kNOwBOX dance Film Festival

2023 THEME
"kNOwBOX dance Film Festival 2023: Dances of the Past, Present, and Future"

** If your work is selected as an NBFF Official Selection your film will travel to in-person screenings throughout Mexico, South Korea, and The United States of America**

MISSION
In its 5th year as an independent international film festival, the mission for the NBFF is to curate dance films that explore an innovative approach to “challenging the possibilities of what dance can look like in video form”.

VALUES
NBFF introduces various trends in dance films and emerging dance film directors as well. The NBFF explores the diversity of dance creation, distribution, and archiving through the meeting of dance and film (dance film). NBFF encourages various interpretations of dance films including but not limited to: shorts (3 minutes or less) narrative, fiction, experimental, animation, multicultural, multi-genre, and historical documentary films.
Additionally, NBFF screens selected films from Dallas, Texas, USA; Korea; and Mexico (countries with live NBFF events) via invitation in order to share works related to current social and political issues.

VISION
The festival is an international festival that is held simultaneously in Mexico, South Korea, The United States of America, and online to create a venue for various cultural exchanges.

The kNOwBOX dance organization is dedicated to creating a more equitable and inclusive dance field for all by fostering trans-geographical networking, highlighting diverse and underrepresented voices (e.g. black, indigenous, people of color, and women). NBFF contributes greatly to the growth and development of the field of dance and film. Beyond the screening of local, national, and international films NBFF offers guest visits and talks, dance workshops, networking events, and a virtual fest–which includes online dance related workshops–in order to expand the future of dance through various practices and aesthetic explorations. The NB team believes experiencing art–and more specifically experiencing art via dance and film–creates opportunities for understanding other perspectives.

In this day and age, it is imperative to address the topic of equality in dance in the digital space as it is both relevant and a pressing issue in the current social and political climate. The digital space is charged with a multitude of positive and negative forces including political and monetary power, media prowess, misinformation, matters of accessibility, collaboration, tools and platforms for artistic creation, sharing, networking, sexism, racism, cultural appropriation, and misrepresentation. NB finds it important to acknowledge concepts of power, access, inclusion, and race in order to not reinforce some of the same structures of oppression (i.e. the male gaze, objectification of womxn/womyn, ableism, the primitivism of people of color, etc.); thus writing a more equitable future history.

NBFF 2022 Teaser Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p3QutQax1U

kNOwBOX dance Film Festival 2022 – Seoul, Korea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK_eKr4ZG6Y

kNOwBOX dance Film Festival 2022 – Dallas, Texas, USA
https://youtu.be/fcI66dmBp6w

Cover image courtesy of kNOwBOX dance Film Festival 2022 "LIVING ON THE THRESHOLD" by Vincent Bruno and Marine Chesnais