Experiencing Interruptions?

Miraculous Aqueduct

A poetic exploration of the sources of creativity. Do we take a scattershot approach to inspiration, throwing ideas out at random, to see which ones take root? Or can we plug directly into a never-ending source of new ideas, an effortless flow? Miraculous Aqueduct is a journey through an interior landscape filled with tarot cards, towers, and centurions; a collage of words, images and music, in which the film’s two narrators discover that acknowledging inner blocks is the key to overcoming them.

  • David Finkelstein
    Director
  • David Finkelstein
    Writer
  • Ian W. Hill
    Writer
  • David Finkelstein
    Key Cast
  • Ian W. Hill
    Key Cast
  • David Finkelstein
    Music composed by
  • David Finkelstein
    Animation and visual design
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    15 minutes 30 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 1, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    200 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Medicine Show
    New York
    United States
    June 10, 2017
  • Artists' Television Access
    San Francisco, CA
    United States
    November 19, 2017
  • KLEX
    Kuala Lumpar
    Malaysia
    November 26, 2017
  • US Super 8 and DV Festival
    New Brunswick, New Jersey
    United States
    February 24, 2018
  • Videomedeja
    Novi Sad
    Serbia
    August 31, 2018
  • Instants Vidéo
    Marseille
    France
    November 10, 2018
  • Moviate
    Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
    United States
    May 26, 2019
  • Magikal Charm
    New York, NY
    United States
    March 13, 2019
  • Cairo Video Festival
    Cairo
    Egypt
    September 9, 2019
  • Twin Rivers Media Festival
    Ashville NC and Danville VA
    United States
    August 9, 2019
  • Berkeley Video and Film Festival
    Berkeley, California
    United States
    November 3, 2019
    Grand Festival Cine Poem Experimental Award
  • West Sound Film Festival
    Bremerton, Washington
    United States
    August 6, 2021
Director Biography - David Finkelstein

DAVID FINKELSTEIN received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2022. He recently presented his first feature film on a tour which included Bilbao, Portland, San Francisco, Asheville, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Harrisburg, London, Porto, and Austin. He was an Invited Artist at the Traverse Vidéo Festival in Toulouse, France in 2013. His video work has been featured in one man shows at Artist Television Access (San Francisco), CRS (New York), Robert Beck Memorial Cinema (New York), Echo Park Film Center and LA Filmforum (Los Angeles), Medicine Show (New York), MSU Moorhead, and with Ross Wilbanks at Light Factory and Pura Vida in North Carolina. His work has been screened in the Brainwash Film Festival, Traverse Video (France), Leeds International Festival (UK), Cinesonika (Canada), Experiments in Cinema, Les Instants Vidéo, Les Inattendus, Denver Underground Festival, Brick Theater, 1078 Gallery, Arthouse Festival, Outer Film Fest, Free Form Film Festival, Ybor Festival, Rubric Video, WRO (Poland) Festival, New Vision Cinema, Athens (Ohio) Film Fest, Dahlonega Film Festival, VideoBardo, Exground, Valleyfest, Big MiniDV Festival, Park City Film Music Festival, the Puget Sound Cinema Society, the Downstream Film Festival, the Silver Lake Festival, EXP2, New Filmmakers, Bearded Child Festival, X-Fest, SinCiné, and Gemini CollisionWorks. Altogether, his video works have won twelve awards at five different Festivals, including the Grand Festival Award from the Berkeley Video and Film Festival for "Born in Mid-Flight" and "Best of Festival: Experimental" from the Brooklyn Arts Council Film Festival for "Earth and Moon in Love." He has been commissioned three times to create videos for the Outmusic Awards, and these videos were subsequently shown on the PrideVision cable network and the PBS series "Under the Pink Carpet." His work has been funded by The Fund for Creative Communities, The Field, Movement Research, Meet the Composer, The Brooklyn Arts Exchange, BACA, and other sources.

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Director Statement

DAVID FINKELSTEIN's videos combine meticulously crafted digital imagery with original music and improvised text to explore inner reality in an elliptical and poetic manner. He bases these works on improvised performances in which the actors collaborate to craft a verbal landscape from an inner world. He then composes a musical score and creates a complex visual environment to help the viewer perceive the tremendous thematic and emotional unity which underlies the fluidity of the improvisation.