The history of video gaming is peppered with hacks, cheats, and mods masterminded by crackers intent on kicking the industry's keister. But few people anticipated machinima, a strain of animation that exploits gaming software. Commandeering the engines that drive souped-up games, what animators have in hand is sophisticated character control and enormous access to the physics of space. Machinima has taken two distinct directions: first are the works that appropriate recognizable settings, turning such game tropes as indifferent mayhem into dramas of human strife; second are the free-form fantasies that embrace the ability of game engines to navigate artfully illustrated landscapes. Tonight's program was compiled specifically for PFA by the New York–based Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences and features some of the most renowned works, such as Anna, Katherine Anna Kang's gothic fairytale; Ill Clan's hilarious Lenny and Larry Lumberjack series; and Friedrich Kirschner's The Journey, an abstract allegory of loneliness and liberation.

A complete list of machinima works will be available at the screening.