EN AVANT Collection
Giro Prepares for Death
Really Good Friends
EN AVANT [about a year in MPLS]
Giro Prepares for Death, Directed by Peter Coccoma
After receiving a terminal diagnosis, a man returns to his remote homestead on a small northern island to process what he will do next. 17:58, WI USA
Director Peter Coccoma is a filmmaker and composer. His debut solo album, A Place to Begin, is an instrumental record combining electronics and strings that he wrote while living on an island in Lake Superior and was featured as one of NPR Music's Best Albums of 2022. He has composed music for independent films and radio shows, and has directed documentary, experimental, and music videos that have been shown at film festivals around the world. His documentary short, Hide, which follows the lives of isolated migrant farmworkers in rural Vermont, was screened throughout the state as part of a successful campaign by undocumented workers to win access to drivers licenses. His 2020 experimental short film, Jeano, is a mythical film that reinterprets an early American folk song about the dream world of a woman isolated by war. It was made with support from Smithsonian Folkways and premiered at the Chicago Underground Film Festival.
Really Good Friends, Directed by Adam Sekuler
In a hotel room, a woman in her 60s shares a surprising and provocative story of longing and unlikely connection. 10:00, MI, USA
Director Adam Sekuler is a filmmaker, curator, educator, and editor. Screening in forums and film festivals throughout the US and internationally, his many alternative films strike a delicate balance between stylization and naturalism, creating a poetic and lyrical form of visual storytelling. His feature-length documentary Tomorrow Never Knows won the Radical Empathy Jury Award at the Chicago Underground Film Festival where his film 36 Hours also won the Carolee Schneemann Award.
He's produced short works for Barry Jenkins, Lisandro Alonso, Josh and Benny Safdie, Valerie Massadian, Amie Siegel, and Joe Swanberg. As an editor, he's worked with Robinson Devor, Courtney Stephens, Pacho Velez, and Stephanie Spray.
He holds an MFA in Studio Arts from the University of Colorado, Boulder, is Founder and Programmer of Radar: Exchanges in Dance Film Frequencies, and is a former Program Director for Northwest Film Forum (Seattle). His work has screened at the BFI, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Film Society of Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, Walker Art Center, Seattle Art Museum, Museum of the Moving Image, and dozens of other venues around the globe.
EN AVANT [about a year in MPLS], Directed by Dan Schneidkraut
A meditative ride through the city during a period of tumult and transition: coming together and falling apart.
“I spend my days and nights delivering food to affluent shut-ins while observing and enduring the collapse of civilization. I have used this time to document oppressive landscapes created by hostile urban planning, the isolation and segregation of communities by strategically placed interstate highways, concentrations of obscene wealth, and the trauma of living under a violent police and military occupation. I see a government that would rather protect itself with razor wire, plywood, and concrete barriers than protect my neighbors. I see a community enduring ceaseless anxiety and tension while state helicopters fly above. And I see beautiful ecstatic moments and hope everywhere in this broken place that I love.” 36:58, MN USA
Director Dan Schneidkraut is a writer/director/editor and sometimes camera operator currently residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A recipient of two McKnight Fellowships (2010/2016) and The Creative Capital Award for Moving Image (2015), Dan has been recognized primarily for his experimental narrative work (Seeking Wellness, Invincible Force) which has been called “uncomfortable to watch” (Urban Cinephile, 2009), “sublime yet terrifying” (Filmstock, 2008), “stunningly depraved” (Melbourne Underground, 2009) and “the kind of thinky/sadistic exercise that even the dark prince of psychological horror Michael Haneke might find difficult to watch” (City Pages, 2008).
In 2013 Dan delved into the documentary form with a personal exploration of fatherhood, generational violence, and the death of record stores entitled Old Man, described by film scholar Jack Sargeant as “an exceptional and poetic work” (Film Ink, 2014). In 2015 Dan shot his second feature documentary, Vore King, a detailed portrait of R.P. Whalen, world-famous horror host, trash movie guru, carnival sideshow barker, and America's premier purveyor of vorarephilia fetish pornography. Shortly thereafter Dan suffered a traumatic brain injury and subsequently, his projects have become smaller in scale and more introspective.
Dan’s work has been seen at Anthology Film Archives, The Walker Art Center, MoMA, Ann Arbor Film Festival, True/False Film Festival, Fantasia, Fantastic Fest, Athens International Film & Video, Filmstock International, Cellular Cinema, Revelation Perth, Antimatter [Media Art], Grand Illusion Cinema, Trylon Microcinema, and a few other places.