Antiques become reproducible dinner sets, exotic birds become luxury currency, exploration becomes extreme-sport tourism, monuments become geodata. A film-poem of an ecology of signs tracing a colonial history repeating itself: objects and fetishes, roots and branches, celebration and power relations in a struggle to find one’s place at the the table.

Ana Vaz (Brasilia, Brazil 1986). Studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia) and at Le Fresnoy (Tourcoing, France). Seven films since 2008; screenings at Curtas Vila do Conde (Portugal), Visions du Réel (Nyon, Switzerland), “Views from the Avant-garde” at the New York Film Festival, etc. Second appearance at Media City. Currently lives in Paris, France.

Nuno Fialho was sixteen years old when he left Portugal to go into the French Foreign Legion. Elias Geißler, a sixteen year-old German actor, represents Nuno’s narrative, whose voice appears from time to time. We hear cut-ups, copypastes, excerpts; nothing was rewritten. We observe the friction between Elias’ androgynous figure and Nuno’s deformed voice, the boy stumbling over the words of a text that he doesn’t understand, that he can only theatrically pretend to feel… “Asking someone to remember is cruel. It explains the fragmented discourse, the abstractions. I never learned the crime Nuno committed. I didn’t ask.” — SL

Salomé Lamas (Lisbon, Portugal 1987). Studies at FAMU (Prague) and University of Coimbra. Eleven films since 2008; screenings at Visions du Réel (Nyon), Curtas Vila do Conde, Courtisane (Ghent), etc. First appearance at Media City. Lives in Lisbon, Portugal.

“I wish more stuff was available in its raw state, as primary source material for anyone to consider, and to leave for others in just that way, the evidence uncontaminated by compulsive proprietary misapplied artistry, ‘editing’, the purposeful ‘pointing things out’ that cuts a road straight and narrow through the cine-jungle; we barrel through thinking we’re going somewhere and miss it all. Better to just be pointed to the territory, to put in time exploring, roughing it, on our own.” — Ken Jacobs

Ken Jacobs (Brooklyn NY, 1933). Studies at City University of New York. 50+ films and digital artworks since 1955; screenings at all major venues for artist’s film worldwide including six editions of the Whitney Biennial and career retrospective at MoMA NY. Co-founder of Millennium Film Workshop (New York, 1966). Guggenheim Fellow (1995). First appearance at Media City. Lives in New York, NY.

Filmed on location in Salvador, Brazil (the last city in the western hemisphere to outlaw slavery) and Harlem, New York (an international stronghold of the African diaspora). Many Thousands Gone draws parallels between a summer afternoon on the streets of both cities. A silent version of the film was given to jazz multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee to use as an interpretive score. The final film is the combination of the images and McPhee’s “sight reading.”

Ephraim Asili (Philadelphia PA, 1979). Studies at Temple University and Bard College. Works as a DJ and radio host and has been creating short films since 2007; screenings at the Milan Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Film-Makers’ Cooperative (New York), etc. First appearance at Media City. Lives in Hudson, New York.

A re-articulation of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, employing a vintage educational film on school bus safety. An actress re-stages the film while reciting press conference audio of Rosa Parks on a recreated set in New York City.

Akosua Adoma Owusu (Alexandria VA, 1984). Studies at University of Virginia and California Institute of the Arts. Ten films since 2005; screenings at the Berlinale, Centre Pompidou (Paris), International Film Festival Rotterdam, etc; featured artist at the Flaherty Seminar (2010); Guggenheim Fellow (2015). First appearance at Media City. Lives in New York, New York.

The end of an evening. Shot at the annual Detroit River Fireworks in Windsor in June, 2014 while Everson was a Mobile Frames Filmmaker in Residence.

Kevin J. Everson (Mansfield OH 1965). Studies at University of Akron and Ohio University. 80+ films since 1997; screenings at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Whitney Museum (New York), etc; Guggenheim Fellowship (1996), Rome Prize (2001). Sixth appearance at Media City; 2014 Mobile Frames Filmmaker in Residence. Lives in Charlottesville VA.

Still image of Grand Finale copyright Kevin Jerome Everson, courtesy of the artist, Trilobite-Arts DAC and Picture Palace Pictures.

Oona Mosna