Alee Peoples maintains a varied artistic practice that involves screen-printing, sewing, sculpture and film. Inspired by pedestrian histories, pop song lyrics and invested in the hand-made, Peoples has generated a collection of works on 16mm and super 8mm that are at once humorous, quietly profound, and deeply sincere. She has shown her films at venues including Edinburgh, NYFF, SFMoMA and The Pompidou Center. Filmmaker in attendance.
An art development workshop for PSOA students, faculty, staff and the greater Milwaukee community.
A poetic portrait of contemporary wildlife conservation, JUST ABOVE THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH reflects on empathy, agency, and the role of hope in the midst of a sixth mass extinction. A visceral, sensory meditation on what it means to live in a broken world. Marianna Milhorat is an American-Canadian filmmaker and artist based in Montréal.
An experiment in cooperation, exhibition and pedagogy, Give Chance a Chance is a collaboratively-conceived and –constructed program devised by the participants in the Indeterminacy graduate seminar. Unexpect the expected.
Upon its release in 1991, Tribulation 99 became an instant counter-culture classic. Craig Baldwin's "pseudo-pseudo-documentary" presents a factual chronicle of US intervention in Latin America in the form of the ultimate far-right conspiracy theory, combining covert action, environmental catastrophe, space aliens, cattle mutilations, killer bees, religious prophecy, doomsday diatribes, and just about every other crackpot theory broadcast through the dentures of the modern paranoiac.
This promotional initiation video lures inductees with promises of decolonization and settler remediation. Imagery of settler-led planetary destruction is juxtaposed with sequences of underground group therapy sessions where settlers can lose, forget, and explore their identities in order to indigenize. Sharing their labor, lurking through museums, and institutions, future accomplices snap thousands of cellphone pictures of every artifact and artwork on hand.
Born in Nagoya, Japan, Tomonari Nishikawa immigrated to the United States in 1999 to pursue filmmaking and earned his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. He passed away in April 2025, leaving behind a profound legacy as an artist, teacher, and friend to many in the experimental film community.
Experience a diverse range of cinematic visions, unique perspectives and cinematic artistry in this showcase of esteemed faculty and staff filmmakers from the Department of Film, Video, Animation & New Genres.
Immerse yourself in creativity when Peck School of the Arts student and faculty artists open their studios to the public. From exhibitions and studio visits to live performances and family-friendly art activities, you’ll find something to excite you at Kenilworth Open Studios.
Curated by MFA candidates from the Department of Film, Video, Animation and New Genres, these programs feature a unique opportunity to see some of the incredible 16mm prints from the UWM Cinema Arts Archive. For each program, the curator is invited to program a selection of films around a theme of their choosing.
In an age of intersecting political, man-made and ecological disasters, ‘Preemptive Listening’ is an ode to the sirens that are and those that could be. Siren compositions from over 20 contemporary musicians form a resonant voice to ask; Does an alarm have to be alarming?
Conventionally hierarchical production practices offer a limited but culturally outsized sense of how we can make films together. This program glimpses generously at other approaches to collaborative filmmaking, pondering how the processes of production inform final forms. These ranging relational modes tease at the poetics, politics and possibilities group work magnetize and manifest.
Dani and Sheilah Restack have embarked on an artistic relationship that is formally and emotionally adjacent to their domestic lives, a quotidian zone they share with their young daughter Rose. Both artists have established careers on their own. Neither Dani’ video work or Wilson’s multimedia performance and installation work could exactly prepare us for the force of the women’s collaborative efforts. – Michael Sicinski, Cinema Scope, 2017.
The art of cinematic language isn't only reserved for big screen features and shorts. In recent years, serial programming has been finding its way back to the hearts of media lovers. There is a specific type of depth, nuance and audacity that can exist on the television screen that differs from theatrical releases. This creative difference has allowed many film directors to dip their toe into the episodic landscape, flexing their style, voice and commitment to a collective understanding of a serialized show. With this rising interest in television, we are hosting an artist talk with an Emerging Film Director, who has made her mark into the episodic landscape and proved that there is a best of both worlds.
Adebukola Bodunrin is a Nigerian-Canadian film, & video artist who explores language, culture, and media. In her collage animations, she manipulates film using unorthodox manual and digital techniques to produce unexpected cinematic experiences. Bodunrin’s animation work has been featured on the television series Transparent, and in KCET’s “Lost LA” series, for which she also won an LA Area Emmy award for segment direction.
Ken Jacobs, one of the true radicals of American cinema and a lion of experimental film, passed October 5th, a mere season since his beloved wife and collaborator Flo preceded him. They lived long, full, beautiful lives. In addition to his inimitable work in film, video, painting, performance and all range of moving images, Ken started and was at the center of the film program at SUNY-Binghamton and co-founded The Millennium Film Workshop.
In her debut feature, photographer and filmmaker Celeste Rojas Mugica confronts the political weight of images, revisiting her father’s photographic archive developed in exile in Latin America following activist involvement during the Pinochet dictatorship. 51 years later, this gentle, complex and visually resourceful account of densely traumatic history conjures an intimate family portrait from the dark room – opening spaces for reflection and resistance.
The heart and soul of many film productions lie within the Art & Production Design departments. From set design, to costuming to props, these departments allow for other worlds to be introduced, sustained and transported in any film. As a key component within the pre-production process it is essential that young filmmakers know how to approach art in their films. Join us at SPECIAL FEATURES to learn more about props & wardrobe budgets, sourcing & shopping, and process / mood boards. Local filmmakers and artists, Kara Mulrooney & Amanda Tollefson, will lead us in a workshop offering their expertise and backgrounds working on films with high concept art, commercial products and indie film work. If you interested in art and production design departments, this Special Features is for you!
Curated by MFA candidates from the Department of Film, Video, Animation and New Genres, these programs feature a unique opportunity to see some of the incredible 16mm prints from the UWM Cinema Arts Archive. For each program, the curator is invited to program a selection of films around a theme of their choosing.
Iva Radivojević was born in Belgrade and spent her early years in Yugoslavia, Cyprus and NYC. She is an artist and filmmaker who currently divides her time between Athens and Lesbos. Her work presents itself as a collection of fragments {observations, poetry, images, sounds, melodies, languages} which collage together to connect into a ruminating whole. The work circles around dislocation, migration and belonging, seeking to connect to the metaphysical or the magical.