Claudia Krogmeier is a filmmaker and researcher currently based in Madison, Wisconsin. Claudia holds a B.A. in video production from Indiana University and a PhD in human-computer interaction from Purdue University where she studied virtual reality and artistic brain-computer interfaces. Her video work and research have been presented in the United States and internationally. She is currently exploring the use of physiological data for designing personalized narrative trajectories for experimental narrative films.
Bob and Paul Meet… | Vincent Mollica | 2024 | 8:05
Two old friends, frustrated with each other's abrupt disappearance, struggle to remember where they spent the previous weekend and why they were sent there. Memories come through.
Vincent Mollica is primarily a cartoonist/illustrator living in Madison by way of Chicago. Bob and Paul Meet... largely uses still images and a voiceover to tell fragments of a story as it's titular characters remember it. The images in the film were drawn and colored by hand and assembled using the Adobe subscription he gets through work. The film draws inspiration from The Reincarnation of an Ornithologist by Peter Greenaway and Christmas at Moose Factory by Alanis Obomsawin. This is Vincent's first film.
Transactional Images | Sherif N. | 2025 | 1:47
Photographer Chase Fritz was dared by filmmaker Sherif N. to write a poem, then as a challenge the created poem was merged visually with footage shot over one hour spent with each other. Sherif N. attempts to find the harmony and balance of spoken image and visual image in this film, to create a singular harmonious entity out of both artistic visions.
It Dawned on Me | Sherif N. | 2025 | 8:07
Depicting the sun rising on a midwestern winter landscape filmed over 1 hour and 10 minutes, this film explores the relationship between natural light and the illusion of passing time through superimpositions and high framerates.
Sherif is an Egyptian high-school student residing in Madison who has taken an interest in experimental filmmaking and the absence and digital mutation of the image.
Mourning Sita | Blue Rachapradit | 2024 | 4:37
Cinematographer: Leo Luminis, Music: Gal Bergman. Mourning Sita revisits the character Sita from the Ramayana Epic through a feminist and revisionist lens. ‘Sita’ is a character from the Ramayana Epic, known throughout South Asia and Southeast Asia. There are many retellings of Sita — in all of them she is dug from the Earth, married to Rama and kidnapped to Lanka. After her kidnapping, her purity was put to question. She danced through fire to prove her chastity. Even after passing this test, people continue to doubt Sita’s virginity causing Rama to desert her. Sita has been reappropriated as an emblem against rape culture in Thailand’s #MeToo movement. The film reinterprets her power through an interpretive dance of her trial by fire.
Blue is a Thai interdisciplinary artist. She combines performance, poetry, video, and installation to create immersive experiences for contemplation, examination, and resistance against power structures. Blue is inspired by the monstrous female trope common in the Thai mythos and ghost religion she grew up with. She uses these characters to talk about patriarchal violence, employing a speculative fiction lens where the feminine screams back. Blue is a Fine Arts MFA candidate at UW-Madison.
The America Next Door | Al Rasho | Work in Progress | 3:39
About 25 years ago, I wanted to produce a documentary, not about the downtrodden or the middle class, but about the person who went to work out of high school in jobs that have been or soon to be eliminated. The America Next Door is an exploration of changes wrought by deindustrialization. Loss of jobs in dinosaur industries, leaving communities facing long term economic struggle, declines in population, tax base and urban decay. This is a work in development. It needs interviews with residents, scholars and B Roll.
Apartment 1904 | Al Rasho | 2025 | :34
A day in the life of south loop, Chicago. Hung a GoPro out of my 19th floor window, set to time lapse for 24 hours.
Al Rasho: Independent filmmaker in Chicago for over 35 years. Produced educational content and documentaries dealing with social justice. Worked internationally, Iraq, Sudan, Egypt, Turkey, Europe. Among other awards, 2 regional Emmys, Gold Plaque: Chicago International Film Festival. Retired in 2013 and moved to Madison to open a tavern and music club.
გაგვემარჯვოს (Gagvemarjvos) / May We Be Victorious | Vivienne Timchenko | 2024 | 2:43
გაგვემარჯვოს/May We Be Victorious, is both a strong statement and wrangled, worried question. Exhibiting manipulated drone footage of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia (საქართველოს) with a series of photographs taken in times of celebration and protest, the film sings to the tune of “gaumarjos” by Qaji Todia. Gaumarjos (გაუმარჯოს) means cheers in Georgian, and is a word that toasts to one’s victory and health, a word that is at the foundation of Georgian culture and values. Georgia now faces a reckoning of her values. This film is an audiovisual protest against the Georgian Dream party, which has betrayed the Georgian people for russian wealth. Georgia, which has long stood strongly and independently at the crossroads of history, now stands at the edge of its ruination. Oppression and tsarism threaten Georgian democracy and sovereignty, just as it did 34 years ago.
I am a Kartuli-American multidisciplinary queer photographer, writer, and filmmaker. Within my work, I shape and synthesize themes of purpose, peculiarity, and protest. I heavily engage in color isolation and musical synchrony in my films, and every aspect of my films unfolds and unravels, with simple sounds and streaks of color bearing weight.
ABOUT MILLS FOLLY MICROCINEMA
Mills Folly Microcinema showcases nationally recognized experimental film and video art 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.
