Art of Life

4 films in this block • 54 minutes

The Films

The Art of Emily Lanctot: Cultivating Creativity and Community

  • Year 2024
  • Country USA
  • Runtime 4 min
  • Director Matthew Hill and Elliot Kennedy

Family Friendly, Subject in Attendance, Filmmaker in Attendance

This film tells Emily Lanctot’s story and personal relationship with art and how the beauty of the lakeshore intertwines with her world in art. Emily wears many hats, she’s a working artist, organizer of a local art group, professor in NMU’s art and design program, and the Curator and Director of the Art Museum on campus.

You Can't Shrink Love

  • Year 2023
  • Country USA
  • Runtime 5 min
  • Director Veena Rao

Staff Pick

An artist gives life to the memories of our most beloved companions.

Jonathan Thunder: Good Mythology

  • Year 2023
  • Country USA
  • Runtime 14 min
  • Director Sergio M. Rapu

Michigan Premiere, Subject in Attendance, Staff Pick

Ojibwe artist Jonathan Thunder explores the mythic inspirations of his surrealist work.

Planetwalker

  • Year 2024
  • Country USA
  • Runtime 31 min
  • Director Dominic & Nadia Gill

Family Friendly, Michigan Premiere, Staff Pick

In 1971 John Francis, known the world over as ‘Planetwalker,’ witnessed an oil tanker collision in the San Francisco Bay. The sight of oiled birds on the shoreline caused him to give up motorized transport and rely solely on his own two feet. Months after that he took a vow of silence convinced that listening rather than adding fuel to any fire was the way ahead.
 
He didn’t talk, but he kept on walking clear across the country and back again. During the next seventeen silent years he listened and studied the world around him.