No Loneliness Like This
LACE Emerging Curator Program
Curated by Semaj Peltier and pom*pom
May 30, 2026, 6–9 PM
Heavy Manners Library
1200 N Alvarado St, Los Angeles, CA 90026
Free admission
No Loneliness Like This is a film and food gathering showcasing experimental films that traverse the many manifestations of state-sanctioned isolation. Here, cinema becomes a vessel for reckoning with the solitude shaped by the slow violences of colonialism and capitalism. Through the rituals of watching and eating, they reflect on and transmute these lived isolations, examine the structures that uphold them, and imagine resistance: fantasies of collective action against the state, of connection as life source, of solidarity through struggle.
Film Program
The Dislocation of Amber
dir. Hussein Shariffe
1975, 32 mins, Sudan
An exploration of lived history juxtaposed with the colonial imposition on Suakin Sudan, now in ruins, a ghost of its former self. With Abdel-Aziz Dawoud’s voice guiding the visual exploration, Shariffe attempts to exhume and experiment with the past, blurring the lines of dream, haunting and memory.
Mandaeans by Water
dir. Noor Gaith
2023, 2 mins, Canada
Immersed in the sea, Mandaeas by Water is a micro short of Gaith’s grandmother, Nuryia Amuri, an Iraqi-Mandaean whose religion traces back to ancient Mesopotamia. One of the smallest and oldest ethno-religious groups in Iraq (100,000 currently practicing, 70,000 in exile after the US occupation), she remains tethered to her religion and its cultural necessity for living, flowing water. Gaith offers a brief glimpse in pursuit of preservation, documenting Mandaean ritual, song, and identity rapidly disappearing due to war, the pressures of hegemony and water crises.
everything in our house did not seem to fit
dir. Alicia Abieyuwa Bergamelli
2023, 6 mins, Netherlands
A short film diary about childhood, forgotten memories, and summer, weaving together personal footage of the filmmaker and her younger brother. Created after her first year in Amsterdam during a period of heartbreak and homesickness, the film became a kind of small “exorcism,” an attempt to free herself from a numbing emotional fog by returning to images that once made her feel free and lighthearted. A prayer–partly audible, partly obscured–accompanies the film, reflecting the idea that not everything that forms us can be fully understood or translated. The work is an intimate reflection on memory, family, and the magical intensity of childhood, shaped by Bergamelli’s background in film programming and her interests in magical realism, gothic and body horror, experimental queer cinema, and Global South film cultures.
NINGÚN LUGAR PARA MORIR
dir. Andrea Novoa
2019, 11 mins, Chile
A portrait of Wallmapu (Araucania region of Chile), the Mapuche, and its history of deviance against government and corporate interventions told in four parts. As the film articulates a battle with oppressive power, the filmmaker integrates her battle with the loss of her child, propelling into scenes of despair and disintegration.
GREEN GREY BLACK BROWN
dir. Yuyan Wang
2025, 12 mins, South Korea, France & China
A compilation film of petroleum company ads & the filmmaker’s personal documentation in China’s manufacturing hub in the Dongguan region. As GGBB wants the spectrum of materiality, Wang analyzes the distinction between nature and its uncanny imitation sculpted by petro-capitalist imaginaries.
Resonance
dir. Katharina Bayer
2024, 9 mins, Austria, Germany, Switzerland
A portrait of abandoned technology in the Alpine forests. Felsenegg Tower, once functioning as a transmitter for television, phone and radio through microwave transmissions, was replaced and demolished from 2021-22 despite being a culturally protected property. Resonance created an eerie record of its exile and desorption as it became replaced by a tower suitable for modern technocracy.
About the Curators
Semaj Peltier and pom*pom are collaborators in a curatorial collective and experimental film archive organizing community-based events since 2022.
Semaj Peltier, a projectionist, archivist and filmmaker, brings a praxis shaped by her studies at the University of Amsterdam’s Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image Masters program, specializing in ephemeral histories shaped by coloniality and otherness.
pom*pom, developed by Russell Hartling and Crystal Dawana, is an experimental food collective whose sensory-driven dining experiences intersect with film programming to evoke memory, storytelling, and connection. Together, they build worlds where film and food become tools of resistance—rituals that evoke memory, incite dialogue, and nurture solidarity through shared sensation and subversion.
About the Emerging Curator Program
No Loneliness Like This is the eleventh presentation from the LACE Emerging Curator Program. Designed to discover curatorial talent in Los Angeles, each year’s selected Curator/Curatorial Team works with the LACE staff over a year to plan and collaborate on the presentation and public programming.
Support
No Loneliness Like This is supported by the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
