#16: Merit Thursday

Where to From Here podcast host Jes Reyes talks with Atlas O Phoenix (they/them/theirs), a multi-award-winning director, writer, producer, and editor who creates films that examine the dark and light places of their humanity. These films are personal, powerful, and uninhibited. Additionally, they were an actor and performer for the legendary Dykes Do Drag (2017-2020) and The Naked I series (2018/2020).  Atlas' current film is Ordinary (2022), a documentary about their transition and mental health journey of 40+ years. It is a mini version of their film Beautiful Boi (in production).   Episode Links:  Instagram: @@beautiful_boi_atlas_phoenix Website: https://www.beautifulboi.com/beautiful-boi-documentary  Genderful Podcast: https://genderfulpodcast.com   Theme music by Jes Reyes. Original recording date: January 8, 2023. You can listen to this podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you stream podcasts.   Instagram: @moonplaycinema  Email: [email protected] www.moonplaycinema.org

Jes talks with Beth Peloff, a video maker whose work encompasses animation, documentary, and the intermingling of the two. In her animation work, she focuses on 2D stop motion and computer-assisted animation using materials such as sand, buttons, and watercolor-painted paper cutouts. Her films have screened throughout the United States, including at the Athens Film and Video Festival, the Walker Art Center, and the Cadence Video Poetry Festival in Seattle, WA, where her film won an award for best collaboration. She was the recipient of a 2017 Jerome Foundation Film and Video grant. Through her video production company Green Jeans Media, she produces videos and animations for nonprofit clients. She also teaches animation and video editing at community-based organizations. She lives in Louisville, KY with her husband and two cats. Instagram: @wheretofromherepodcast Email: [email protected] www.moonplaycinema.org Theme music by Jes Reyes. Original recording date: August 13, 2022 Links: http://greenjeansmedia.com/about/index.html

Jes Reyes speaks and laughs with CC Stanhill, a paper-based animator working in Minneapolis. Their films explore themes of queerness and fluidity. At least, that's what they think they're exploring. It's mostly weird shapes moving around in fancy patterns. They were once described by a prominent person as "quite a lucid sort of fellow." Links/Social: minnanimate.com (festival website) #minnanimate (festival hashtag) vimeo.com/cstanhill (personal website) @cstanhill (Instagram handle) Podcast info: Instagram: @wheretofromherepodcast Email: [email protected] www.moonplaycinema.org Theme music by Jes Reyes. Original recording date: August 28, 2022

Jes Reyes speaks with Valérie Déus, a poet, film programmer, and radio show host. Her work has been featured in Minnesota Women’s Press, The Brooklyn Rail, Midway, the St. Paul Almanac, The BeZine, A Garden of Black Joy anthology, and Under Purple Skies: A Minneapolis Anthology. Her most recent essay is featured in What We Hunger For - Refugee and Immigrant Stories about Food and Family edited by Sun Yung Shin and published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press. When she's not writing, she is the host of Project 35, a local low-fi radio show on KRSM radio. She curates FilmNorth’s Cinema Lounge and is the Shorts Programmer for the Provincetown International Film Festival. Instagram: @wheretofromherepodcast Email: [email protected] www.moonplaycinema.org Theme music by Jes Reyes. Original recording date: July 26, 2022 Links: https://www.valeriedeus.com https://walkerart.org/calendar/2022/filmnorth-cinema-lounge

Jes Reyes speaks with Merit Thursday, a local artist of the Twin Cities. Merit Thursday is an experimental animator, video artist, and textile artist. Their process is highly material-based, and they are fascinated by the human body. A member of the LGBTQ+ community, Thursday's works also focus on the queer identity, the queer fascination with artifice and fabrication, and the natural/unnatural forces that shape us. Instagram: @wheretofromherepodcast Email: [email protected] www.moonplaycinema.org Theme music by Jes Reyes. Original recording date: July 30, 2022 Links: http://meritthursday.com Weird Stuff Only Submission Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeqKPOY_aURnmXDhNeXKJhR6gEVUUSIJNs1YdNAAFGuQSjg4Q/viewform

