Event

The Unity of All Things

Visiting Artists

Apr 19

(Alexander Carver and Daniel Schmidt, United States, 2013, 97 min)

Visiting filmmaker Daniel Schmidt in attendance!

Saturday, Apr 19 at 07:00PM

Shot in three languages, two types of film (16mm and 8mm) and in locations ranging from China to Chicago to CERN in Switzerland, The Unity of All Things is a work of experimental science fiction about the construction of a particle accelerator on the U.S./Mexico border.

Grappling with questions of self and other by employing particle physics as a metaphor for the morphing nature of human identity, Schmidt and Carver's debut feature film premiered in competition at the 2013 Locarno Film Festival. Marked by trance-like modes of dialogue and impish forays into gender politics and queer desire, this satirical and surreal film also features an immersive electronic score by Gatekeeper (Matthew Arkell and Aaron David Ross).

Daniel Schmidt works in a variety of mediums, finding a focus in cinema through a series of divergent works that include A History of Mutual Respect (with Gabriel Abrantes), which won multiple international prizes, including first prize at Locarno '10 and listed as one of the Best Films of 2010 by BFI Sight & Sound; and Palácios de Pena / Palaces of Pity (with Abrantes), which premiered at the Venice Film Festival '11, won first prize at Ann Arbor '12 and Chicago Underground '12, and was celebrated as a "Highlight of Avant-Garde Cinema, 2011" by Andreá Picard for Indiewire and one of the best films by Senses of Cinema.

Daniel Schmidt was artist-in-residency at Fundação Armando Alvares Pendteado in São Paulo, 2012 and is a selected artist for the Biennale of Moving Image Images at Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneve, 2014. Daniel's works have been written in about in a variety of publications, including Film Comment, Cinema Scope, Indiewire, Mousse Magazine, ArtForum, Sight & Sound, Senses of Cinema, Filmmaker Magazine, The Village Voice, The Chicago Sun Times, Moving Image Source, and Cahiers du Cinema.