From the Interior

Telling stories from northern Midwest America. From award winning dog mushers to beloved pets, the felling of a neighborhood tree to the de-forestation of an entire region, this programme of eight short films highlights the concerns, affections, fears and curiosities of multiple artists based in the richly diverse Minnesota region.

Programmed by Ruth Hodgins, programmer/​archivist, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

A document of the diligent and dangerous work of Minneapolis Arborists, and the last day of an old, dying tree in my front yard. Tree Work is a personal, autobiographical film about the changing landscapes of our daily lives and all the complexity we take for granted in our homes & neighborhoods.

Combining interviews and archival research with the lyricism of experimental film processes, Jimsen investigates the histories of several generations of residents living in Oregon’s once idyllic Willamette Valley, which is now giving way to industry and suburbia. Through a series of vignettes, two iconic figures emerge: Darrel Ebbert, a trapper and sheep farmer, and Vida Bullis, a dahlia breeder.

A silent meditation on light, time, and landscape.

A film portrait of my Grandparents. Margaret and Ike Nickel, were 1^st generation immigrants from Germany who settled in a Mennonite community in the Midwest in the 1930’s.

16mm footage and Edison Voicewriter recordings introduce to me a family I never knew. I see my dad, age 7 in 1943, stand in front of a movie camera. I see my grandparents, my aunt, my uncle and others now gone. I was born in North Carolina, decades later, but I imagine the movie we would make together about Saskatchewan.

Soft white fur, gentle face. Four white legs, moving, elated. A human’s touch. A phantom. Before and after. A snug abode, another caress. Sock, a bandage. Four white legs, moving. Hide the malady. After and before. White leg, bare skin. White dog. Black matter.

Centered on the visual, sonic, and physical world of Brent Sass, an award-winning dog musher and Minnesota native, The Interior explores Sass’s homestead in Eureka Alaska, where he and his 56 dogs live and work. Rattner portrays the essence of what it’s like to live in a secluded landscape that is ripe with raw meat, snoring dogs, and frozen air.

Exploring the human impulse to control, exploit, and profit from the natural world, Jimsen portrays a Christmas tree processing facility on Beaver Creek Road.