“Single Use”  featured in the 2021 Harlem International Film Festival
Opening Night In-Person Screening Q & A 
Thur, May 6 at 5:50pm
Virtual Screenings Fri-Sun, May 7-9

The 2021 Harlem International Film Festival (Hi) announced official selections for its 16th edition—a hybrid event taking place May 6-9. The film festival will open with an audacious presentation of two triple-header screenings at the AMC Magic Johnson Harlem 9 Theaters. The red carpet in-person event will kick off the film festival’s celebrated showcase of relatively undiscovered international cinematic gems and local New York filmmaking talent and lead into virtual screenings of 71 films and more (31 features, 32 shorts, 2 VR/360 projects, and 6 webisodes) representing over 17 countries. 

Among these films, dancer-choreographer Jody Sperling’s “Single Use” (9 minutes) will be featured in a program with the North American premiere of Anne Via McCollough’s Full Circle, a documentary celebrating Helen Hays’ Great Gull Island Project, a 50-year quest to save threatened seabirds. Sharing an environmental theme, “Single Use” is a kinetic response to the problem of plastic pollution. The Covid-era film shows Sperling donning an outfit fashioned from over 150 reclaimed plastic bags to romp and roll down a normally bustling stretch of Broadway, here eerily free of traffic due to the pandemic. Skittering and careening across the asphalt, she transforms into blossoming organic forms. Demonstrating the beauty of that—and who—our society throws away, the piece offers a meditation on the nature of disposability and resuscitation. The film’s subtle score is by environmental composer Matthew Burtner. 

Due to Covid precautions, the seating-capacity for the festival’s in-person screenings was reduced to only 50 live attendees. To accommodate viewing demand, the festival’s live screened films will be available for online viewing after the premiere date.