The Experimental Film Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Nolan Stolz is a composer, scholar, drummer, and music professor living in Spartanburg, SC. Born in Milwaukee, WI, Stolz grew up in Las Vegas, NV, where he worked as a freelance jazz drummer for several years. Today, he is a Professor of Music at the University of South Carolina Upstate, where he teaches composition, music theory, and popular music studies.

Although firmly rooted in the contemporary classical tradition, his compositions are influenced by his performance background in jazz and rock. Fanfare Magazine called his Lincoln Highway Suite for orchestra a “brilliant piece of Americana. . .a piece of inspiration and skill,” saying that the “orchestration is brilliantly managed” and “Stolz has a fine repository of [melodies] in his back pocket.” The Brno Philharmonic’s recording of that work (on Orchestral Masters, Vol. 5) was awarded second place in the American Prize in 2020. Other studio recordings include Princess Ka‘iulani for flute on SCI’s Modes album, Catharsis II for piano quartet on Millennial Masters Vol. 3, Lullaby for Sam for guitar on Aaron Larget-Caplan’s New Lullaby, and several others.

Océane Buxton is a visual artist specializing in video, sound design, textiles, digital imaging, and performance art. She grew up in Québec City and has lived in Montréal since 2017. After studying at RMIT School of Art (Melbourne, Australia) in 2019, she received a bachelor’s degree in Intermedia/Cyberarts from Concordia University in 2021. She began the master’s program in visual arts at UQAM in 2023. She participated in the 6th edition of Artch, and her work has been exhibited by the Ada X Artist Center, La Bande Vidéo, Struts Gallery (Sackville, New Brunswick), and the web art platform Galerie Galerie. She is currently working as a freelance cultural mediator.

Jake Nicastro is a filmmaker, writer, director, editor, and visual artist. We discuss his films, visual arts, installations, and commercial work. Keep an eye on this young, creative talent. You will see him in the future. Godspeed, Jake.

Jake is a development producer at The Workshop and has independent experience as a music video and short film director. He works to uncover new ideas, stories, and perspectives to put into production and offers editing help to the post-production team. 

Born in Drexel Hill, PA, Jake studied English and Screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University and is pursuing an MFA in Film Production at the University of Southern California. He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. 

Belinda Morén and I discuss her photography, art installations, and film work. We also talk about her film, The Sweet Passing of Time, which she entered into The Experimental Film Fest, and her current exploration of the dream state in her work.

"I am a visual artist primarily working with video, photography, and installation art. My work navigates themes of identity, belonging, and social conventions. I guide attention toward what is not typically seen and encourage visitors to participate actively in the exhibition through interaction with the pieces. In this way, I aim to shift the perception of the exhibition site to simply being a place for passive observation and promoting social participation.

I am one of the founders of Best Before Collective."

Mary Hawkins and I had a lot of fun talking about her animations, including Love Letters for the Subway, which is an Official Selection in The Experimental Film Fest (Neither of us knew this at the time of recording).

We discussed her role in Gotham Roller Derby and her other work as Art Director, Animator, and Designer.

"I'm a typography-driven art director who uses collage, bold type, and big color choices to bring playfulness and whimsy to motion graphics for brands. I also work with nonprofits and social good groups to create positive change. As a freelance art director, I collaborate with creative directors, writers and other creators to build-out 360 campaigns that include social, broadcast and out-of-home. I have a flexible, broad-based skillset in design and illustration, and I love finding new ways to bring motion and life to projects."

AL JULIAN entered the world of film and television writing, acting, and production eleven years ago after long careers in clinical psychology and law. Since then, he has authored over a dozen feature-length screenplays and a variety of teleplays, stage plays, shorts, and commercials.

Productions made from his scripts have done exceptionally well on the festival circuit, and he has won more than two hundred awards for films and screenplays over the last five years. His feature thriller FEVER DREAMS was picked up by MBUR Films in 2021 for distribution on major streaming platforms. He recently completed the television Pilot of THE SESSIONS, a limited series based on a murderer’s group he once ran in another life.

Allison A. Roberts is a lens-based artist and experimental filmmaker who works in video layers, collages, and projections. Her work requires the viewer to keep an open mind in that not everything is as it seems, which you'll see for yourself on her website and Vimeo channel. Be especially sure to check out the film Haptic discussed in the podcast.

"My lens-based work is situated at the intersection of still photography, the moving image, and installation. I explore temporality, place, and identity, as experienced during periods of transition- addressing change, uncertainty, and resiliency. The intersections and juxtapositions of image and surface inform my approach to physically and digitally layering photographs- positioning projections to transform and merge with surfaces and objects to address how our memories or anxieties inform our perception of the present.  

The subtle performative process inherent in my still photography is central to my moving image work, whether discrete video or integral elements of an installation. In these works, I manipulate the screen, a translucent material, during the projection and filming. This performative element speaks to the effort of shaping the elusive through repeated attempts of control and manipulation."

Eleni Mylonas is a multidisciplinary artist with studios in New York and Athens. She is a Fulbright scholar and holds a Master’s degree from the Graduate School of Journalism of Columbia University and a degree in photography from the University of London.

Eleni Mylonas’ work has most recently focused on video and performance.

"My background in journalism informs my identity as an artist. I pursue my need to understand, to look directly where others turn away. The necessity to witness and report is a key to my work and my investigations. I follow and explore an event or an experience that fires up my curiosity and imagination and inspires me to create bridges between different realities. I meet the challenge via any medium at hand, be it photography, film, video, painting, sculpture, performance or a combination of the above. My art practice is a journey from the outside taken in, filtered, and redirected back out via the work. It is a process of self-discovery and a vehicle of communication. The resulting works are as revealing to me as they may be to the viewer. I seek to multiply that vibe and follow the ripples going out to stir new waters changing perspectives, points of view, visions."

Scott Turri is an experimental artist and filmmaker who appeared on The Experimental Film Podcast in Season 1, Episode 9. His work is beautiful, hypnotic, and thought-provoking, and it has broad appeal due to its layered simplicity.

"The paintings and animation are like a metaphorical liminal space. The experience of viewing becomes primarily about sensation. This work parallels minimalism, emphasizing repetition, a restricted set of parameters, and an underlying logically designed framework. Ultimately, I prefer an environment that is not author-centric. I like the work to function independently of its maker. I don’t want the audience to think about me because even though the working methods are highly personal on some level, it is about the handmade in a digital world; it is about slowness in a fast-paced, overtly digital milieu. My work directly responds to the ever-increasing speed and chaos of the world around me by embracing stillness and slow motion."

Tenley E. Raj is a filmmaker living with her two young children (Millie and Guy) in Houston, Texas. Tenley wrote and painted as a young adult. After motherhood, she turned to film, finding it a more satisfying medium. In 2002, Tenley wrote her first short film, "Before the Freeze." She then produced, directed, shot, and edited the film. "Before the Freeze" is a six-minute-long experimental psychodrama about anxiety and parenthood and the dangers of escapism.
Tenley is working on her second film, a longer psychodrama about first love called "After the Freeze."