Image from the motion picture Salvation Machine: A Mass of Abwoon Dominus Image from the motion picture Salvation Machine: A Mass of Abwoon Dominus

Salvation Machine: A Mass of Abwoon Dominus

Experimental | 2024 | 16MIN

Director

John Brendan Guinan

Cast

Various

Salvation Machine: A Mass of Abwoon Dominus unfolds as a surreal procession through pastoral fields into a shadowed forest, where a ritualistic mass explores the gravitational pull of hierarchy and the dissolution of individuals into systems larger than themselves. The film centers on the enigmatic Salvation Machine —a cipher onto which the congregation projects obedience, meaning, and devotion. The congregants move not by coercion but by the inertia of participation, raising the question of whether free will can exist within pre-existing structures. The film resists resolution: the congregation does not escape but is absorbed, enacting a cycle of submission that oscillates between seduction and command.

Artist talk and Q&A following screening.

Portrait of filmmaker John Brendan Guinan Portrait of filmmaker John Brendan Guinan

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Q&A with John Brendan Guinan

Filmmaker John Brendan Guinan joins us at the Roxy Cinema for a post-film artist talk and Q&A following a screening of latest work, Salvation Machine: A Mass of Abwoon Dominus.

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