Welcome to the
montrose international
screendance festival
located in Chicago, USA
2026 Festival Program
The Montrose International ScreenDance Festival
10:00am - 4:00pm
Facets Film Forum 1517 W. Fullerton Ave. Chicago, IL 60614
@screendance.chicago
Session 1 - International
Hidden Steps
Directed by: Kati Kallio & Laura Feodoroff
Country of origin: Finland
Synopsis: Siõrškuâđam - Hidden Steps is a personal story about reaching out to one's roots. The main character Laura, who grew up outside the Sámi area, walks the steps of the Sevettijärvi quadrille dance alone, as if trying to take over a language that is somehow familiar and yet foreign to her. The steps take you to childhood memories, to a familiar path, to a familiar pine tree, to an empty Skolt farm.
Ascent
Directed by: Robert Prein
Country of origin: Netherlands
Synopsis: A disillusioned man steps into an elevator, lost in life and ridden of any passion and purpose. As the elevator ascends, each floor becomes a metaphorical stage of risk and bravery. First subtle, but as he ascends to the higher floors, life becomes more thrilling and exciting and eventually even dangerous. With each stop, his appetite for this adventure grows, pushing him to abandon caution and embrace the unknown. But as he nears the top, a force intervenes, warning him of the cost of excess. Refusing to be held back, he breaks free and forces the ascent to the highest floor.
Ascend is a short dance film that plays with the concept of high risk, high reward, live a safe and shallow life or live a risky and more exciting, but also more stressful life. Where is the line?
Whiteout
Directed by: Natasha Gilmore
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Synopsis: Whiteout gives resonance to the complexities of bi-racial relationships. Informed by her personal experiences as a white European who married a black African and as the mother of bi-racial children, Natasha Gilmore explores this issue with honesty and humour. Powerful, and touching, this film stimulates conversation about race and racism, even within a family unit, while celebrating human connections beyond racial difference. Featuring an interracial cast and original composition by Luke Sutherland.
Directed by: Michael Maurissens
Country of Origin: Germany
Synopsis: Unfolding on the beaches and streets of Benin, a heartfelt letter from a mother to her future daughter expresses the challenges and joys of growing up as a woman. Through song and dance, a tribe of women dispel fairy tales myths to center embodied values of feminine power: strength, independence, and self-worth. Their rebellious spirits find freedom and joy through the rhythms of their bodies as hands clap, shoulders shake, hips swirl, and feet stomp out their bold dreams of womanhood.
Fragments
Directed by: Lorenzo Pandolfi, Manuela De Angelis, Elisabetta Pagnani, Arianna Serra
Country of Origin: Italy
Synopsis: In the beginning, it was perfection. Aristophanes’ myth of the lost unity is the story of an irreparable fracture that shattered perfection by dividing the human being, thus forced into a choice: to strive, to struggle in an attempt to rediscover that wholeness — LOVE — or to surrender to division and hatred.
Anchor Points
Directed by: Victor Quijada, Samuel Greffe
Country of Origin: Canada
Synopsis: Anchor Points is a 24-minute documentary-style art film by RUBBERBAND that retraces the trajectory of Victor Quijada from street dancer to contemporary choreographer. Through archival footage and visual effects, it examines his personal and artistic evolution and introduces the foundational RUBBERBAND Method as described by company members. The film blends documentary elements with experimental visuals to offer insight into Quijada’s creative journey and the development of his influential choreographic practice.
Session 2 - Documentary
Beyond Borders: a documentary in dance
Directed by: Cindy Welik-Salgado
Country of origin: United States
Synopsis: Beyond Borders: a documentary in dance is a glimpse into the journeys of 9 social dancers (from New York hustle, Argentinian tango, and Brazilian zouk) who have become inspiring dance partners in their forms thanks in part to skills they gained through migrating. As they share pieces of their immigration stories and love of dance through interviews and movement, the dance partner they all have in common explores what it might have felt like to go on a similar journey.
Session 3 - First Time Filmmaker
Trial
Directed by: Sarra LaCour
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis: We are born into a world where we immediately feel life's burdens. The central conflict focuses on our internal struggles—how we confront and cope with these invisible battles shapes our external selves and, more importantly, what remains unseen. As we navigate these “trials,” alone and with others, our perspective ultimately becomes the measure of our journey.
How Can I be When I Am Doing
Directed by: Cleo Decker
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis: How Can I Be When I Am Doing? explores the role of mindfulness in regulating performance anxiety in dancers.
Luminance
Directed by: Matthew Dharma Kurniawan
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis: A young woman confronts the distance between the person she could've been had she stayed rooted to her culture, and the person she has become growing out of it. Through movement, she reaches for her unrealized identity, beginning to reconcile the two sides.
