The films of Amy Halpern are devoted to the pleasures of light, of perception and of film as a medium. Their intellectual interplay, along with the aesthetics of pleasure and the resulting synesthetic associations, give rise to intimate, melodic, sensual experiences. 

As a child, Amy Halpern made compositions using light and movement, like all children. She was interested in looking at volumes, both spatial and temporal, positive and negative spaces, and their representation and/or suggestion on screen.  

Tom Palazzolo (1937) was born in St. Louis, MO in 1937. His interest in painting led him to move to Chicago in 1960 and begin studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he also studied photography with Kenneth Josephson. Ken encouraged Tom’s interest in filmmaking, and Tom was given use of a Bell and Howell 16mm camera that had been donated to the department by a veteran WWII cameraman. Tom’s first films were completed shortly after his graduation with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in photography in 1965.