Portland Dance Film Fest

Portland Dance Film Fest Portland Dance Film Fest is an adjudicated film festival bringing dance films from around the world to the greater Portland, OR area.

Portland Dance Film Fest is about supporting and sharing what we think is the increasingly important work of dance for film. It is no secret that the current technology age has changed, and is continually changing, the way we go thru life. Who and what we are aware of and privy to is infinite and what this means for us a society and as a global people can feel like a rope slipping thru our fingers

as we try and understand the implications and impact. Our shifting realities of self are mirrored back at us from the wormhole of the web, and in some ways is adding to our discontent and disconnection to ourselves and our communities. And, as with everything, there is a brilliant side. The beauty of technology is endless as well. We are dancers in Portland Dance Film Fest so naturally we are excited to uplift and bare witness to one of the most ancient and sacred art forms while utilizing the brilliance of technology by providing a screen and an audience for artists who are making dance for film. As Portland is a hub for creation and the spirit of Yes we are inspired by our local dancemakers, musicians, and filmmakers and keen on showcasing them alongside their peers from all over the globe. In the terms of technology’s progression, Film is not a new form so much, but we have watched dance for film have more and more of an audience over the last several years. When words feel limiting, we can find recognition of ourselves or something bigger than ourselves in the visual and audio arts.

09/19/2025

See you this evening for the Opening Night of PDFF 2025. Picks 1 begins at 7 pm at the Tomorrow Theater.

🪩 🎬 🪩

♦️🟡 Picks 3 🟡♦️ We end our 2025 festival moving in elemental currents. We open with Breathless (United Kingdom), a st...
09/18/2025

♦️🟡 Picks 3 🟡♦️ We end our 2025 festival moving in elemental currents. We open with Breathless (United Kingdom), a study in balance and power performed within an enclosed circular space, the dancers caught in an infinity loop of relationship. Santa Bárbara (Spain) follows with the stark beauty of snow, ash, a red hat, and one singular figure pressing into the landscape.

In A Mother’s Odyssey (Netherlands), the primal bond between mother and child plays out in gestures of routine and of two bodies reaching for something to hold, and in dust (USA/Oregon) the theme of caretaking continues on, refined by the coastal wilds of Oregon into a shifting landscape of legacy and the rhythm of ushering each other in and out of life.

The second half begins with Somber Tides (Canada), a duet of birdlike figures in an eco-dance of survival and bone deep chill. In Adam (United Kingdom), a dancer generously offers a solo very near the death of her father, a longtime collaborator of Pina Bausch in an intimate choreography of feathers and tears.

your love: “walking” beside me (USA) evokes tenderness through the grainy Super 8 film and is a gentle honoring of love past that somehow still walks beside us. We close the night and our 2025 festival with Directions to the Other Side of the World (Ireland), in which one woman traverses the far reaches of rural Ireland to make peace with the darker edges of her spirit.

8 Films | Run Time w/Intermission: ~1 hour 20 minutes
Sunday, September 21st @ 7pm | 's Tomorrow Theater

☝️ Day 👆 May we suggest: 🤵‍♀️ Dress dapper for the Step and Repeat🍨 Treat yourself before to Pinolo Gelato 🎙️ Stay after...
09/18/2025

☝️ Day 👆

May we suggest:
🤵‍♀️ Dress dapper for the Step and Repeat
🍨 Treat yourself before to Pinolo Gelato
🎙️ Stay after for a short Q&A with film Directors!

🎟️ Linked in Bio🎟️ 's Tomorrow Theater

📸 Spoken Movement Family Honour // Picks 1: Friday 9/19

🔹🟠 Picks 2 🟠🔹 The eight films of Picks 2 explore the slippery layers of time and how we surrender into its supposed r...
09/17/2025

🔹🟠 Picks 2 🟠🔹 The eight films of Picks 2 explore the slippery layers of time and how we surrender into its supposed reality. We begin with The Joy and Sorrow of Time (Denmark), a sunlit meditation on community vibrancy and the delicate dance of possibilities. In i am woman (USA/Oregon) we peer into the cyclical flow and screech of a woman’s daily meeting of the world as the wheels fall off and she cleanses the discord.

