films

4D Film Fridays

Heidi Duckler Dance is thrilled to announce the launch of 4D Film Fridays, an innovative new dance film festival dedicated to the intersection of dance and cinema. The festival invites students and independent artists to submit their work for a chance to be featured in the inaugural screenings, which will take place on March 14, 2025, and April 4th, 2025 at the rooftop of the historic Bendix Building in downtown Los Angeles.

Student Filmmakers apply HERE

Independent Filmmakers apply HERE

Alma Luz (2024)

Inspired by the emotive words of Clarice Lispector’s poem, “My Soul Has the Weight of Light”, Alma Luz illuminates the immaterial weight of the human condition—the weight of an unspoken word, the fleeting touch of a look and the fragile, ethereal essence of the soul itself.

Location: Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil

Credits:
Produced by Heidi Duckler Dance
Directed by Heidi Duckler
Dancers
Marissa Brown, Colleen Loverde, Joseph Stevens
Poem by Clarice Lispector
Costumes by Carmen Molina
Music by Nicki Chen
Narration by Paula Rebelo
Narration Recorded by Marc Greene
Videography by Leo Fazio Lou Riggs
Editing and Additional Footage by 2Sides Films

I Will Remember What I Forgot (2023)

What happens internally when we suffer in silence? The most difficult step in mental health recovery is asking for help. This film follows a person’s journey from walking in the door to his recognition of who he is.

Location: Behavioral Center at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Wilmington, California

Credits:
Directed by Heidi Duckler
Movement by Raymond Ejiofor
Cinematography by 2Sides Films
Music Composed and performed by Isaac Takeuchi

The Inhabitants (2023)

Created and Directed by Heidi Duckler
Music Composed and Played by Tom Grant
Cinematography and Editing by 2Sides Films

In Collaboration with Movement Artists:
Barbara Lima
Carla Mann
Charles Roy

Commissioned by the Halprin Landscape Conservancy

The Inhabitants is a live performance inspired by Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest’s film Inhabit the Dream, which explores the ephemeral nature of dance and memory through light and time to cinematically construct afterimages – an image that continues to appear in the eyes after a period of exposure to the original image.

Ahora Somos Nosotres (2022)

Directed by Heidi Duckler
Cinematography and Editing by Felipe Díaz Galarce
Music by Pájaros Kiltors

CounterIntelligence: The Story of Sister Alyonushka and Brother Ivanushka (2022)

Written and Directed by Heidi Duckler
Filmed and Edited by 2Sides Films
Sound Design by Sarah Belle Reid

The Tender Body Sings (2022)

Directed by Heidi Duckler
Cinematography and Editing by 2Sides Films

Inhabit the Dream (2022) – Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest

Directed by Heidi Duckler
Editing and Cinematography by 2Sides Films
Music Composed and Performed by Tom Grant

Hanging by a Hair (2021) – Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest

Directed by Heidi Duckler
Editing and Cinematography by 2Sides Films
Music Composed by Sarah Belle Reid

The art installation, Remembrance by PLACE, landscape design studio, created in February 2021 of white flags, commemorates a harrowing milestone of 400,000 lives in America lost to COVID-19.

Unsettling Ramona (2021)

Los Encinos State Historic Park, Encino, CA
Directed and Choreographed by Heidi Duckler
Filmed and edited by 2Sides Films
Composed by Carla Lucero

Unsettling Ramona traveled across Los Encinos State Historic Park with live drumming and a land acknowledgment from Duane Minard, eight original short projected films accompanied by Carla Lucero’s operatic score, and culminated with a live operatic experience at the pond. Extras gathered and engaged in a call and response with the artists, performing the final chant that transforms the story of Ramona into one that honors the Native voice.

Into the Distance (2020)

Sepulveda Dam, Van Nuys, CA
Directed and Choreographed by Heidi Duckler
Filmed and edited by 2Sides Films
Composed by Sarah Belle Reid

Into the Distance, a film by Heidi Duckler, investigates the challenges of finding intimacy in our post pandemic world of isolation. A couple, constrained in vast space, tries to find a way out. Their journey takes them through a mountain of dry rocks, a concrete void and the brittle burned bushes from the recent wildfires. Finally, the discovery of a river provides them with open space and connection.

Lost and Found (2020)

Founder’s Church, Los Angeles, CA
Directed by Heidi Duckler
Filmed and edited by 2Sides Films

Lost and Found was filmed as part of Heidi Duckler Dance’s 35th anniversary celebration, THE QUEST. Filmed at the historic Founder’ Church of Religious Science in Los Angeles’ Koreatown and with music by Sarah Belle Reid and Isaac Takeuchi, dancers transform the site in a work that explores health and disease in today’s world.

Body is Home (2020) – Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest

Keller Forecourt Fountain, Portland, OR
Directed by Heidi Duckler
Filmed and edited by 2Sides Films

As part of Lawrence Halprin’s Portland Open Space Sequence, this performance celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the Keller Forecourt Fountain and honors the 100th birthday of the living choreographer Anna Halprin.

Underway (2020)

Under the 7th Street Bridge, Los Angeles, CA
Directed by Heidi Duckler
Filmed and edited by 2Sides Films

Originally set to be a live performance in March of 2020, Underway, was transformed into a film in the midst of the Covid-19 outbreak. Inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes,” which creates a space for Eurydice to be imagined as an independent being, dance and msuic take the audience on a transformative journey to the Underworld through Eurydice’s perspective. Hermes guides you into the Underworld, situated in the underbelly of LA’s historic 7th Street Bridge.

ESCAPE (2019)

Valdivia, Concepción and Los Angeles, Chile
Directed by Heidi Duckler
Filmed and edited by Felipe Díaz Galarce

For the Time Being (2019)

Portland Rose Test Garden
Directed by Heidi Duckler
Cinematography by Zsuzsanna Mangu
Editing by Conrad Kaczor
Music and sound by Davy Sumner

For The Time Being is a film about memory. Shot in the Portland Rose Test Garden over the course of a year, the film explores three individuals as they inhabit the garden and become a part of its life cycle.

Alice in the Nite Hawk (2019) – Heidi Duckler Dance/Northwest

Nite Hawk Diner, Portland, OR
Directed by Devin Tau
Choreography by Heidi Duckler

Friends are forced to navigate a new world when their tradition is disrupted. However, the transformative change leaves them questioning their own existence.

Where We’re Going (2019)

A film by Safety Third Productions
Bendix Building, Los Angeles, CA
Directed by Katherine Helen Fisher
Creative Direction & Choreography by Heidi Duckler

Filmed on the rooftop of the historic Bendix Building in the garment district of Los Angeles where Heidi Duckler has her office space, this work is choreographed by Heidi Duckler and performed by her dancers, her staff and several workers from the building. This short work explores a common feeling in Duckler’s oeuvre – a sense of belonging and how we define family.

LOADED (2018)

Ford Theatres Loading Dock, Los Angeles, CA
Directed & Choroegraphed by Heidi Duckler
Filmed & Edited by Ben Dolenc

LOADED takes advantage of the confined space of the Ford’s loading dock to evoke themes of borders and space. As society contemplates the implications of erecting walls – both physical and psychological – Loaded explores how borders manifest in physical space, who is allowed inside and who is not, how control is confronted and how dreams of freedom are realized.

Interrupted Story (2018)

Valparaíso, Chile
Directed by Heidi Duckler
Filmed and edited by Felipe Díaz Galarce

Performed at a former prison repurposed as an arts center in Valparaíso, Chile. Inspired by their surroundings and the Chilean culture, Duckler and the dancers took the audience on an captivating journey of movement and music.