Every Contact Leaves a Trace (2025) – 82 minutes
SUNDAY MAY 31st, 2026
Presented by filmmaker Lynne Sachs
$12 – 8PM at the Midtown Cinema, Harrisburg PA
Contact—so tactile, so evocative of the touch of one person on another, physically and emotionally. Trace—a way to get back to an earlier point and a reckoning with the remains of that initial encounter. Filmmaker Lynne Sachs has saved every business card anyone has ever given her. After 40 years of collecting, she recognizes their mnemonic powers. With 600 cards in her grasp, Sachs contemplates the impact of these haptic exchanges. In both real and imagined ways, her essay teases apart their vivid resonances, entwining personal memory with geopolitical history through visual abstraction, music, and a poet’s sense of introspection.
Showing with:
“Berlin Theater of the Streets” – A film by Mark Street – 10 minutes
Presented in person by filmmaker Mark Street
A walk through Berlin; eyes open, camera ready. Countless vignettes unfold around me, and I imagine storylines for each set piece.
Join us for a special Closing Night Program with both filmmakers in-person!
As part of the 27th Annual Moviate Underground Film Festival.
The Burg : Moviate Underground Film Festival to return to Harrisburg this weekend
https://theburgnews.com/news/moviate-underground-film-festival-to-return-to-harrisburg-this-weekend
Get your popcorn ready.
The 27th Annual Moviate Film Festival will take place on May 28 to 31 at Midtown Cinema and feature more than 60 films from 15 countries, with 13% of the movies being screened on real film.
Many of the selected films are new and classic documentaries. Caleb Smith, co-founder of Moviate highlighted several of the weekend’s showings as can’t miss events.
“You’re going to see someone’s personal creativity along with their vision, whether it’s a five-minute animation or a 90-minute documentary,” Smith said.
On Thursday, May 28, musicians Glenn Jones and Liam Grant will perform live original scores to two of their films, “The River” and “The Plow that Broke the Plains,” at 7 p.m. As they’ve been touring around the east coast, they will not be performing the original score to these films anywhere else but in here in Harrisburg, Smith noted.
The weekend continues Friday, May 29 with a 40th anniversary screening of the 1986 documentary “Heavy Metal Parking Lot,” featuring director Jeff Krulik in attendance. The screening is co-presented by local business Tattoo Punks.
“Jeff will present previously unseen footage, including interviews with the band Judas Priest related to the film,” Smith said.
On Saturday, May 30, Colombian filmmaker Chris Gude’s “Morichales” will screen in partnership with Harrisburg-based Elementary Coffee Co., whose coffee is largely sourced from Colombia.
“The film is a stunning portrait of the workers in Venezuela who are trying to mine for gold. It’s a really beautiful film,” Smith said.
The festival concludes Sunday, May 31, with a screening of “Barbara Forever,” accompanied by New York City filmmakers Lynne Sachs and Mark Street in partnership with the LGBT Center of Central PA.
“Lynne and Mark worked with Barbara for many years and were close friends with her,” Smith said. “She was very enigmatic and creative and had documented a lot of her life as she was making films. This film just came out this year, so I’m excited that Lynne and Mark will introduce it.”
In addition to spotlighting unique indie films, Smith also sees the festival as an avenue for connection.
“With the emergence of artificial intelligence and the silo effect of people being on their phones, there’s a feeling of isolation. When you go to Midtown Cinema, you can meet other people, chat and experience the film together,” he said.
