The ART SEEN section of the Nitehawk Shorts Festival explores the relationship between art and film in the cinema. This program features Art21’s New York Up Close Series short documentary on artist Meriem Bennani, EXPLODED VISIONS (directed by Nesa Azimi & Adam Golfer), along with a selection of influential short films selected by Bennani.

Talk with Meriem Bennani and Art21 after the screening.

Can art be funny and serious at the same time? Using social media-inspired effects, artist Meriem Bennani subverts audience expectations of both pop culture and her own Muslim community with unexpected playfulness and pathos. “I feel like I have a hard time connecting to anything that doesn’t have humor,” says the artist, “because for me humor is like survival.”

Taking cues from digital platforms, in her multichannel video installation FLY, Bennani inserts a mischievous Rihanna-singing fly over footage of daily life in her native Morocco. Projected over sculpted surfaces that mimic the compound vision of flies themselves, the effect is startlingly disorienting in its comic mash up of specific cultural details and cartoonish digital tropes.

Often exploring the private lives of Muslim women, Bennani strategically navigates the line between championing and exploiting the women who appear in her films, many of whom are family members, like in her documentary-style project Ghariba/Stranger. “On one side, I almost feel emotionally like a monster who traps family members into this digital world. And then the other extreme is like fully loving and celebrating family,” says the artist.

Bennani’s largest project to date—a thirty-second video loop of women in festive “holiday” hijabs created for the massive outdoor oculus screen at Barclays Center in Brooklyn—is both an unabashed celebration of feminine Muslim culture and a negotiation of her own identity as a secular Moroccan in a polarized political climate. “What this political climate does is that it asks you to think about your identity constantly,” says the artist. “And I feel like my reaction to that has been to make work that itself doesn’t stick to a genre or one identity.”

New York Close Up is supported, in part, by The Lambent Foundation; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; VIA Art Fund; Lévy Gorvy; and by individual contributors.

The Eyeslicer is a mind-melting new TV show that will slice, dice, then mince your eyeballs into delicious ceviche. Join creators Dan Schoenbrun and Vanessa McDonnell for a one-night-only live event featuring a robot host, communal milk and cookies, and an episode presented in special ‘Smell-O-Vision.’

Each episode plays like a handcrafted mixtape blending boundary-pushing short form work into into a weird, wild, uninterrupted whole. From vérité documentary to amateur computer animation. Surreal horror to remix video art. Haunted high school yearbooks to Sasquatch birth rituals. Twisted bedtime stories to time traveling cats… if it sounds too crazy for the rest of the Internet, chances are you can find it on The Eyeslicer.

To celebrate the release of the ten-episode, ten-hour first season, the show’s creators are heading across the country this Fall with “The Eyeslicer Roadshow” a one-night-only live event featuring robot Q&As, communal milk and cookies, and even an episode presented in special ‘Smell-O-Vision.’ Trust us: you haven’t lived until you’ve smelled these smells.

The Eyeslicer premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. It has been hailed as “one of the craziest TV shows you’ll ever see” (Indiewire) and “an insane variety show puree” (Entertainment Weekly).

The show features work by David Lowery, Amy Seimetz, the Zellner Brothers, Shaka King, Calvin Reeder, Lauren Wolkstein, Yen Tan, Harrison Atkins, Zia Anger, Frances Bodomo, Nathan Silver, Brian Lonano, Borscht, Celia Rowlson Hall, Patrick Bresnan + Ivete Lucas, Ornana, Leah Shore, Jennifer Reeder, and many, many more.

In the prehistoric world, a Cro-Magnon tribe depends on an ever-burning source of fire, which eventually extinguishes. Lacking the knowledge to start a new fire, the tribe sends three warriors (Everett McGill, Ron Perlman, Nameer El-Kadi) on a quest for more. With the tribe’s future at stake, the warriors make their way across a treacherous landscape full of hostile tribes and monstrous beasts. On their journey, they encounter Ika (Rae Dawn Chong), a woman who has the knowledge they seek.

Starring: Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo

In the first of director Lucio Fulci’s “Gates of Hell” trilogy, a clergyman suicide rips open a gateway to Hell, welcoming the unholy walking dead into our plane of existence. As the dead rise, a reporter and a psychic scramble to a spooky New England town to close the gate and save the world.

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI is a darkly comedic drama from Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh (IN BRUGES). After months have passed without a culprit in her daughter’s murder case, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) makes a bold move, commissioning three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at William Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), the town’s revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell), an immature mother’s boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing’s law enforcement is only exacerbated.

In Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig reveals herself to be a bold new cinematic voice with her directorial debut, excavating both the humor and pathos in the turbulent bond between a mother and her teenage daughter. Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) fights against but is exactly like her wildly loving, deeply opinionated and strong-willed mom (Laurie Metcalf), a nurse working tirelessly to keep her family afloat after Lady Bird’s father (Tracy Letts) loses his job. Set in Sacramento, California in 2002, amidst a rapidly shifting American economic landscape, Lady Bird is an affecting look at the relationships that shape us, the beliefs that define us, and the unmatched beauty of a place called home.

Starring: Elizabeth Berridge, Shawn Carson, Jeanne Austin, Jack McDermott, Cooper Huckabee, Largo Woodruff, Miles Chapin

From director Tobe Hooper, The Funhouse follows a group of stoned teenagers as they wander the grounds of a traveling carnival, and who decide it would be a laugh to spend the night in “The Funhouse.” The night takes a bad turn when the group finds themselves trapped inside, locked in with the ride’s attendant, the homicidal freak Gunther.

Starring: Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, Eva Moore, Gloria Stuart, Melvyn Douglas, Raymond Massey

Frankenstein director James Whale turned J.B. Priestley’s novel “Benighted” into a nerve-jangling tale that became the template for all spooky-house chillers to come.

Stranded travelers stumble upon a strange old house, and find themselves at the mercy of a highly eccentric and potentially dangerous family. This atmospheric thriller features an unforgettable post-Frankenstein horror role for Boris Karloff, as the hulking, disfigured butler Morgan. Also starring in early-career roles are Melvin Douglas, Charles Laughton, Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart of Titanic.

New 4K Restoration.

Starring: Tony Curtis, Susan Strasberg, Michael Ansara, Burgess Meredith

“Possession marked The Exorcist. Demonic Pregnancy erupted Rosemary’s Baby. Warnings followed The Omen. And The Manitou has it all combined!”

When Karen Tandy (Susan Strasberg) finds she has a rapidly growing tumor on the back of her neck that perplexes even the best San Francisco surgeon, she seeks guidance from her sometimes-lover Harry Erskine (a delightfully flamboyant Tony Curtis), a hack mystic with a specialty of forecasting the gastrointestinal futures of wealthy older women. Consulting a variety of experts in black magic and anthropology, Harry can’t ignore all the signs point to one thing – a Native American shaman is attempting rebirth through Karen’s body! Launching off of this insane premise, The Manitou never lets up, building to a wild psychedelic climax and peppered with unhinged performances including a confused-but-committed Burgess Meredith.

Starring: Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Miki Nakatani, Yuko Takeuchi, Hitomi Sato

When you think of Japanese horror, chances are that the first film that comes to mind is Hideo Nakata’s brilliant and game-changing Ringu, with its cursed videotape, doom-laden phone calls, and all-timer ending. A major part of the BHFF’s documentary inclusion The J-Horror Virus, the film holds up as one of the scariest ever made, inspiring Gore Verbinski’s hugely popular American remake and turning Nakata into horror royalty. Toast to the film’s enduring 25-year legacy with Brooklyn Horror as we screen the American Genre Film Archive’s 4k restoration. —Matt Barone