Heirloom Café is closed Oct 10 and 11 for fall break.
Have any questions?
(614) 292-3535
Contact Us
Past Film/Video | Visiting Filmmakers
Columbus Premiere
$7 members and seniors $9 general public $5 students
Click here to view our latest COVID-19 protocols.
ACCESSIBILITY We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals, including individuals with disabilities, to engage fully. If you have questions about accessibility or require an accommodation such as CART captioning or ASL interpretation to participate in this event, please contact Accessibility Manager Helyn Marshall at accessibility@wexarts.org or via telephone at (614) 688-3890. Requests made by two weeks in advance will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the Wexner Center for the Arts will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.
London-based filmmaker Charlie Shackleton visits the Wex with his one-of-a-kind film The Afterlight—a found-footage collage that exists as a solitary 35mm print.
There are no digital copies of The Afterlight, so when the print deteriorates past the point of being projectible, the film will cease to exist. The work serves as a meditation on cultural memory and testament to both film’s stability (a properly stored print can last for over a hundred years) and fragility (a print can be damaged each time it is projected). At the same time, the project also offers a canny warning about the false permanency of digital media. Many assume that films available on digital platforms and streaming services will be so indefinitely—but as any Netflix subscriber knows, they can disappear as quickly as a legal agreement expires, or even if a file is corrupted.
As Shackleton notes in a recent Guardian interview, there’s an ephemeral beauty to the physical aspect of film that we shouldn’t forget. “In the case of The Afterlight,” he explains, “the fragile equation at the heart of film culture is laid bare. The scratches and blemishes that accumulate on the print will irrevocably alter the film itself, but they’ll also stand in for something larger: the projection during which they occurred, and the audience there to witness it. In the process, the act of viewership itself will be made material, in an era when it’s usually anything but.” (82 mins., 35mm)
Shackleton is a nonfiction filmmaker whose films have screened at festivals and alternative venues around the world. Stay after the screening for a Q&A with the director!
The filmmaker’s website
Article: “I made a film that’s designed to be lost – and that’s not so different from Netflix,” Charlie Shackleton, Guardian
The Afterlight, image courtesy of the filmmaker.
FILM/VIDEO PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY Cardinal Health Kaufman Development
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY Rohauer Collection Foundation
WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY The Wexner Family Greater Columbus Arts Council The Columbus Foundation Ohio Arts Council American Electric Power Foundation L Brands Foundation Adam Flatto Mary and C. Robert Kidder Bill and Sheila Lambert Institute of Museum and Library Services Nationwide Foundation Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY Mike and Paige Crane Pete Scantland Axium Packaging CampusParc CoverMyMeds Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams President Kristina M. Johnson and Mrs. Veronica Meinhard Nancy Kramer Huntington Lisa Barton Johanna DeStefano Russell and Joyce Gertmenian Liza Kessler and Greg Henchel Ron and Ann Pizzuti Joyce and Chuck Shenk Bruce and Joy Soll Jones Day
Past Film/Video
The Afterlight