2 NOMINATIONS FOR 3LD, THE TANK and MANUAL CINEMA ADA/AVA AND YOUARENOWHERE Congrats to all the other nominees!

Manual Cinema Presents

ADA|AVA A Co-Production with The Tank.

“…one of the most engaging things I had seen in ages.” – Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune

“The most creative thing you’ve seen all year” – Jaime Robinson, Fast Company

“Ingenious multimedia performance” – David Cote, Future of Storytelling

Directed by Drew Dir Sound Design and Original Score by Kyle Vegter and Ben Kauffman Designed by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, and Julia Miller Puppeteering By Kara Davidson, Sam Deutsch, Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace and Julia Miller Music performed by Maren Celest, Michael Hilger, and Kyle Vegter

About the Show Bereaved of her twin sister Ava, septuagenarian Ada solitarily marks time in the patterns of a life built for two. However, a traveling carnival and a trip to a mirror maze plunges her into a journey across the thresholds of life and death. Set in a landscape of the New England gothic, Ada/Ava uses a story of the fantastic and super natural to explore mourning and melancholy, self and other. Learn more.

Check out a VIDEO PREVIEW.

- June 16th - July 12th At 3LD Art & Technology Center - Studio B -

Manual Cinema’s first short feature film Chicagoland goes live today! 

CHICAGOLAND follows a lone urban coyote in search of sustenance for herself and her pups while navigating the perils of the Chicago landscape, both man-made and natural. Traveling from the perimeter of the city into its center, we see through her eyes a Chicago where the boundaries of “nature” and “city” are permeable; a Chicago where the wild and the urban intermingle. With striking visuals in silhouette, and a propulsive original score, CHICAGOLAND tells a timely story about the unseen wildness of our cities, and the animals that also call it home.

In addition to the film, Manual Cinema offers an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, including interviews with urban wildlife experts, photographs of Manual Cinema’s puppeteers on set, and video of award-winning percussionist Matthew Duvall (eighth blackbird) recording the musical score.

CHICAGOLAND was produced with a grant from the Chicago Digital Media Production Fund, a project of Voqal administered by Chicago Filmmakers. The film is directed by Ben Kauffman. The puppet design is by Lizi Breit and Drew Dir. The original score is by Kyle Vegter and performed by Matthew Duvall. Puppeteering is by Sam Deutsch, Sarah Fornace, and Julia Miller.

The O, Miami Poetry Festival is held each April for National Poetry Month. A few of us lucky ducks at the Poetry Foundation arrived last Friday night and attended the Manual Cinema performance of My Soul’s Shadow, an original piece commissioned by O, Miami. My Soul's Shadow is an immersive evening of live, cinematic shadow puppetry based on the world of twentieth-century Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. The pictures don’t really do the performance justice. It reminded us of the surreal films of Luis Buñuel. After the performance, we ate delicious tacos and drank craft beer. And, did I mention that this all took place under the warm Miami night sky? We, who hail from Chicago, thought we had died and gone to heaven. Dios mio!

Day two of our trip, we headed over to the Little Haiti Cultural Center for the Word Up! Poetry Initiative and the Omari Hardwick bluapple Poetry Network for SOul FLO. Young poets wowed us with their group and solo poems.

On our last day, we went to the O, Miami Zine Fair, a one-day gathering point for an array of small presses and independent publishers both local and from around the state of Florida.

Join Manual Cinema as we celebrate the season May 7 with h’ors d’oeuvres, drinks, and a ONE NIGHT ONLY performance of Show & Tell, our 30-minute cinematic shadow puppetry/ live music/ heartbreaking StoryCorps storytelling extravaganza. VIP guests arrive early to catch our never-before-seen video adaptation of Betty Jenkin’s incredible blow up bra, South American adventure.