Deus Ex Machina Doctrina: The Ai Dances
DIrected by: Christopher Knowlton
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis: 'Deus Ex Machina Doctrina: The Ai Dances' is an experimental dance film that examines the deification of new technologies, the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for dance, and the extractive forces underpinning generative AI. Images of the artists in motion feed commercial AI video generators to hallucinate impossible choreographies, completely unprompted apart from the poses in the still images. In doing so, movement prompting as a new mode of interaction with AI reveals emergent aesthetics and treatments of the body embedded in these systems. An entirely AI-generated industrial hyperpop soundtrack further underscores the nauseating and addictive hallucinated dances, which animate the human body with a mythical and violent nonchalance.
Washing Day Polka
Directed by: Karin Adriansdatter
Country of Origin: Australia
Synopsis: No matter what is going on in life, the laundry keeps on coming.
Session 4 - Feature Film
Through Memory
Directed by: Tobin Del Cuore
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis: Through Memory explores the rich dance heritage of the 92nd Street Y (92NY) while chronicling acclaimed choreographer Aszure Barton's creative process with Limón Dance Company as they bring the new work “Join” to life, commissioned by 92NY.
Filmed over two years, three compelling narratives intertwine: 92NY as a crucible of American Modern dance, the enduring legacy of Limón Dance Company, and Barton's intimate journey of artistic creation. By excavating layers of choreographic memory, the film illuminates how artistic legacies endure and transform, tracing the Limón Company's evolution from its groundbreaking origins to its vibrant contemporary practice.
Session 5 - United States Filmmaker
Wait a Minute
Directed by: Marta Renzi
Synopsis: Dancing turns out to be a way to say hi, an invitation to play, and a challenge to move from awkward outsider to willing partner, all buoyed by the infectious groove of Ana Egge’s music.
Ancestral Shadows
Directed by: Wilma Casal
Synopsis: The reunion of three sisters leads to a journey through the shadows of their ancestors. Looking forward to a reunion weekend after many years apart, three sisters meet in their old family home. Little do they know that the intimate party will turn into a confrontation with their ancestors‘ shadows. Dancing with those ghosts of the past reveals to the women just how many of the roles and behavior patterns, handed down from generations of their ancestors and despite their own emancipation, still influence their bodies‘ expressions and their actions.
Looking into the mirror of the present, the spirits realize their descendants‘ chance to free themselves from the corsets of societal constraints and expectations, in order to finish the laboriously paved road leading to an autonomous life for women.
Valiantly, the sisters release the shadows from the ancient walls, thus opening the doors to a new era.
In Frame
Directed by: Christina Hughes
Synopsis: "In Frame" is an experimental short dance film that invites viewers to ask in what ways we perceive and engage with the display of the human form? Utilizing environmental drift food and other landscape forms, site-specific performative movement takes place around, within and under different outline structures.
Forms 形
Directed by: Kisa Li
Synopsis: Forms 形 is a dance film inspired by the ancient Chinese cosmological system of the Five Elements (五行)—Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. Each element unfolds through choreographic and cinematic choices. Movement, camera, and environment act in relation, as the body moves through cycles of balance, tension, rupture, and renewal. Through these cycles, the film reveals an understanding of identity not as fixed or fractured, but as fluid: an ongoing process of transformation between forms.
Our Perception of Depth
Directed By: Autumn Mist Belk
Synopsis: Can a film create physiological change in a person, leading to emotional change in a community? An investigation of pace, distance, and movement, Our Perception of Depth connects to the breath and heart rate of the viewer, simulating a meditative state. If we can all slow down, have patience, and see our surroundings differently, we can build compassion and empathy from our core.
Embodied Landscapes
Directed By: Laura Sukowatey, Jessalyn Finch
Synopsis: Embodied Landscapes is a short film that blurs the boundaries between dance, sculpture, drawing, and environment. Created by Minnesota artists Jessalyn Finch, Mary Mailand Schlichting, and Laura Sukowatey, the film follows a wanderer through interior worlds made visible. Guided by an otherworldly presence through landscapes of memory, belief, distortion, and release.Crafted entirely by a three-women creative team, Embodied Landscapes is an excavation of what lies beneath the surface of the self. Through the film’s immersive visual language, each stage becomes an act of feeling, shedding, and moving deeper. What emerges is a study in transformation: part ritual, part confrontation, part rebirth. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts & cultural heritage fund.
Don’t Look Down
Directed by: Rosalind Joyce
Synopsis: In a story told through dance, a young woman is caught by surprise while on her way to her rooftop to smoke a cigarette. Rosalind Joyce is a filmmaker, actress, and dancer living in New York City. She attended Barnard College, where she majored in English and Dance. Rosalind makes narrative dance films with a unique edge. Her newest short film, "Don't Look Down," recently had its international debut at the Inspired Dance Film Festival in Sydney, Australia.
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