The Experimental Film Podcast

Tess Martin is an artist who often works with hand-made animation techniques such as cut-outs, ink, paint, sand, objects or phonotropes.

Tess’ work has been exhibited at international galleries and festivals such as TOKAS Hongo (JP), International Film Festival Rotterdam (NL), Ann Arbor Film Festival (USA), and more. She was selected as an artist-in-residence at, among others, the Hawthornden Writer's Retreat (Scotland, 2022), the Camargo Foundation (France, 2019), and the Bogliasco Foundation (Italy, 2017). Recent funders include the Dutch Film Fund, the Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie, the City of Rotterdam, the Center for Visual Art Rotterdam, and Rooftop Films.

If you've followed the MM Serra series, this is part 3.

Curator, author, professor at Parsons at the New School and the Executive Director of Film-Makers' Cooperative, the world's oldest and largest archive of independent media. Her first five films (NYC, 1985, Nightfall, 1984, Framed, 1984, PPI, 1986, Turner, 1987) were preserved and digitized by Anthology Film Archives Preservation series Re-Visions: American Experimental Film 1975-1990. Since 1982, MM Serra has created more than 31 films.

MM Serra is an experimental filmmaker, curator, author, professor at Parsons at the New School and the Executive Director of Film-Makers' Cooperative, the world's oldest and largest archive of independent media. Her first five films (NYC, 1985, Nightfall, 1984, Framed, 1984, PPI, 1986, Turner, 1987) were preserved and digitized by Anthology Film Archives Preservation series Re-Visions: American Experimental Film 1975-1990. Since 1982, MM Serra has created over 31 films. 

This is our second episode in this deep dive with MM Serra.

MM Serra is an experimental filmmaker, curator, author, professor at Parsons at the New School and the Executive Director of Film-Makers' Cooperative, the world's oldest and largest archive of independent media. Her first five films (NYC, 1985, Nightfall, 1984, Framed, 1984, PPI, 1986, Turner, 1987) were preserved and digitized by Anthology Film Archives Preservation series Re-Visions: American Experimental Film 1975-1990. Since 1982, MM Serra has created over 31 films. 

Erica Schreiner is an experimental video and performance artist based in New York City. She shoots on VHS while performing before the camera. Erica creates allegorical, ethereal video art that combines feminine and anarchistic themes, ritual, and sensuality. Manipulating existing objects or building sets to perform in and film, Erica creates surreal, intimate worlds on VHS video, employing her clearly defined style.

Erica received a Bachelor degree in Graphic Design from The Art Institute of Portland. Once in New York, she attended the School of Visual Arts Lens and Screen Art’s Residency Program with a full sc...

Jim Ford is an American film/television actor and stuntman. After receiving his BFA in drama from the Hartt School Conservatory and studying with the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, Jim landed an agent and has been a full-time actor in New York and Los Angeles ever since. He is best known for his work in the TV shows Gotham, Mysteries of Laura, The Following, Person of Interest, and Steven Soderberg's H.B.O. mini-series The Knick.

Jim developed a passion for filmmaking and short films at a very young age. Over the years, he has completed...

Andy Camou is a freelance motion designer based out of Long Beach, California. He combines his experience and knowledge of animation, 3D, video editing, and VFX to produce engaging videos and animations.​ He previously spent two and a half years at Run It Up, a production company focused on creating poker content on the streaming site Twitch.

As an animator and video editor, Andy produced motion graphics for broadcasts and short-form content for social media.​ His strengths lie in creative problem-solving and meticulous attention to detail. "I thrive on continuous learning, adaptability, and new challenges."

Feel free...

Christopher Rakas is an award-winning director, producer, writer, and composer based in El Paso, Texas. His short film Dada Noise 2 has had a successful film festival run worldwide. He is currently co-writing and scoring several episodes for the TV series On Bloody Paths with Mary S. Applegate and Ingmar Koch. He is also a member of the Liquid Sky Artist Collective in Portugal. He is also currently producing a documentary film featuring his brother’s local El Paso-based metal punk band, Uglor. You can listen to songs by Uglor on YouTube.

