Fading (2020) - 10 minutes

A Film by Mike Esperanza and Joel Mejia Smith

Directed and Choreographed by Mike Esperanza

Performed by Joel Mejia Smith

Produced by Joel Mejia Smith

Edited by Mike Esperanza

Music by Mike Esperanza

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Premiered at InShadow Lisbon Screendance Festival , Lisbon, Portugal - December, 2020

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This Review Period, Fading Was Also Presented At:

ScreenDance Film Festival - Stockholm, Sweden

ScreenDance Film Festival - Scotland, UK

QueerBee LGBT Film Festival - London, England

4th Dimension Film Festival - Bali, Indonesia

Istanbul Improvisation Dance Festival - Istanbul, Turkey

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Fading is a short experimental dance film created in collaboration with director and choreographer Mike Esperanza. The film’s themes of isolation, loneliness and journeying has resonated with film selection committees and received critical international attention in 2020 - 2021. Fading captures the psyche of a man haunted by his loneliness, dreaming of an escape. In a series of episodic vignettes, we see his danced exploration through an empty Los Angeles, its light, its folds, its underneath and its obstacles. Quirky and queer, this dreamlike film illuminates the power of becoming, fading endlessly towards rather than away.

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