Description:

"Shamanic Cinema: Trance as Resistance" brings together six short films by the Mexican independent artist group Colectivo Los Ingrávidos which depict what they call the “violent relational trance of our present.” Since forming in Tehuacán, Mexico in 2012, Colectivo Los Ingrávidos has produced a substantial body of experimental film and video that pushes back against the political, economical, and ecological violence of the present through manipulation of visceral sonic and visual means, seeking to induce trance as a method of healing and resistance. This program contains six films — Tonalli, Altares, Toloache, Quetzaltcóalt, Chamán, and Danzes lunares — which function as ritual, urging the viewer to bring attention to their mind in new ways, thus opening up new modes of deep listening and acute awareness through spatiotemporal cinema-trance.

Following the screening, a member of Colectivo los Ingrávidos will appear for a conversation with guest curator Daisy Donaji Matias.

Note: Certain films in this program contain flashing images that may cause seizures or headaches for viewers with photosensitive epilepsy.

About the films:
Tonalli, 2021, 16mm, 22 min

Altares, 2019, 16mm, 4 min

Toloache, 2019, digital, 8 min

Quetzaltcóalt, 2020, digital, 2 min

Chamán, 2020, digital, 6 min

Danzas lunares, 2020, 16mm, 9 min

Curated by Daisy Donaji Matias, PhD student in the Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern.

Presented with support from the Climate Crisis + Media Arts Working Group and the MFA in Documentary Media at Northwestern, and in partnership with the Conversations at the Edge program at the Gene Siskel Film Center and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.