Christopher and I met through this po...

Nolan Stolz is a composer, scholar, drummer, and music professor living in Spartanburg, SC. Born in Milwaukee, WI, Stolz grew up in Las Vegas, NV, where he worked as a freelance jazz drummer for several years. Today, he is a Professor of Music at the University of South Carolina Upstate, where he teaches composition, music theory, and popular music studies.

Although firmly rooted in the contemporary classical tradition, his compositions are influenced by his performance background in jazz and rock. Fanfare Magazine called his Lincoln Highway Suite for orchestra a “brilliant piece of Americana. . .a piece of inspir...

Océane Buxton is a visual artist specializing in video, sound design, textiles, digital imaging, and performance art. She grew up in Québec City and has lived in Montréal since 2017. After studying at RMIT School of Art (Melbourne, Australia) in 2019, she received a bachelor’s degree in Intermedia/Cyberarts from Concordia University in 2021. She began the master’s program in visual arts at UQAM in 2023. She participated in the 6th edition of Artch, and her work has been exhibited by the Ada X Artist Center, La Bande Vidéo, Struts Gallery (Sackville, New Brunswick), and the web art plat...

Award winning filmmaker, Michael Lies, is recognized by film organizations in New York, Pittsburgh and Florence, Italy. In 2012, his screenplay for The Tenth Door was awarded 1st Prize in Short Film Scripts at the Harlem International Film Festival and named a finalist in the Moondance International Film Festival. In 2023 The Tenth Door was completed by Michael and a couple of dozen people from the Pittsburgh area.

In 2009 Michael’s short film EXPERYMENT6 was awarded the Dante Award of Excellence at the Florence International Film Festival. The US premiere was held at the Andy Warhol Theater in Pi...

Cassidy Civiero is a transgender filmmaker who uses experimental techniques to make movies that align with his values and identity. His films ask just as many questions as they answer and allow room for audience participation in crafting the narrative. His latest film, Return to Nature, was funded by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund and premiered at the Penticton Art Gallery for two months before playing at the Open Vault Film Fest and winning Critic's Choice at the Experimental Film Fest. His previous film, Ethical Consumption, was funded by the Mental Health Commission of California via the Voices Wi...

Gillian Harrill's films⁠ have been featured at various festivals, ranging from the Oscar-qualifying ⁠AmDocs Film Festival⁠⁠ ⁠to the esteemed ⁠Sidewalk Film Festival⁠ and the ⁠LA Independent Women Film Awards⁠. ⁠Her⁠ ability to craft compelling narratives and capture the essence of her subjects has earned her a reputation as a filmmaker with an eccentric sense of humor and unwavering dedication to her craft. She started as the lead assistant editor on⁠ Beyond the Straight and Narrow⁠, streaming on Kanopy. In 2022, Gillian embarked on a fellowship in documentary filmmaking at ⁠Southern Exposure,⁠ where she spent 6 weeks fully immersed in directing ⁠Taxing the Sun⁠,⁠ ⁠which exposed legislation tha...

A non-binary punk-rock poet with style an exec once described as “Aaron Sorkin on acid,” Frankie specializes in writing dark comedies about deeply flawed losers struggling to reinvent themselves in stories packed with punchlines taking bold swings towards silly and surreal. A New Jersey native raised in the Bible Belt, Frankie Campisano now calls Los Angeles their home.

A non-binary punk-rock poet with a style an exec once described as “Aaron Sorkin on acid”, Frankie specializes in writing dark comedies about deeply flawed losers struggling to reinvent themselves in stories packed with punchlines taking bold swings towards silly and...

