The 24th annual Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival is the largest, most jam-packed edition of Chicago’s long-running avant-garde and experimental media fest ever! Held at the Gene Siskel Film Center on June 21 and at Columbia College on June 22-23, this year’s event features two days and three nights of fantastic experimental work, including both short films and feature-length productions.

Two feature-length films will get two screenings each. First, there’s collage animator Lewis Klahr‘s latest epic work The Pettifogger, a film noir about the year in the life of a ’60s era gambler; and TRIBUTES – Pulse, a collaboration between filmmaker Bill Morrison and Danish composer Simon Christensen. Both films will screen on the 22nd and the 23rd.

Other feature-length works include Wolfgang Lehmann’s experimental nature film Dragonflies With Birds and Snake, Barry Doupé’s computer animated mystery The Colors That Combine to Make White Are Important, and Thunska Pansittivorakul’s Thailand documentary The Terrorists.

As for the short films, a few highlights include Jesse McLean‘s Remote, which just won the Made in Chicago Award at the Chicago Underground Film Festival earlier this month; new films from legendary experimental filmmakers Ken Jacobs (Street Vendor and Seeking the Monkey King) and Pat O’Neill (Painter and Ball 4-14); experimental animation by Jodie Mack; films by Underground Film Journal faves Neil Ira Needleman (Loud Video), Georg Koszulinski (Ghost) and Clint Enns (3 films); plus films by Luther Price, Stephanie Barber, Matt McCormick, Laida Lerxtundi and more.

The full film lineup is below. Please visit the Onion City website for more info.

June 21

8:00 p.m.: “Opening Night Program”
La Maleta, dir. Raúl Ruiz
Big in Vietnam, dir. Mati Diop
Boxing in the Philippine Islands, dir. Raya Martin
Well Then There Now, dir. Lewis Klahr
One Way to Find Out, dir. Scott Stark
Selected 35mm Slides by Luther Price, dir. Luther Price
Line Describing Your Mom, dir. Michael Robinson
Dangerous Light, dir. Robert Todd
Maneater, dir. Derick Hawksworth

June 22

6:30 p.m.: TRIBUTES – Pulse, dir. Bill Morrison. This collaboration between filmmaker Morrison and Danish composer Simon Christensen examines the theme of “pulse” in both music and film.
Screening with:
Street Vendor, dir. Ken Jacobs
Crop Duster Octet, dir. Gregg Biermann

6:45 p.m.: “Drifting and Lingering”
Drifter, dir. Timoleon Wilkins
Sack Barrow, dir. Ben Rivers
Painter and Ball 4-14, dir. Pat O’Neill
Within, dir. Robert Todd
Dust Studies, dir. Michael Gitlin

8:30 p.m.: The Pettifogger, dir. Lewis Klahr. This animated collage narrative follows a year in the life of a gambler in 1963.
Screening with:
L.A., dir. Lewis Klahr
Point de Gaze, dir. Jodie Mack
Persian Pickles, dir. Jodie Mack

8:45 p.m.: “Clusterfudge”
10 from Jhana and the Rats of James Olds, dir. Stephanie Barber
Decorations of the Mind II, dir. Shana Moulton
A Party Record Packed With Sex and Sadness, dir. Bobby Abate
Rating Dogs on a Scale of 1 to 10, dir. Mark Toscano
I Can’t Wait to Meet You There, dir. Michael A. Morris
Loud Video, dir. Neil Ira Needleman
Burning Star, dir. Joshua Solondz
XXI, dir. :such:
Goldie, dir. Carl Ryan Stemple

June 23

12:00 p.m.: TRIBUTES – Pulse, dir. Bill Morrison. This collaboration between filmmaker Morrison and Danish composer Simon Christensen examines the theme of “pulse” in both music and film.
Screening with:
Street Vendor, dir. Ken Jacobs
Crop Duster Octet, dir. Gregg Biermann

12:15 p.m.: The Pettifogger, dir. Lewis Klahr. This animated collage narrative follows a year in the life of a gambler in 1963.
Screening with:
L.A., dir. Lewis Klahr
Point de Gaze, dir. Jodie Mack
Persian Pickles, dir. Jodie Mack

1:45 p.m.: Dragonflies With Birds and Snake, dir. Wolfgang Lehmann. A collage of self-recorded and found scientific images of exactly what the title says.
Screening with:
Claudia [Versions 1 and 2], dir. Jorge Prelorán
(Claudia was preserved by the National Museum of Natural History through the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters Grant program funded by The Film Foundation. It is showing in recognition of the Grant’s tenth anniversary.)

2:00 p.m.: “Site Specific”
Future So Bright, dir. Matt McCormick
Giverny, dir. Adele Friedman
Passage Upon the Plume, dir. Fern Silva
Remote, dir. Jesse McLean
Back View, dir. Vincent Grenier
Richmond Study 2 – Monument Avenue, dir. Mary Beth Reed
Ghost, dir. Georg Koszulinski

3:30 p.m.: The Colors That Combine to Make White Are Important, dir. Barry Doupé. In this computer animated film, an employee at a Japanese glass factory is suspected of stealing a work of art.

3:45 p.m.: “Globetrotting”
Mapang-akit, dir. John Torres
Across & Down, dir. Lori Felker
Ants, dir. Stoyan Nikolaev
Berlin Tiger 13h00-16h30, dir. Shiloh Cinquemani

5:30 p.m.: The Terrorists, dir. Thunska Pansittivorakul. This documentary exposes how Thailand’s government hassles and persecutes minorities.

6:00 p.m.: “Seeking the Monkey King”
Seeking the Monkey King, dir. Ken Jacobs
Perils of the Antilles, dir. Fern Silva
Nocturne #2, dir. Pieter Geenen
(ebbs + flows), dir. Clint Enns
Splice Lines, dir. Clint Enns
©++, dir. Clint Enns

7:45 p.m.: “Deep State”
Deep State, dir. Karen Mirza and Brad Butler
Horizon, dir. Joshua Thorson
Austerity Measures, dir. Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell
If the War Continues, dir. Jonathan Schwartz

8:00 p.m.: “Impossible Cinema”
A Lax Riddle Unit, dir. Laida Lertxundi
Pastoral, dir. JB Mabe
To Quit, To Quiet, dir. JB Mabe
To Mark the Shape, dir. JB Mabe
349 – For Sol LeWitt, dir. Chris Kennedy
storm crossings: shifting geometries, dir. Josh Weissbach
Optra Field VII-IX, dir. T. Marie
Sorry – Horns, dir. Luther Price
treetops, colors, dir. Jake Barningham
everyday, colors, dir. Jake Barningham
mountains, colors, dir. Jake Barningham
The Matter Propounded, of its Possibility or Impossibility, treated in four Parts, dir. David Gatten