Xiaolu Wang interviews award-winning filmmaker, writer, performance artist, and cultural producer, Naomi Ko. It's clean with some adult topics and cussing.  Show links: Check out FAWK at The Ordway on April 16: https://www.fawkollective.com/2022ordway Cinema Lounge: https://filmnorth.org/cinema-lounge/ Learn more about Xiaolu here: https://www.hellox140lu.com Learn more about Naomi here: http://www.konaomi.com/ Follow Moonplay on Instagram: @moonplaycinema Email: [email protected] www.moonplaycinema.org Theme music by Jes Reyes. Original recording date: December 21, 2021

Jes speaks with artist Kal Yelle about their film Trans, film theory, and what's next, especially after being a recent film student graduate.  Kal Yelle (they/them) is a DIY filmmaker and documentarian who enjoys crafting narratives using experimental techniques. They have a background in analog film (specifically 16mm and Super 8) and cultural theory. Most of their films - fiction and documentary - revolve around the stories and lived experiences of queer and trans individuals. "I myself am both queer and non-binary. One of my main interests is figuring how to ethically and respectfully represent the truths and stories of individuals belonging to marginalized groups on camera, which I intend to explore in my ongoing work.”  A recent University of Minnesota Graduate, they shoot using a mix of analog 16mm and digital footage, and also like to incorporate 2D animation in their projects. Learn more about Kal here.  Follow Moonplay on Instagram: @moonplaycinema Email: [email protected] www.moonplaycinema.org Theme music by Jes Reyes. Original recording date: September 25, 2021

In this epsiode, Kym McDaniel join Jes Reyes in conversation.  Kym McDaniel (she/her) is an experimental filmmaker, media collaborator, choreographer, and performer. Her films have shown at Slamdance, Antimatter, Chicago Underground Film Festival, ADF’s Movies by Movers, and selected exhibitions at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center, Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University, and the London Bow Arts Gallery, among others. She began filmmaking after a head injury and resulting chronic illnesses forced her to reconsider her relationship to dance and the body. Her process is influenced by her studies in dance and psychology. Disability and queer movement practices inform her gaze and current practice as a filmmaker, teacher, and mover. She is an AmSAT trained Alexander Technique teacher with a special interest in hypermobility and trauma. She has an MFA in Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is currently an Assistant Professor in Cinema at Binghamton University. She is an Advanced Certificate in Disabilities Studies candidate at the City University of New York. Epsiode transcription can be found here. Learn more about Kym here. Follow Moonplay on Instagram: @moonplaycinema Email: [email protected] www.moonplaycinema.org Theme music by Jes Reyes. Original recording date: September 23, 2021

What is Moonplay? In this mini episode, Jes explains this very question. Email: [email protected] www.moonplaycinema.org Theme music by Jes Reyes. Original recording date: September 25, 2021

Jes talks it up with Simone LeClaire!  Simone LeClaire is a woman filmmaker and a white queer person who has lived her life across vastly different Minnesotan cultures, feeling simultaneously odd and at home in all of them. In her pleasure-based, feminist, and anticapitalist filmmaking practice, Simone is guided by how film might facilitate healing, and how to keep creative processes healthy, truthful, and abundant. Her work most often centers on femme characters and relationships, and is highly curious about internal processes, quiet revelations, and self-reconciliation. Simone also repeatedly draws on imagery of the natural world to create peacefulness with her work. Her films tend to actively integrate both her own autobiography and the impacts of genuine, transformative collaboration, with finished films reflecting the presence of both. With editing a central part of her filmmaking practice, Simone is the director/editor of seven narrative shorts, which have received awards and screened at over fifty film festivals around the country; currently in post-production of her debut feature, Sunflower Man, a documentary about transience, flowers, and a man living with schizo affective disorder; and collaboratively developing her first narrative feature, a heart-centered exploration of Minnesotan landscape, racialized identity, and female friendship. She currently makes her home in Minneapolis. Learn more about Simone here. Follow Moonplay on Instagram: @moonplaycinema Email: [email protected] www.moonplaycinema.org Theme music by Jes Reyes. Original recording date: September 29, 2021