Vasco Diogo was born in 1970 in Lisbon. Diogo is now an Experimental Director, Performer, Video Artist, and New Media and Cinema Assistant Professor at the University of Beira Interior (Covilhã-Portugal).
Arts and Communication Researcher at Communication Sciences PhD by Universidade Nova de Lisboa: "Video: Specificity, Hybridity and Experimentation" (scholarship of Foundation for Science and Technology - FCT), 2008.

Vasco Diogo has won more than 50 awards in experimental cinema at international festivals.

Drawing, photography, poetry, electro-acoustic music, and mixed media are other work areas.

Amanda Besl is a painter and experimental filmmaker living in Buffalo, NY. She has shown widely in New York State, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Russia. Besl holds an MFA in Painting from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI, and a BFA from SUNY Oswego. Her paintings are part of several notable private and public collections, including the Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo; Nichido Contemporary, Tokyo, Japan; the Burger Collection, Hong Kong; and the Tullman Collection, Chicago. Besl uses natural history as a platform to explore social issues. She was awarded a 2024 NYSCA grant for Temple of...

Born in Venezuela but raised in New York, where he currently lives, Martin Del Carpio is an artist marked by experimentation, the search of new concepts, sounds and melodies, by a fascination with lyrics and the journey that music takes us on. His evolution as an artist is based on what he calls “street knowledge”, a hands-on personal experience characterized by uniqueness and a somewhat dark voice that Martin has dedicated his life to finding. His work shows a personal conflict between outside forces that point him towards mainstream creation and the need to express something intimate, to be hone...

Madelyn Gowler is a queer, film-based artist focusing on materiality and experimental processes of image-making. They lived in Winnipeg, MB, and received their BFA from the University of Manitoba. They mainly work with textiles, installation, Super 8 film, and analog photography. Exploring themes of gender, film as subject, and the relationship between nature and constructed spaces.

Their films have been screened internationally at the Engauge Experimental Film Festival in Seattle, WA, and Experiments in Cinema v18.4 in Albuquerque, NM, as well as locally at Ace Art Inc. and Dave Barber Cinematheque in Winnipeg.

In 2023 and 2024, they...

Jake Nicastro is a filmmaker, writer, director, editor, and visual artist. We discuss his films, visual arts, installations, and commercial work. Keep an eye on this young, creative talent. You will see him in the future. Godspeed, Jake.

Jake is a development producer at The Workshop and has independent experience as a music video and short film director. He works to uncover new ideas, stories, and perspectives to put into production and offers editing help to the post-production team. 

Born in Drexel Hill, PA, Jake studied English and Screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University and is p...

Belinda Morén and I discuss her photography, art installations, and film work. We also talk about her film, The Sweet Passing of Time, which she entered into The Experimental Film Fest, and her current exploration of the dream state in her work.

"I am a visual artist primarily working with video, photography, and installation art. My work navigates themes of identity, belonging, and social conventions. I guide attention toward what is not typically seen and encourage visitors to participate actively in the exhibition through interaction with the pieces. In this way, I aim to shift the p...

Mary Hawkins and I had a lot of fun talking about her animations, including Love Letters for the Subway, which is an Official Selection in The Experimental Film Fest (Neither of us knew this at the time of recording).

We discussed her role in Gotham Roller Derby and her other work as Art Director, Animator, and Designer.

"I'm a typography-driven art director who uses collage, bold type, and big color choices to bring playfulness and whimsy to motion graphics for brands. I also work with nonprofits and social good groups to create positive change. As...

AL JULIAN entered the world of film and television writing, acting, and production eleven years ago after long careers in clinical psychology and law. Since then, he has authored over a dozen feature-length screenplays and a variety of teleplays, stage plays, shorts, and commercials.

Productions made from his scripts have done exceptionally well on the festival circuit, and he has won more than two hundred awards for films and screenplays over the last five years. His feature thriller FEVER DREAMS was picked up by MBUR Films in 2021 for distribution on major streaming platforms. He recently completed the...