From there we are delivered into the hypersaturated, supernatural arms of HipHop Purée (Australia) in which two sisters confront one another on a perilous journey to Thursday night’s dinner in their suburban home. The color continues and then fades in SEASONS (Poland), a playful and editorial expression of nature’s themes in four distinct chapters.

The second half begins with The Meaning of February (USA/Oregon), a solo elegy of profound grief set in the particular weight of the Pacific Northwest winter. Kielo (Finland) reminds us: “We all have a poetic body that dances when encouraged.” Youth, neurodivergence, and the tension between sitting still and authentic movement are given compassionate time.

In One Human Show (USA), experimental film becomes a tool for questioning gender roles and societal hierarchies as the subject encounters themselves in varied roles, and we end the evening with the stunning film What Remains (Belgium), a haunting, multigenerational inquiry into memory, inheritance, and the shapes grief makes as it settles in the body.

8 Films | Run Time W/Intermission: ~1 hour 30 minutes
Saturday, September 20th @ 7pm | 's Tomorrow Theater

🎟️ linked in bio🎟️

✌️ Days ‼️ 🌤️ Mmm yes, September in Portland. The forecast is generous; the warm days cooling just enough to invite us i...
09/17/2025

✌️ Days ‼️

🌤️ Mmm yes, September in Portland. The forecast is generous; the warm days cooling just enough to invite us into the comfort of the theater to behold and succumb to the 25 screen-poems of PDFF 2025 🌤️

🌈 See ya'll soon 🌈

📸 Directions to the Other Side of the World // Picks 3, Sunday 9/2

🔸 🔴 PICKS 1🔴 🔸 We begin our festival with a cohort of nine earnest, light-soaked offerings of dance and film. Picks 1 ...
09/16/2025

🔸 🔴 PICKS 1🔴 🔸 We begin our festival with a cohort of nine earnest, light-soaked offerings of dance and film. Picks 1 opens with a solo poem that glides across the skin, celebrating the body as earth (Brown Boys, Australia), and closes with an ensemble of women throwing wide their rage (Maldonne, France).

In between, we’re invited into stories of round repetition and soft fatigue (Corralling of Circles, China), and into layered digital elements laid over bodies seeking passage (SLUGS, USA/Oregon). We meet Carmen (Spain), a young street flamenco superstar, and are held in the precise and fierce tension of a daughter’s plea for freedom (Spoken Movement Family Honour, United Kingdom).

The second half of Picks 1 begins with I’m Here (United Kingdom), a collaborative exploration of grief danced by former and current members of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. From there, we move into the cultural crossroads of the Silk Road in the goddess-inspired Kucha (China), and finally to the sweet, colorful pas de deux Passing By (United States), which sails us into the coiled fury of Maldonne, where we end the night in defiance and sisterhood.

9 Films | Run Time w/Intermission: ~1 hour 20 minutes
Friday, September 19th @ 7pm | 's Tomorrow Theater

🎟️ linked in bio🎟️

09/15/2025

SEASONS // Poland 🍃🍂

In our latitude, we can experience breathtaking springs, sun-wrapped summers, autumns shimmering with different colors, and harsh winters. The film has been divided into four corresponding chapters. The common denominator connecting the parts is the figure of a dancer who leads us through the changing seasons. The cyclicality of the seasons and the changes that the surrounding landscape undergoes are metaphors for the ones happening to and in us. SEASONS is a story about constant metamorphosis, vanishing, letting go, the passing of the old, and making room for what is new to come.

Director: Malgorzata Czyzowska

Screening at the Tomorrow Theater on Saturday, September 20th @ 7 pm.

