EXORDIUM, written and directed by Laura Knott and Kevin McLellan, has been accepted into the CADENCE: VIDEO POETRY FESTIVAL run by the NORTHWEST FILM FORUM. Due to the COVID-19 crisis the festival has been moved online. EXORDIUM will show on Saturday, April 18th at 10:30 pm EST in the Better Left Unsaid showcase.

On a winter night in Cambridge, Massachusetts, seven friends gather to share food and company. There are 7.7 billion ways to dine. This is one of them.

Kevin McLellan, ACT’s Financial Assistant, and Laura Knott, CAVS alumna and ACT Consulting Curator, met while they were working at the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology.

Kevin, an award-winning poet, has published two full-length poetry collections (Tributary and Ornitheology), the book-object (box), and the chapbook (Round Trip), and his writing appears in several journals including: American Letters & Commentary, Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, Kenyon Review, Sugar House Review, Western Humanities Review, and Witness.

Laura is a curator and a choreographer who, like Kevin, has won awards and grants for her projects. Her curatorial and artistic work has been presented at MIT and at the documenta exhibition in Germany, in the California desert, and in many other venues. Laura’s videos have been shown in the US and abroad.

EXORDIUM is their first collaboration. The word refers to a beginning, and it’s related to the opening of an argument. EXORDIUM begins this argument: that our ordered lives are grounded in a kind of privilege that no one – including us – really deserves. Something isn’t right, and it never was.

Registration for all screenings will be $0-25 donation-based sliding scale in five dollar increments. 30 min prior to each showtime, registrants will receive an email with a private link and password for viewing the showcase. Each showcase will remain on view for 24 hours, but please register early as ticketing closes one hour before the 10:30pm EST showtime. All proceeds help support the Forum during this temporary closure as they continue bringing the community together for collective cinematic experiences online.