My poster for Non Films' experimental short "A Body Appeared at the Lake Today," which screens at the Ridgewood Off-Kilter Film Festival on September 14 in Queens, NY
Join us at our upcoming screening! I recount amazing festival experiences, including that time the film screened in the same block as Matthew Modine's short and Brian Ratigan did the Q&A with him!
Brian Ratigan AKA Non Films commissioned me back in 2022 to create the poster for his 8mm short film A Body Appeared at the Lake Today. As he explained it: “This film is an exquisite corpse: found footage randomly assembled; poem written without seeing the footage; music written without seeing the footage or reading the poem - an abstract method to create an ‘automatic’ film.” It’s a collaborative work, with poetry written by Daniel DeVaughn and music composed by John Touchton and Jeremiah Johnson.
Thankfully, I got to see the film before starting the poster! After Brian sent me his favorite shots from his haunting film, I knew immediately which scene I wanted to paint. I depicted a couple dancing using acrylic paint. You can see my process video here:
Ridgewood Off-Kilter Film Festival
You can watch the film next Saturday, on September 14, 2024, at 7-9:30 PM. We’ll be at the beautiful Stone Circle Theater (59-14 70th Avenue in Queens, NY), where the Ridgewood Off-Kilter Film Festival will be held. Tickets are sold here.
Selected Screenings
The film had its world premiere at the 25th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival and has had an incredible run at prestigious festivals all over the world, including: the Brooklyn Film Festival, where it won the prize for Best Brooklyn Project, Blue Danube Film Festival (Austria, Hungary, Slovakia), where it won the University Jury Award, Mammoth Lakes Film Festival (held in the gorgeous Sierra Nevada mountains of California), Analogica (Italy), Walthamstow International Film Festival (England), Celluloidra Revolverrel - Hungarian Experimental Film Festival, Tallahassee Film Festival (Florida), Oxford Film Festival (Mississippi), George Lindsey UNA Film Festival (Alabama), Montgomery Film Festival (Alabama), Moviate Underground Film Festival (Pennsylvania), Vastlab Experimental Festival (Los Angeles), Subculture Film Festival (Florida), Lighthouse International Film Festival (New Jersey), Coney Island Film Festival, Film Diary NYC, and many more.
Matthew Modine Loved the Film!
The most memorable festival experience was probably at Indie Street Film Festival in Red Bank, New Jersey last year when Brian’s film screened in the same experimental shorts block as Matthew Modine! We all know Matthew Modine as an actor in Full Metal Jacket, Married to the Mob, Short Cuts, Stranger Things, and so much more, but it was so wonderful to see his work as a director too. It was very moving to hear him discuss his film I Am What You Imagine, starring Leon Vitali, his close friend and frequent Stanley Kubrick collaborator, in his final performance.
His kindness and enthusiasm made the Q&A so memorable, and it was so fun to see the chemistry between him and Brian! It was fascinating to hear Matthew’s interpretation of A Body Appeared at the Lake Today, which he found “very unsettling.”
You can see some videos of their Q&A on my Instagram post here.
I also exhibited my original painting in two group art shows this year: at the Greenpoint Gallery Salon Show in March and at the grand opening of Nails Salon Gallery (Park Slope, Brooklyn) in May.
Brian is a frequent collaborator and we host our short film screening series DarkRoom twice a month in NYC, create limited edition zines which we give out for free at the screenings, and also sell Non Films merch! There will be much more about DarkRoom in a future post!