This year marks the 10^th anniversary of The Museum of Contemporary Art’s festival of short films and videos: Optic Nerve. The film festival features homegrown South Florida artists selected from among many open call submissions. MOCA’s Optic Nerve Film Festival will be screening the films this weekend.

Optic Nerve XII celebrates 22 films by 21 artists; each one being less than five minutes long. MOCA is constantly working to shed light on the talent we have in South Florida and have highlighted the work of over 150 artists at Optic Nerve, many of whom presented their work for the first time! Support your neighbors and see something refreshing. I mean once you’ve seen Inception you’re going to need something else to talk about.

The most exciting part of this MOCA program is that Starbucks Coffee Co. who is sponsoring the event (and has since ’06) will provide funds for MOCA to purchase one of the films for their permanent collection. The selection will be announced by MOCA Executive Director Bonnie Clearwater at the conclusion of the first screening. Audience members will be able to vote for their favorite film by ballot! Check out the film listing below.

Friday, August 6^th | 7pm & 9 pm
Museum of Contemporary Art
Joan Lehman Building
770 NE 125th St.
N. Miami, FL 33161

FREE with museum admission
($5 adults, $3 seniors/students with ID, free for MOCA members & North Miami residents)

Limited seating. RSVP required: call 305.893.6211 or email rsvp@mocanomi.org

3PQ, You’re Going to Carry that Weight [4:52 min]

In this film, artist collective 3PQ seeks to transform a static landscape into a fluid real time continuum, a sort of momentary bliss of genuine discovery and refusal where lines erase, transverse or scale infinitely as pixels on a screen.

Carlos Llerena Aguirre, Valor Y Fe [1:43 min]

Faith, courage and loyalty are referenced in street dogs from all over the world. The film creates a contrast between the stray dogs and sacred altars as symbols of religious passage. The altars depict Gauchito Antonio Gil, a saint from Corrientes, North of Argentina. The score details the life of San Jose de San Martin, liberator of South America.

Jeff Calvert and Ran Dolf, Mustache Chronicles [1:30 min]

Inspired by dated maps and atlases, this work is short meditation on modern man and his dilemmas. With an ephemeral style of animation and narration, linked with linear continuity, the artwork suggests an infinite timeline of abstract events, suggesting progress and belief are timeless and ruthless attributes to human nature.

Autumn Casey, Getting Rid of All My Shoes [4:16 min]

In this film, the artist liberates herself from what she is supposedly attached to by displacing her entire shoe collection throughout her neighborhood until she is barefoot.

Charles Chace, Amplified Proof [3:11 min]

The inspiration of this video centers on an immature and unrealistic desire to elicit artist Tracey Emin’s attention. The structure of the video is based on traditional song writing. The limited images of the muse (Tracey Emin), creates a nonsensical dialog which is enhanced by the use of music, sound effects, voiceovers, and various colorful scrolling texts.

Vanessa Cruz, Eve as a Young Girl 2:09 min; Lazarus [1:20 min]

The mythical and allegorical world of storytelling is at the heart of these animated films. Ancient stories are told through a modern sense of the visual.

Scott Draft, Creation: Apocalypse [4:41 min]

Creation through Apocalypse is a pun on the Discovery Channel. Just as all language contains dialectic malfunctions, the voice of the video is encoded with a limited worldview. It is an attempt to explain the unexplainable and that the devil is in the details.

Shane Eason, Works of the Flesh: Secons Study [5:00 min]

The film is the second in a series of studies on body modification and manipulation through a number of medical practices and procedures. The footage is found Super 8 film, circa late 1960′s, which existed originally in medical institutions and universities as instructional films for medical students.

Erwin Georgi, Lines [1:50 min]

Lines is a study of light and symmetry, showing how light is perceived and captured into living energy. The result is a living piece of light movement. Music by Vitalic.

Moira Holohan, Look at the Sign [2:17 min]

This video animation with found sound includes the following processes: studio performances, green screen, video montage and drawing and painted animation.

Dee Hood, Believe [4:22 min]

This video explores ideas about belief. The artist entered the word “believe” on Twitter to explore the common use of the word with fascinating results. The scrolling text shows the bizarre range of what we believe.

Lew Lautin, Paris: A Ride on Le Metro [3:22 min]

The artist offers a crazy, zany fun-filled ride on the world famous Paris Le Metro, a journey unlike any other.

Susan Lee-Chun, Let’s Suz-ercise! (Chicago-Style) [3:12 min]

This film addresses notions of authenticity identity and perception. A faux entity “The Suz” is a conglomeration of three alter egos that embody the polarizing impacts of race and identity politics – Sue (assimilation), Sioux (independence) and Su (mediation).

Justin H. Long, In Search of the Miercoles [1:45 min]

Rather than following in the footsteps of conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader’s search for the Miraculous ultimate end-all performance, the artist seeks a little piece of paradise on a Wednesday.

Juan Maristany, Leak [:57 min]

Leak is an abstract 3D animation dealing with disgust and powerlessness. The creature is the focus of an internal rage amplified and the feeling of trying to personify an insurmountably huge opponent or a daunting, non changeable situation

Jillian Mayer, Scenic Jogging [1 min]

“Now here you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place ” The Red Queen.

Kristina Rodriguez, The Ecstasy of St. Theresa [1:14 min]

This piece is inspired by St. Theresa of Avila’s recount of a visitation from a seraph which inspired the Bernini sculpture The Ecstasy of St. Theresa.

David Rohn, Construction one [5 min]

Construction is a short and personal rumination on fantasy and dress-up for adults who still like to play the way they may have as kids.

Emerson Rosenthal, Pseudocoma [2:36 min]

This is a video collage inspired by Orwell’s bittersweet couplet “Under the Spreading Chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me”

Barron Sherer, Wall Street Neu! [3:08 min]

This film footage is an unedited portion of a 35mm to a 16mm reduction print of a popular feature film from the 1980′s. It is projected in its original 16mm format with music on CD.

Juan Carlos Zaldivar, Horror (Horror Sickness) [4:38 min]

Mal “Les Chants de Maldoror” has been cited by many surrealist artists as their main source of inspiration (Salvador Dalí, Jean Coteau). This short film is an attempt at drawing a parallel to Ducasse’s social and moral commentary at the end of the 19th century by questioning contemporary definition of the moral boundaries guiding our creation of digital content.