Allison A. Roberts is a lens-based artist and experimental filmmaker who works in video layers, collages, and projections. Her work requires the viewer to keep an open mind in that not everything is as it seems, which you'll see for yourself on her website and Vimeo channel. Be especially sure to check out the film Haptic discussed in the podcast.

"My lens-based work is situated at the intersection of still photography, the moving image, and installation. I explore temporality, place, and identity, as experienced during periods of transition- addressing change, uncertainty, and resiliency. The intersections and juxtapositions...

Eleni Mylonas is a multidisciplinary artist with studios in New York and Athens. She is a Fulbright scholar and holds a Master’s degree from the Graduate School of Journalism of Columbia University and a degree in photography from the University of London.

Eleni Mylonas’ work has most recently focused on video and performance.

"My background in journalism informs my identity as an artist. I pursue my need to understand, to look directly where others turn away. The necessity to witness and report is a key to my work and my investigations. I fol...

Scott Turri is an experimental artist and filmmaker who appeared on The Experimental Film Podcast in Season 1, Episode 9. His work is beautiful, hypnotic, and thought-provoking, and it has broad appeal due to its layered simplicity.

"The paintings and animation are like a metaphorical liminal space. The experience of viewing becomes primarily about sensation. This work parallels minimalism, emphasizing repetition, a restricted set of parameters, and an underlying logically designed framework. Ultimately, I prefer an environment that is not author-centric. I like the work to function independently of its maker. I don’t want the audience to think ab...

Tenley E. Raj is a filmmaker living with her two young children (Millie and Guy) in Houston, Texas. Tenley wrote and painted as a young adult. After motherhood, she turned to film, finding it a more satisfying medium. In 2002, Tenley wrote her first short film, "Before the Freeze." She then produced, directed, shot, and edited the film. "Before the Freeze" is a six-minute-long experimental psychodrama about anxiety and parenthood and the dangers of escapism.
Tenley is working on her second film, a longer psychodrama about first love called "After the Freeze."

Amanda VanValkenburg is a multimedia artist based in Chicago, Illinois. They received their MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago, where they investigated the intersection of art and technology. They primarily work with digital media to investigate digitally mediated interactions between memory, projection, contemporary anxiety, and the relationship between technology and the environment. Currently, their work is focused on using technology to process video to examine the anatomy of a visual scene and flesh out echoes of memory and the membranes of virtual and physical spaces. 

Their work has been exhibited and screened internationally and nationally, including a...

Kenneth 'Ken' Hess hosts The Experimental Film Podcast, directs the Experiment Film Fest, and is a podcaster, experimental filmmaker, actor, photographer, and mischief maker.

You can check out some of his experimental films on his Vimeo channel.

Musician, composer, and filmmaker Kristina Dutton and I speak about music, her music compositions, her experimental films, and her inspirations and aspirations. Kristina also has some good advice for those exploring playing a musical instrument.

I sampled some of Kristina's compositions in the podcast. In the introduction, there is an excerpt from Biopixel's score co-written by Kristina and Nate Kinsella. In the middle of the podcast, I excerpted Kristina's Pas de Deux from her SoundCloud collection.

Walter Smits and I spoke in Season 1 of the podcast (Episode 22). Since that time (2021), Walter has been busy creating new works, many of which are feature-length experimental works they call playground absurdism.

In this podcast, we discuss their use of high-end photography/filmmaking equipment, their film school experience, story creation, directing techniques, development of "Queer New Wave" and their works in progress.

Evan Chester is the curator and creator of the KubrickLynch YouTube channel that highlights experimental, avant-garde, and art house films. KubrickLynch currently has more than 55,000 subscribers, and Evan has close to 200 videos featuring genres, filmmakers, movements, and individual works by experimental filmmakers.

I'm a huge fan of his work, and I hope you find his channel and enjoy the painstaking work he's done to collect and curate this information into one of the best YouTube channels I've ever had the pleasure of visiting. Evan's documentary style is well-paced, educational, and entertaining.

