Spotlight on Michigan Artists at the 64th Ann Arbor Film Festival

March 6, 2026

Left: Film still from My Body Is a Lens I Can Look Through With My Mind Right: Film still from That Bolex Thing

From generative AI experiments to stop-motion, live cinema performance, and 360° VR, Michigan-based artists are part of a larger conversation about the possibilities of experimental moving image art at the 64th Ann Arbor Film Festival, March 24–29, 2026. With 97 films in competition this year, filmmakers from Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Detroit, Grand Rapids, and Kalamazoo are contributing work that is formally adventurous, conceptually rigorous, and deeply engaged with both technology and human experience.

Two films in particular highlight the ways artists are wrestling with AI in creative practice. Jennifer Proctor’s AI Movie, a generative AI reinterpretation of Bruce Conner’s 1958 collage film A Movie, screens on opening night and examines authorship, authenticity, and the meaning of the archive in an era of synthetic imagery. Proctor will also unpack her process in a free Off the Screen talk, “I’ve Created a Monster: Generative AI, Found Footage Filmmaking, and the Archive Effect,” on Thursday, March 26 at Third Mind Books. You can read more about this year’s AI-focused films and artists on our AI blog post.

Other Michigan artists contribute in radically different ways, from Ellery Bryan’s cosmic explorations in My Body Is a Lens I Can Look Through With My Mind to Heidi Kumao’s stop-motion portrait of community care in 35 Days, and Eric Souther’s live cinema performance Devotional Signals~, which transforms gesture into sound and image using leap-motion technology. Meanwhile, 360-degree VR works by Petra Kuppers and Joseph Andrew Sywenkyj create spaces for connection, reflection, and empathy, extending the boundaries of cinematic experience beyond the screen.

Michigan Films in Competition

AI Movie

Jennifer Proctor | Ann Arbor, MI

Films in Competition 1 | Tuesday March 24, 8:15 PM | Michigan Theater Main Auditorium

World Premiere

Building on her earlier remake of Bruce Conner’s 1958 collage film A Movie, Proctor reimagines the work using only generative AI video. Moving from “found footage” to “searched footage” to “generated footage,” AI Movie examines authorship, authenticity, and the shifting meaning of the archive in an era of synthetic imagery.

That Bolex Thing

Paul Echeverria | Ypsilanti, MI

Films in Competition 1 | Tuesday March 24, 8:15 PM | Michigan Theater Main Auditorium

A reflection on the iconic Swiss-made Bolex 16mm camera, this short considers the textured grain and tactile qualities that helped define the visual language of avant-garde filmmaking. Echeverria foregrounds the materiality of celluloid and its ongoing influence.

My Body Is a Lens I Can Look Through With My Mind

Ellery Bryan | Grand Rapids, MI

Films in Competition 2 | Wednesday March 25, 5:30 PM | Michigan Theater Main Auditorium

World Premiere

Beginning with the 2024 solar eclipse, Bryan draws on planetary motion and geological time to explore memory, perception, and subjectivity. The film moves between cosmic scale and interior reflection, tracing how meaning emerges across time.

Kaleidoscope

Charlie Fisher Sadosty | Detroit, MI

Films in Competition 3 | Wednesday March 25, 9:30 PM | Michigan Theater Main Auditorium

World Premiere

A psychological passage through shifting visual states, Kaleidoscope navigates perception, repetition, and the instability of form, offering a portrait of consciousness in motion.

42

John Weise | Ann Arbor, MI

Films in Competition 6 | Friday March 27, 5:30 PM | Michigan Theater Main Auditorium

World Premiere

Reworking Lou Reed’s “Andy’s Chest” through generative AI, Weise stages a surreal 1970s living room in which an AI self-portrait confronts a grotesque pink bear while Andy Warhol flickers on television. Blending song, synthetic narration, and pop-cultural memory, the film probes identity and mediated myth.

Devotional Signals~

Eric Souther | Kalamazoo, MI

Films in Competition 7 | Friday March 27, 7:30 PM | Michigan Theater Main Auditorium

Live cinema performance

This live cinema performance transforms gesture into sound and image. Using leap-motion technology, Souther manipulates a twelve-oscillator spatial mixer midair, generating responsive graphics and layered audio environments. The work explores the materiality of the signal as it shifts across historical and contemporary forms.

35 Days

Heidi Kumao | Ann Arbor, MI

Films in Competition 9: Almost All Ages | Saturday March 28, 1:30 PM | Michigan Theater Main Auditorium

This experimental stop-motion animation follows a coalition of strangers searching for a missing cat during the 2020 pandemic lockdown. Through miniature sets and tactile animation, Kumao constructs a portrait of collective care during isolation.

Michigan artists Off the Screen

I’ve Created a Monster: Generative AI, Found Footage Filmmaking, and the Archive Effect

Jennifer Proctor | Ann Arbor, MI Thursday, March 26, 10:30–11:30 AM | Third Mind Books | free Proctor discusses her process of remaking A Movie using generative AI tools, addressing ethical and ontological questions raised by synthetic imagery and the erosion of what scholar Jamie Baron terms the “archive effect.”

Planting Disabled Futures: a virtual reality ritual Petra Kuppers | Ypsilanti, MI Wednesday 3/25 – Friday 3/27 | Michigan Theater Lobby | free 360° VR This installation and community-centered performance invites participants into a world of healing plants cultivated through disabled embodied knowledge. Combining live presence with virtual reality, Kuppers creates a space for environmental connection, interdependence, and disability culture.

Is the War Close? Joseph Andrew Sywenkyj | Ann Arbor, MI Saturday 3/28 – Sunday 3/29 | Michigan Theater Lobby | free 360° VR A room-scale virtual reality documentary which places viewers inside a Kyiv home during a large Russian drone and missile attack. Using spatial audio and navigable space, the work draws from real events to explore proximity, vulnerability, and witness.

Michigan artists at the 64th AAFF are part of a vibrant and ongoing conversation about experimental cinema, technology, and community. Whether on the big screen, in a live performance, or through VR, their work invites audiences to consider what cinema can do and how it can connect us.

For tickets, passes, and full program information, visit www.aafilmfest.org.