Still from Raine Roberts: DOVE STONE. Courtesy MONO NO AWARE.
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The films in Set Into Motion are the culmination of a year-long commission by Mono No Aware in collaboration with Westlab + Gallery. This commission invited six analog photographers who have previously exhibited work at Westlab + Gallery to extend their art practice into the realm of moving image, making films on 16mm for the first time.
Mono No Aware, in tandem with Westlab + Gallery, provided each commissioned artist with workshops introducing the Bolex Rex 5 Camera, support in developing film concepts, camera, film and equipment for shoot days, as well as a workshop on the 4-plate Steenbeck flatbed editing table for all of the artists to edit their projects by hand.
PROGRAM
Nyasia Pettway Rochelle (Petersburg, VA) & Christiane Nahu (New York, NY): ROXY
ROXY features a woman, blonde haired and brown eyed, who doesn’t know she’s dreaming. Escapism is her reality, her mind is the only place she feels comfortable enough to scream and cry in. This particular night, she sees a dream that isn’t her’s. Familiar sights of trees and buildings that feel like lost memories; a life she didn’t live but can see somehow. In color, at that, but she dreams in black and white. She sees the world for what it is, but she is lost in her mind, far from reality. The film explores the pieces of her she loves and hates; disorganized thoughts and memories, but beautiful nonetheless.
Kenzie King (Brooklyn, NY): Good Grieve
Good Grieve weaves together a portrait of grief, obsession, and nostalgia through imagery and objects that permeate our everyday lives.The film provides a symbolic landscape where the past intrudes upon the present in a looping rhythm of indelible imagery. Grief and memory take shape within the fleeting ephemera, as the familiar objects inexplicably evoke moments of pain. By revisiting these memories as intrusive images on loop, the objects in the film slowly shed the layers of narrative, leaning into the cyclical nature of grief in order to break free from it.
Annie Grey (Brooklyn, NY): Pretty Girls Always Smile
Gustavo Lopes (Brooklyn, NY): CATARINA
A short film that offers an intimate glimpse into the life of a Brazilian transwoman living in Brooklyn, NY in 2024. Through a series of vivid vignettes, the film paints a poignant portrait of Catarina's life as she asserts her right to exist. CATARINA invites viewers to reflect on the universal desire to belong and challenges us to empathize with the experiences of those navigating the intersections of identity in an ever-evolving world. Brazil has a grim track record when it comes to violence against LGBTQ+ people, with the highest number of murdered transgender individuals in the world. As a transwoman, Catarina's journey is particularly fraught with danger and adversity. This film serves as a reminder of the urgent need for unity and allyship in the pursuit of a more inclusive society. Catarina's determination to live authentically underscores the importance of embracing our shared humanity and the inherent dignity within us all.
Coco Villa (New York, NY): I Am Swimming With Zaza
What can I do to honor you, now that it is too late? You, and the You that I come from, and the You that occasionally stands in for me. Coco Villa presents I Am Swimming With Zaza, an ongoing intimacy between fact and the fantastical, real and imagined.
Raine Roberts (New York, NY): Dove Stone
Dove Stone is an experimental documentary/dance film juxtaposing the erosive tendencies of human behavior and the erosive nature of our environment. Color portion shot on location at Fort Tilden beach; Black and White portion shot in studio.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Catarina is a resilient and driven creative force within the film industry, having carved a unique niche as a filmmaker producing her own work. A Brazilian immigrant living in the United States for the past three years, she brings over 8 years of experience in film production and costume design, blending a distinct multicultural perspective with fresh, queer lenses.
Annie Grey is a queer nonbinary multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Their work is community-based and an ongoing conversation involving nature, a sociological exploration of fear and trauma, and questioning societal norms.
Kenzie King is a Brooklyn-based photographer and artist whose work explores themes of obsession, identity, and connection through film photography. Her work was featured in a solo exhibition at Westlab + Gallery, coinciding with the release of her debut book, Colder Than Cobalt, in 2023. In addition to her fine art practice, Kenzie works as a freelance photographer, specializing in fashion and portraiture.
