6 – 7 pm: 16mm projection installation /// Multi-channel projection of an abundance of Christmas film-spirits, favorite and obscure, reanimated in joyous and unfixed celebration of their history as public objects.

7 – 9pm: Microcinema screening /// a selection of 16mm films that dwell in the disquieting contrast of Midwinter, mingling kiddie holiday and kiddie horror films that walk the line between childish innocence and haunting knowledge.

A Christmas Gift (Will Vinton, 1980)

Red Room Riddle (1982)

The Veldt (1979)

A Christmas Dream (1946)

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As the dark and cold grow longer and deeper, the veil between this world and the spooky one grows thinnest. The christmas spirit as it is practiced is a hedonistic scramble to distract ourselves from that deepening darkness. This Midwinter screening event honors the uneasy feeling of being overtaken by the nighttime season, when underworld spirits feel truly free to roam an earth settling into the death of a wintery slumber.

Here at VSW we tend our own climate-controlled crypt of media ancestors, holding the bodies of over 5,000 16mm films slumbering in their little round casket-cans. Most of our collection comes from Rochester public libraries, where the films enjoyed a robust, active life of social interaction. Let us take this midwinter moment to crack the tomb and let loose the spirits once again!

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