Saturday Cinema: Creative Light and Color Play
These eight short films explore light and color play, as well as colorful explorations. From stop-motion to hand-drawn to collaged images, these films playfully capture visual surprises!
For hands-on play, check out Gallery 2’s Tinkering Studio and the Light Play Studio in Bechtel Gallery 3’s Wattis Studio through April 19.
Running time: 25 minutes
Introduction by Liz Keim with a preshow screening of A Matter of Form by René Jodoin (1983, 3 minutes)
Set to the rousing notes of Schubert's “Military March,” this animated film is an ingenious example of how a single point can be the building block for a multiplicity of shapes and configurations. Lines and forms grow out of the point, eventually covering the entire screen in splashes of color.
The Deep by PES (2010, 2 minutes)
The murky underwater world of fish, seaweed, and other aquatic lifeforms is created entirely from old hand tools, nutcrackers, calipers, film lenses, faucet knobs, chains, and skeleton keys—as only a tinkerer can create!
Dot by Sumo Science (2010, 2 minutes)
Using utilitarian objects to create a suspenseful adventure, the animated protagonist travels through a landscape of pocket-sized objects in a world made anew through human and technological creativity.
Dance Film by Kelly Gallagher (2025, 1 minute)
The filmmaker animates a short documentary of her child and creates sixty seconds of animated joy!
Rudy with a Flashlight by local artist Jon Chester (2016, 3 minutes)
This hand-drawn music video for the song “Rudy with a Flashlight” by the great guitarist Rainer Ptacek. The film celebrates the inquisitive nature of a young child exploring the dark through a flashlight beam, as well as simply capturing the sweetness of childhood.
In Plain Sight by Jane Aaron (1977, 3 minutes)
The filmmaker employs live-action techniques to animate objects in buoyant fashion to elevate our everyday world. Music by Richard Grando, Larry Packer, and Steve Silverstein. Check out the Animation Station exhibit in the Gallery 2’s Tinkering Studio.
Projected on 16mm film
The Shadow’s Dream by Jeffrey Scher (2009, 3 minutes)
Using a simple film trick, the artist explores the 2D aspect of shadows in a 3D landscape, creating a kind of “fugitive motion graphic.” On any particularly sunny morning, the shadows of people in the city seem to constitute a fleeting parallel universe at our feet.
A Lightplay: Black-White-Grey by László Moholy-Nagy (1926, 6 minutes)
A celebration of the interplay of light and shadow cast as ephemeral elements reflecting off a revolving kinetic sculpture, the Light Modulator, made from early 20th century industrial materials such as aluminum and plastics. The film is likened to a “moving painting” resulting in a visually evocative capture of reflective surfaces, beams of light, and dramatic shadows.
The Cinema Arts film collection is made possible by the Louis Goldblatt Memorial Fund. Cinema Arts is sponsored in part by a grant from SF Grants for the Arts.
Still image from A Lightplay: Black-White-Grey
Event Links
Tickets: https://go.evvnt.com/3567395-0
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/3567395-2
