Jeffrey Skoller, author of Shadows, Specters, Shards: Making History in Avant-Garde Film, teaches in UC Berkeley's Department of Film and Media.

“An artistic achievement so ambitious that most projects seem mundane in comparison.”-Daniel Walber, Movies.com

Chris Sullivan's major new film is an enigmatic, emotional tale centered on the intertwined lives of three intimate strangers in a small rust-belt town. When their complex pasts erupt into the present, long-hidden secrets are exposed. An intricate mix of hand-drawn animation, cutouts, collage, and a haunting soundtrack, this experimental animation was over a decade in the making. According to Sullivan, "Consuming Spirits is constructed out of the impossibilities of my own social-service childhood, memories robbed from others, and many elements (that are completely) made up.” “There is little use for traditional judgments of good and bad in Sullivan's animated world, where two and a half hours of ugly characters make up the most beautiful spectacle you've ever seen” (The Huffington Post).

Consuming Spirits also screens at the Roxie Theater on Thursday, October 18.