The Wexner Center for the Arts will host the 2025 Picture Lock film festival from Thursday to Saturday. Credit: Courtesy of Melissa Starker
The term “picture lock” refers to a stage in the post-production process filmmakers strive for — when editing is finalized and the narrative is “locked” in place.
For the past 35 years, the Wexner Center for the Arts’ Film/Video Studio Residency program has been helping artists of all kinds reach this major milestone.
From Thursday to Saturday, the center will host its Picture Lock series, a three-day film festival featuring recent and archival films post-produced through the residency program. According to the center’s website, the series will feature films spanning different genres and formats — from feature-length documentaries to experimental short films — to highlight filmmakers from around the world, many of whom will present their work at the event.
The residency program helps artists navigate the often long and difficult creative process of filmmaking, offering them a space to work without financial or technological constraints, said Jennifer Lange, director of the Film/Video Studio Residency program. She said beyond having access to free housing and costly equipment, residents also work hands-on with the program’s editors.
“There are some specialized tools that we have and, more important than the tools, I would say, is the knowledge that our two editors bring to the process,” Lange said. “We have two full-time editors, Paul Hill and Alexis McCrimmon. They work side by side with artists and help them realize their vision for the piece, but also contribute creatively to that vision.”
Lange said the program takes on 20 to 25 artists a year, ranging from established artists to first-timers, to create connections and lasting friendships between them. Picture Lock, she said, is a way to showcase the projects these artists have poured so much time and effort into.
One film being shown this year is Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz’s “Comos Vivimos,” a documentary about Mexican-American farmers in California’s Central Valley who are forced to uproot their lives and move at the end of every harvesting season, according to the center’s website.
When Bazaz initially joined the residency program, Lange said she expected to create a short film. After going over the footage, however, the project expanded into something much more, taking over five years to complete.
“After coming here, [she] realized, ‘Oh, I’m making a feature-length film,’” Lange said. “That’s what she ended up making.”
Other showings include Nellie Kluz’s “The Dells” — a feature on international students who work summers at the “waterpark capital of the world” — Madeleine Hunt-Ehlrich’s award-winning “The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire” — which pieces together Afro-surrealist poet and activist Suzanne Césaire’s life — along with many other documentaries and a collection of short films, according to the center’s website.
A majority of the works set to be screened were recently produced. But some pieces from the program’s archive that revolve around media activism and sociopolitical issues — such as racism and islamophobia — will be shown as well, said Allie Mickle, graduate research associate at the Film/Video Studio and Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art History.
“A lot of the films for the weekend are more recent works from 2023 and 2024 — one technically 2025 — [and] then we also have some works that are from the early ‘90s,” Mickle said. “I think what’s really evocative for me is how watching them today, over 20 years later, I still feel like the points are hitting hard and are really speaking to current issues.”
Mickle’s work is funded by a Mellon Foundation Grant, which allows her to interact with the studio’s extensive archive and make the work available for students, faculty and researchers, according to an Arts at Ohio State article by Melissa Starker, the Wexner Center’s spokesperson.
Lange said though students are unable to directly participate in the residency program, the event gives them the opportunity to hear from experienced filmmakers and ask them questions about the creative process. She said nine filmmakers will present their work, and many more will be in the audience.
“You’ll actually hear about some of the struggles and insecurities, which I think is always interesting,” Lange said. “When you watch a film on a big screen, you just think, ‘Oh my God, this must have been so easy for them. It’s perfect.’ Then, to listen to a filmmaker express some of their vulnerabilities or questions about the material, I think that’s really valuable for young people to hear. Everyone’s struggling.”
The center will also offer a free booklet at the event, encompassing the history of the studio’s program with personal anecdotes from faculty and filmmakers, Starker said.
Tickets for Picture Lock cost $5 for students, $8 for Wexner Center members and adults over 55 and $10 for the general public. Both archival screenings — “The Revolution, Televised: Not Channel Zero” and “From the Archive: Media Criticism and the Middle East” — are free to attend.
For more information about the program or to purchase tickets, visit the center’s website.
