Events Calendar

“American filmmaker Melika Bass…author of a unique cinema of atmosphere and historical reminiscences…one of the revelations of the festival.” – Roberto Manassero, Torino Film Festival.

Recently named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film 2018,” Melika Bass is the recipient of an Artadia Award (NYC), 2 Media Arts Fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council, the Kodak/Filmcraft Imaging Award from the Ann Arbor Film Festival, an Experimental Film Prize from the Athens International Film Festival, and a Special Mention Prize from the International Jury of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

Bass was one of a dozen international filmmakers (including Ragnar Kjartansson, Ryan McGinley, Alma Har’el, John Cameron Mitchell, and Ramin Bahrani) commissioned by Icelandic band Sigur Ros to create an original film for their Valtari Mystery Film Experiment. Melika Bass’s film Shoals is featured in Indie-Outlook’s “180 Essential Films by Female Directors,” and her Prairie Gothic Trilogy films (Songs from the Shed, Shoals, and Waking Things) are streaming online at Fandor.

Screenings and exhibitions include the BAMcinemaFest, Brooklyn; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (solo exhibition); Torino Film Festival, Italy; Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York; Kino der Kunst, Munich; Ann Arbor Film Festival; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; Anthology Film Archives, New York; BFI London Film Festival; Athens International Film Festival; Segal Center for the Performing Arts, Montreal; International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany; and the Split Festival of New Film, Croatia. Her work has been profiled and reviewed in Filmmaker Magazine, Time Out Chicago, Bad at Sports, Art Daily, Rolling Stone Italy, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, Pitchfork, and the Chicago Sun-Times.