At Cinema Village in Greenwich Village, NYC, the 16th Video Art & Experimental Film Festival Runs Through Sunday

The Video Art & Experimental Film Festival, known as VAEFF, is in its 16th year and is underway at Cinema Village in Greenwich Village. It runs November 13 to 15, so Sunday is the final day.

The festival presents what its organizers describe as some of the most innovative, bold and exciting film and video art from around the world to New York audiences. The range is deliberately wide: animation, music video, fashion film, visual narrative and other work that pushes against conventional formats. The festival's lead image is a still from AMBERSTICHE by Victoria Juemei Gong.

Programming is organized into seven themed screening blocks: Beauty, Sex & Shame; Color, Movement, & Space; On The Edge; Something is wrong. very wrong!; Between Fashion & Music; Me, Sex & Other People; and Home Sweet Home? Each has its own lineup of films and artists, and tickets are sold by program. The titles alone suggest the spread, from bodies and intimacy to unease to the meeting point of fashion and sound.

The festival opened with a wine and cheese reception on opening night. It closes with a live jazz evening featuring Benno Marmur and his All-Star Quintet, a fitting change of pace after a weekend of screenings.

Cinema Village is a long-running independent cinema on East 12th Street, an easy walk from Union Square and the East Village. Tickets start at $15, and the festival's website lists the schedule, the full lineup for each program and the ticket links.

For readers who prefer to engage with images over dialogue, experimental film is an approachable genre, since much of it relies less on spoken language than on visuals and sound. A single weekend gives a broad look at what contemporary video artists are making right now.