COMBINED DESIRES: The Short Films of Justin Clifford Rhody & Abigail Smith
COMBINED DESIRES is a sixty-five minute film program by New Mexico-based, self-taught visiting filmmakers, Justin Clifford Rhody and Abigail Smith, showcasing works created both collaboratively and independently over the last five years. This selection of moving image works include cosmic-time period pieces, seizure-inducing deconstructions, meditative abstractions, horror/morality tales, and experimental sonic affinities created using 35mm, 16mm and Super-8mm film, as well as MiniDV tape. Recommended to enthusiasts of unflinching amateurism and the materiality of film, and to viewers who find narrative to be overrated. Both filmmakers will be in attendance at all screenings to offer brief introductions.
SCREENINGS:
- Sun Sept 6th: St. Louis MO at The Knitting Factoryy (with musical introductions and intermissions by Cunningham/Smith/Kosieradzki and Zak M)
- Fri Oct 9th: Northampton MA at Visions Video (with musical intermission by Sam Gas Can)
- Sat Oct 10th: Brooklyn NY at Spectacle Theater
- Sun Oct 11th: Pittsburgh PA at Bottom Feeder Books (with an opening short film by Stu Steimer)
- Fri Nov 6th: Bloomington IN at Cicada Cinema
Justin Clifford Rhody is a photographer, musician, filmmaker, writer, radio dj, and curator based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Rhody's films have been widely exhibited internationally at festivals, microcinemas, universities, and underground DIY spaces. Books of his photographic work have been published by Mirro Editions, Bathetic Records, and Hidden Eye. He has been organizing art, film and music events since the turn of the century, has performed on an enormous amount of vinyl records and cassettes, and has toured across the United States countless times. Rhody ran Friends & Relatives Records 2000-2016, and has operated the Physical media label since 2020. He curated the Vernacular Visions photo slideshow series in the Bay Area 2013-2018, and co-founded/operated No Name Cinema in Santa Fe New Mexico 2021-2026. Rhody currently performs and records with K/S/R (experimental free improv), the Nordile-Rhody Duo (speculative jazz), and Discretion (postmodern classical).
Abigail Smith is an experimental filmmaker, musician, collage artist, field recordist, archivist and master librarian based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Smith’s films have been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally at venues such as Harvard University, Saigon Experimental Film Festival, Other Cinema, IndieLisboa, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, and the Beijing International Short Film Festival. She was a co-founder and operator of the anti-capitalist warehouse microcinema, No Name Cinema, 2021-2026. A book of Smith’s collage work was published by Mirro Editions, and an album of her field recordings originally released on cassette by Eh? Records will be re-issued as deluxe LP & book on Physical in November. Her most recent art exhibition was a two-person show at the Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe. Smith plays percussion in the Discretion ensemble, and flute and drums in K/S/R.