Beginning his career in the world of fashion photography, Gustavo Lopes has since transitioned to focus on film photography and capturing narratives that shed light on important social issues. As a Brazilian immigrant living in New York for the past eight years, Gustavo brings a multicultural perspective to his work, highlighting diversity and inclusivity in every frame. He is particularly dedicated to amplifying the stories of the LGBTQ+ community, creating powerful images that foster empathy. Through his evocative photography, Gustavo continues to make an impact on the lives of those he captures and those who view his work.
Christiane Nahu is a budding actor, artist, and model based in New York and has been honing her acting skills at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute for the last two years. She is working on finding ways to blend her skills in acting, writing, photography, and performance art and bring about a perfect marriage of all her creative passions. Moving to the city has allowed her to challenge herself to grow in all these areas, and has provided her the means and connections to extend the range and reach of her talents. Her aim in all of her work is truth, individual and universal.
Raine Roberts is a Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based, photographer, filmmaker, and multimedia artist. Raine earned her BFA in Film Productions and BA in Communications from the University of Colorado at Boulder (2019). After working in documentary filmmaking, Raine went on to study at the International Center of Photography (2023). She has exhibited her works locally and internationally, in solo exhibitions with Westlab+Gallery and APStudioBk; group exhibitions with WORTHLESS STUDIOS, Haus Am See in Switzerland, VisualAIDS, and Brooklyn Film Camera. Her work has been published locally and internationally in MuséeMagazine, Este País, Bushwick Daily, and BK Reader. She was the most recent Photographer in Residence for the FREE FILM PROJECT -- leading free community-based workshops and developing her ongoing project. Raine is a member of the photography group SmallTable Collective.
Nyasia Pettway Rochelle (they/them) is a Black artist creating black and white film photography in Petersburg, Virginia. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Nyasia always had a love for creating art and taking pictures, but in the last two years or so, they would start to take self portraits and never look back. In this film, you’ll get to see their introduction to shooting on 16mm film, and how Nyasia took it as their chance to visually develop and beautify the story of a lost soul searching for spiritual connection.
Coco Villa is a Jamaican-Colombian American dancer, interdisciplinary artist, and educator. Tightly bound to identity, Villa leads an art-research practice investigating relations between body, object, and landscape. They utilize movement languages to tell autobiographical stories, explore human intimacy, and build familial archives through self-portraiture and choreography. Driven by historical and scientific discovery, Villa thrives in the ocean, in the woods, in the dance studio, darkroom, design lab, film set and library, playfully creating by hand.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS
Shrey Mendiratta is a filmmaker and visual artist based in Ridgewood, Queens, born and [half-]raised in New Delhi, India. He is the owner and operator of Westlab + Gallery in Bushwick, and serves as the chief curator for their exhibition programming. Shrey has received several awards for his work, including the Queens Art Fund New Work Grant in 2021, the Roselyn Schneider Eisner Prize in 2018, and has served as a panelist with the Queens Art Council. With the support of MONO NO AWARE he completed and exhibited the film जान की ओर (Jaan Ki Or) in 2022, and has been an instructor with the organization since taking his first class in 2020. His work has shown at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the Museum of Moving Image, Anthology Film Archives, Worth Ryder Art Gallery, Mono No Aware, and many DIY/non-institutional spaces around New York City and beyond.
WESTLAB + GALLERY is a color film lab and art gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Their exhibition programming aims to support, promote, and exhibit works by local artists who work primarily on film, and have been historically underrepresented in the arts. Westlab has shown several group and solo exhibitions, featuring works in photography, sculpture, video, and painting.
MONO NO AWARE is a cinema arts non-profit organization and learning lab based at 33 Flatbush Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, New York. Established in 2007, MONO is a community of working individuals of commensurate interests concerning cinema, its histories, its practices, its technologies and its possibilities. This is a community broadly appreciative of the cinematic art-form and its variants spanning generations. MONO constitutes a haven and facility for the exploration, practice, exhibition, production and preservation of the cinematic arts. MONO receives year-round support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, Festival partners and patrons such as yourself. Learn more at MONONOAWAREFILM.COM