Ruins & Reveries
222 E Superior St
Duluth, Minnesota 55802
United States
Duluth, Minnesota 55802
United States
Ruins & Reveries
This program takes you on a journey through America's evolving landscapes, where the remnants of past dreams and the stark realities of modern life intersect. From an abandoned resort in the Catskills that invites reflection on history, culture, and healing, to a 1968 urban renewal project where concrete utopias clash with grassroots resistance, the films explore the complex dynamics of American identity and architecture. In a small Virginia town, the passage of time is captured through super-8 film, documenting the subtle yet profound changes in a community's built environment. Together, these films offer a poetic and provocative meditation on the American dream—its aspirations, its ruins, and the ways in which it continues to shape our world.
This program takes you on a journey through America's evolving landscapes, where the remnants of past dreams and the stark realities of modern life intersect. From an abandoned resort in the Catskills that invites reflection on history, culture, and healing, to a 1968 urban renewal project where concrete utopias clash with grassroots resistance, the films explore the complex dynamics of American identity and architecture. In a small Virginia town, the passage of time is captured through super-8 film, documenting the subtle yet profound changes in a community's built environment. Together, these films offer a poetic and provocative meditation on the American dream—its aspirations, its ruins, and the ways in which it continues to shape our world.
All-American Ruins: Nevele Grand Hotel
The Nevele Grand Resort in Ellenville, NY sits abandoned on 500+ acres near the foot of the Catskill Mountains of New York. What used to be a point of pride for Ulster County is now a painful, crumbling relic - with many stories to tell. For All-American Ruins creator Blake Pfeil, it is also a dreamscape, an artistic playground to reflect on questions about American history, culture, community folklore, economics, the environment, and mental health; and for the viewer, it's an invitation to activate their imagination as a tool for healing.
15 minutes
Of Time, and the Town
Of Time, and the Town poetically depicts twenty years of changes and constants in the built environment of Farmville, Virginia and in the rural areas surrounding it. The film’s super-8 film images bear witness to how everyday locales provide markers of the town’s social evolution. A young couple labors to renovate an abandoned 19th century school and make it their home while the town’s previously shuttered all-Black high school finds new life as a civil rights museum documenting the 1950s student strike that helped integrate the county’s schools. Children grow as one-hundred-year-old oak trees fall. Excerpts from the town’s AM radio station provide a sonic touchstone that complements the film's evocative sound design.
Eighteen Mill Street
EIGHTEEN MILL STREET introduces Ukrainian artists Marianna Tarish and Nikita Gryshko soon after their relocation to Sweden because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The film explores Tarish and Gryshko’s relationships to intimate and domestic spaces and how they have been impacted due to their experiences at the start of the war while still living in the Ukrainian city of Kherson and as part of their journey to Sweden.
14 minutes