4 Days until PDFF 2025! 🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈 Seating is assigned, so get those tickets and your choice of seats 💺 📸 Hip Hop Purée // ...
09/15/2025

4 Days until PDFF 2025! 🎈 🎈 🎈 🎈

Seating is assigned, so get those tickets and your choice of seats 💺

📸 Hip Hop Purée // Picks 2 : Saturday 9/20 @ 7pm.

✌️

09/15/2025

MALDONNE // France 🌼

Eleven women and their gaze, each wearing a flowery dress and a buried sorrow linked to her condition as a woman. Together, and without words, they take up the challenge of freeing themselves. A collective revolt begins, with positive rage.

Directors: Leïla Ka & Josselin Carré
Director of Photography: Jordane Chouzenoux
Original idea & choreographer: Leïla Ka
Dancers: Aïda Ben Hassine , Océane Crouzier , Jane Fournier Dumet , Mat Iéva .ieva, Leïla Ka , Zoé Lakhnati , Carmel Loanga , Jade Logmo , Mathilde Roussin , Anna Tierney , Nao Tozawa
Original soundtrack: Alexis Delong w/ Zaho de Sagazan & Pierre Cheguillaume.
Production: Naïa Productions , Séverine Lathuillière
Production manager: Amélie Transler
Sound: Marie-Clotilde Chery
Image editing: Leïla Ka & Josselin Carré
Sound editing: Raphaël Mouterde
Sound mixer: François Gueurce

Screening at the Tomorrow Theater on Friday, September 20th @ 7pm.

🖐️ days.📸 SEASONS // Picks 2, Saturday 9/20
09/14/2025

🖐️ days.

📸 SEASONS // Picks 2, Saturday 9/20

DELIGHTED to be sharing four Oregon Films during this year's festival ♥️ SLUGS // Picks 1: Friday 9/19🎬 Directed: , , 🐌 ...
09/14/2025

DELIGHTED to be sharing four Oregon Films during this year's festival ♥️

SLUGS // Picks 1: Friday 9/19
🎬 Directed: , ,
🐌 Starring + choreography: , ,
🎥 DP:

i am woman // Picks 2: Saturday 9/20
♀️ Director + Dancer + Choreographer + DP:
🎤 Music + Sound:
🎨 Coloring:

The Meaning of February // Picks 2: Saturday 9/20
✏️ Writer: Kathryn Frey
🌲 Performer: Maile Crowder
🎥 DP: Cory Standridge
🎼 Original Score: Brady Heinsoo

dust // Picks 3: Sunday 9/21
🎬 Director + Choreographer:
🎥 DP + Editor:
🌊 Dancers: ,
🧣 Costume Designer:
🛠️ Production Assistant:

All Screenings 's Tomorrow Theater!
Tix linked in Bio.
♥️

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Portland Dance Film Fest is about supporting and sharing what we think is the increasingly important work of dance for film. It is no secret that the current technology age has changed, and is continually changing, the way we go thru life. Who and what we are aware of and privy to is infinite and what this means for us a society and as a global people can feel like a rope slipping thru our fingers as we try and understand the implications and impact. Our shifting realities of self are mirrored back at us from the wormhole of the web, and in some ways is adding to our discontent and disconnection to ourselves and our communities. And, as with everything, there is a brilliant side. The beauty of technology is endless as well. We are dancers in Portland Dance Film Fest so naturally we are excited to uplift and bare witness to one of the most ancient and sacred art forms while utilizing the brilliance of technology by providing a screen and an audience for artists who are making dance for film. As Portland is a hub for creation and the spirit of Yes we are inspired by our local dancemakers, musicians, and filmmakers and keen on showcasing them alongside their peers from all over the globe. In the terms of technology’s progression, Film is not a new form so much, but we have watched dance for film have more and more of an audience over the last several years. When words feel limiting, we can find recognition of ourselves or something bigger than ourselves in the visual and audio arts.