BLOCK 2: Historical Remnants (Transfiguration International Film Festival 2025)

This 87 minute short film programme contains 9 short films: Remember Them When You Forget (2024, 1:08) Dir. Amrit Nagra | NC16 Synopsis: ਉਹਨਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਯਾਦ ਰੱਖੋ ਜਦੋਂ ਤੁਸੀਂ ਭੁੱਲ ਜਾਂਦੇ ਹੋ | / Remember Them When You Forget (2024) An archive acts as a repository for memories, crafted to safeguard both present and absent memories. Numerous individuals harbor the haunting memories of June 1984 within their personal archives. While “ਉਹਨਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਯਾਦ ਰੱਖੋ ਜਦੋਂ ਤੁਸੀਂ ਭੁੱਲ ਜਾਂਦੇ ਹੋ|” (2024) aims to recreate all these memories, the recollections will elicit varied responses—from those who experienced the terror firsthand, to those who anxiously followed from afar, and even to those who learned about the event much later. Director’s Bio: ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤ ਕੌਰ ਨਾਗਰਾ (Amrit Kaur Nagra) is a Punjabi visual artist, who works in mixed media. Each piece weaves narratives where the past sneaks into the present. Rate My Aura (2024, 5:17) dir. Frances Chang | M18 Synopsis: poetry, bass guitar, drums, synths, devotional, movies, new york Director’s Bio: Frances Chang is a musician and multimedia artist from New York. Combining use of conventional instrumentation, playful electronics, and poetry, her experimental songwriting deals with disrupting accepted reality. Her work probes the tension between idiosyncratic personal experience and the drive to understand each other through a collective language. Launch . on the . Lawn (2024, 4:38) Dir. Vivian Z H | PG Synopsis: 50 years after the moon landing, Thomas has a paranoid night on the lawn. Director’s Bio: Vivian Z H is a writer and filmmaker from Virginia, currently living in New York. They love form, infrastructure, information, and metadata, and currently work at Hot Ones, the Youtube chicken show. Their work has been screened at the Gotham Film and Media Institute, New Visions and Voices Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and the Criterion Channel. Precedence Over Power (5:03) Dir. Christa Bacila-an | PG13 Synopsis: Speak to your mother in her tongue and she will feed you for generations. POWER UNDER PRECEDENT / PRECEDENCE NOT POWER Director’s Bio: Christa Baclia-an is a Filipino-American artist who observes and moves in Chicago, Illinois. Her artistic practice fluctuates between photography, video, installation, and performance. Meditating on identity, culture, the body and the image in a digital world, her work utilizes experimental and conceptual use of technology. She will obtain her BFA in Art, Media, and Design from DePaul University and then she will [REDACTED]. Her work has been exhibited at venues including Northwestern University, DePaul University, and Comfort Station. Ancestral Memory (2024, 5:37) Dir. Emiko Akiyama Tahara | PG Synopsis: The film is a reminder of the suffrage and resilience of the Nikkei community who endured the 3 year long stint at Manzanar using the artist’s connection to incarceration history through personal documents, land, and poetry. Footage taken from a 2024 trip to Manzanar, a former Japanese incarceration site, is edited together with photographs of the site in the 1940s when it was in active use as a detention facility. Director’s Bio: Emiko Akiyama Tahara is a queer interdisciplinary artist and curator. Their practice explores liberation through a meditative reflection on nature and assemblage of archives with a crucial emphasis on organizing and community building. They are the creator of Cellophane gallery, an artist maintained project space and a deeply involved member of the Nikkei community of Chicago. Confessions of a Cool Girl (2024, 9:56) Dir. Anhkim Dang | NC16 Synopsis: you are nothing but the memories of those who love you. a film about a vietnamese girl and her love for old pictures. Director’s Bio: Anhkim Chi Dang is a Transgender Vietnamese American Artist based in Boston. She was raised in the suburbs of North Jersey with her two parents and sister. As a descendant of the earliest wave of Vietnamese War refugees who became American Citizens, her work is an investigation of identity, generational trauma and healing. Wan Wan (2025, 7:40) dir. Mayuko Kobayashi | PG Synopsis: Grandma named this little boy Neepo. Director’s Bio: Mayuko Kobayashi is an experimental animator from suburban Tokyo. Their work explores atmosphere, sensation, and childhood wonder, often through hand-drawn animation and rudimentary video techniques. They love a brewski with a bro on a nice summer day. They love looking at things on the ground. A Love Letter (2019, 2:21) Dir. Jessica Goh | G Synopsis: An abstract animated short about the all-embracing feeling of home. This film made use of a wide variety of tactile image-making techniques; ink, water colour, acrylic on cels, tissue, crepe paper, cloth, glass, wool, and digital rotoscoping. Director’s Bio: Jessica Goh is a Chinese-Singaporean artist and educator. She received her BFA in Experimental Animation from CalArts in 2023 and is now based in Singapore, where she teaches visual art to children with learning and developmental disabilities. Her art practice orbits an interest in autofiction and material explorations. Infinite Love (2012, 40:00) Dir. Dustin Wong | PG Synopsis: Dustin slowly fills the space between each note with layered and looped guitar phrases, and continues to build on this pattern until his “orchestra” fully blooms. While the textures vary greatly, the sound never becomes a cacophony, but rather a delicate web-like base to suspend his various melodic lines from. Director’s Bio: Dustin Wong dove into the world of music and art as an unhappy youth looking to rebel against certain ideals and “absolute truths” that contrasted his own beliefs. A twisting path of punk discovery and a growing respect for sonic visionaries led Dustin to further pursue his muse. At the Maryland Institute College of Art, he met and co-founded the critically acclaimed band Ponytail