Charles Cadkin

A world full of Image Makers erodes the objective power of the kino eye. If everyone can capture a moment on video, one angle implies the existence of infinite possible perspectives. This convergence of distinct representations distills and dissolves any given moment to an impression, a painting, a memory.

Commissioned by Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive as part of Century of 16mm. A camera roll and investigation into the landscape of West Chicago, IL’s former Rare Earth’s Facility, Kress Creek and Reed-Keppler Park. The former Lindsay Light and Chemical Company owned production plant polluted and distributed radioactive mill tailings (thorium byproduct) throughout the community including dumping in a landfill where the Reed-Keppler Park now stands, near the West Chicago Community High School, as well as in the West Chicago Sewage Treatment Plant, which resulted in runoff into the West Branch of the DuPage River and into floodplains such as the yards of homeowners. Mill tailings are effectively radioactive sand that can easily be carried by wind into bodies of water, the air we breathe or onto food grown nearby. Clean up of the Superfund sites occurred from 2005-2012 but prior to this West Chicago reportedly had elevated rates of cancer.

A woman and her ex-boyfriend reconnect at the vet after their dog gets sick, as a new boyfriend experiences jealousy. “WILK,” directed by Peg, is an experimental comedy with its own absurd cinematic language and esoteric scene-building. Joseph watches from the car as his girlfriend, Tallie, is consoled by her ex outside the vet (while Joseph’s car has a penis spray-painted on it). Later at home, Joseph still feels antsy about Tallie’s reconnection with her ex, as he’s offered a glass of ‘WILK’ (wine+milk) soon claimed by Tallie’s roommate, an eccentric music producer. Having learned what the titular WILK means, we can now cut to a boxing match between a milk mascot and a wine mascot while a hip hop track plays. Delivered as a medley of bizarre shifts and barely discernible story beats, the film is intriguingly chaotic and one-of-a-kind.

Throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s the communities of Cannonsville, Granton, Rock Rift, Rock Royal, Johnny Brook and Beerston, NY were destroyed to make way for the Cannonsville Reservoir. The reservoir would serve as the last piece of New York City’s growing water infrastructure in a battle of upstate versus downstate. 60 years after vacating or moving their homes, former residents gather at their annual town reunion to reflect and reminisce on their memories and the collective trauma that they share.

Throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s the communities of Cannonsville, Granton, Rock Rift, Rock Royal, Johnny Brook and Beerston, NY were destroyed to make way for the Cannonsville Reservoir. The reservoir would serve as the last piece of New York City’s growing water infrastructure in a battle of upstate versus downstate. 60 years after vacating or moving their homes, former residents gather at their annual town reunion to reflect and reminisce on their memories and the collective trauma that they share.

On the Northwest side of Chicago, large swaths of people have been gathering for decades to fill their containers with water from a magical water pump.

An agoraphobic woman dealing with severe social anxiety is visited by an old friend.

An abstract narrative, diary film and travelogue reminiscing on the quotidian. My day to day routines and deviations from it are captured as 6 months pass on the screen in a blur. Musique concrète accompanies the visuals taken from vocal samples of myself as a child and repurposed. Ruminations on nostalgia, film as material and 16mm as a particularly evocative medium with a long history of home movies and nonprofessional filmmaking. The film acts as a document, archiving time and place, as a way for me to recount where and what I did at this point in my life-a point where I still feel an existential drifting and listlessness. Something to look back at and only make sense of after the fact.

Juicehead learns the meaning of life from his pal Munnietox and starts hustlin'. | Made for the Fall 2021 Bizzaroland 72hr Film Debacle.

A world full of Image Makers erodes the objective power of the kino eye. If everyone can capture a moment on video, one angle implies the existence of infinite possible perspectives. This convergence of distinct representations distills and dissolves any given moment to an impression, a painting, a memory.