Duane Michals has a career of more than 60 years as a photographer. Michal’s work has been shown in galleries worldwide. Michal’s photographic work incorporates text and sequences to tell a story. In recent years, Michals has transitioned to creating short experimental films. If you aren’t familiar with his work, please take some time to explore it. You’ll find it unique in perspective and essential as inspiration for your work.

Mr. Michals and I discussed various topics, including his photography work, his foray into filmmaking, his meeting with Magritte, his time in the A...

Gerald Habarth is an artist and animator, an Associate Professor of Art at West Virginia University. He heads the Electronic Media program in the School of Art and Design. He holds an MFA degree from the University of South Florida and a BFA degree from Parsons School of Design. His works have been screened at numerous national and international venues and festivals, including the Tampa Museum of Art, the Huntington Museum of Art, the Festival Les Instants Vidéo, and the Stuttgarter Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media. In 2010, he founded the West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival. He c...

Madison Hill is a filmmaker and photographer based in Durham, North Carolina. She received a B.A. in Cinema Studies from Virginia Tech and an M.F.A. in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University. Currently, Madison is an Instructor for Cinematic Arts at Duke University, teaching theory and production in Documentary Arts, 16mm Film, and Moving Image Practice.

Through her film practice, Madison explores how the documentary medium can be transformed in an evolving 21st-century landscape. Madison utilizes various techniques such as 16mm filmmaking, digital cinematography, archival research, and photography to create work that blurs...

This podcast focuses on film festivals. I cover increasing your chances at getting Official Selection status, getting screened, and getting discounts. I also cover fee waivers, withdrawing your films, film editing, and some war stories from the Film Festival Director trenches.

Malaysian-born Shu Qin Lee was raised in Australia and initially encountered photography when his uncle in Singapore gifted him his first manual film camera in the 1990’s.

This love for photography led Shu to capturing simple moving images like a crystal ball rotating on a mini water fountain when the first Nokia phones were available. Here the seed of experimental filmmaking was planted. 

Many years later, after having studied languages, religion, philosophy and attained a Masters of Teaching, Shu started teaching humanities. Through the recommendation of a friend, he also took up background acting for fil...

Interdisciplinary artist Lisa Birke's work results from the collision of video, performance art, and installation. She is interested in the stories that we re-cite and re-brand and how these inform our conception of the world and the tragi-comic perception of ourselves. Recently, Birke has been exploring immersive multi-media approaches using special effects, AR, and 360 videos. Her award-winning video work has seen more than100 screenings and installations at film festivals, media centers, and in galleries and museums internationally, including the Vancouver International Film Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, International Short Film Week Regensburg, TIME is Love, The New...

Director and Cinematographer Guillaume Simonin mainly works as a director and cinematographer for commercials, corporate movies, and art movies and specializes in using color and liquids. You can find Guillaume's work on his Vimeo page or on his website.

Guillaume and I spoke about his underwater work and about his experimental films. Be sure to check out his Cinematography Showreel. I think you'll agree that his work is beautiful and engaging.

Jessica Parnell is one of the most fun guests I've ever interviewed on the podcast. She and I need our own BBC talk show featuring interviews, short experimental films, and just crazy talk. We'd also explore some of our ideas live, on camera, while our audience comes along for the ride. This interview is over two hours long and took a few weeks to edit, but it's worth it. You'll enjoy Jessica's fresh perspectives on art and experimental filmmaking. She is a Psychotherapist in England and enjoys many different types of self-expression. You'll find her films available on YouTube...

David Baeumler grew up in Buffalo, NY, when all the elm trees were dying. Dave went to Bard College and received a filmmaking degree under the direction of filmmakers Peter Hutton, Adolfas Mekas, and Peggy Ahwesh. His films defy simple categories because they blend "experimental" techniques with storytelling threads. They can be poetic and philosophical but also blunt and satirical. And while they can be fun to watch with the sound off, you could also listen to them with your eyes closed.  A collection of his films, called "Intolerable Questions", is available at amazon.com.