Unorthodocs and Vanishing Acts in The Box

Unorthodocs is a curated film festival devoted to exploring the possibilities of creative nonfiction filmmaking. Many of the most significant creative innovations happening in contemporary film play with the boundaries of fiction and nonfiction storytelling. This festival spotlights the most adventurous contemporary and historical examples with many of the filmmakers in attendance, giving audiences a chance to meet some of the most accomplished and promising documentarians working today. One of the annual highlights of the festival is a masterclass given by a luminary of the documentary field (past presenters have included Yance Ford and Julia Reichert). Among this year’s selections is Cane Fire (2020) with filmmaker Anthony Banua-Simon in person. The film examines the past and present of the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, interweaving four generations of family history, numerous Hollywood productions, and troves of found footage to create a kaleidoscopic portrait of the economic and cultural forces that have cast indigenous and working-class residents as “extras” in their own story.

The Wexner Center’s dedicated video exhibition space, The Box, features an ambitious video installation by Ohio artist Suzanne Silver. The work, titled Vanishing Acts, is a diaristic visual interpretation of domestic light patterns, recorded during the pandemic and expanding out from the video screen into the space of The Box itself.