Cinematic Mind(fulness)
This doesn't start with a plan. It starts with rest.
We use meditation and sound baths to quiet the part of your brain that needs everything perfect, that overthinks every decision, that stops you before you start. Then you make something, trust what surfaces, see what emerges when you get out of your own way.
Watch experimental films. Make one yourself. Screen it that same day. Leave with a film you didn't plan but somehow needed to make and ideas for your own sustained practice.
For artists who need to reset.
For artists, filmmakers, and creatives already making work
An invitation to pause, recalibrate, and discover new, intuitive ways of creating
Build on your practice by exploring film as a mindful and reparative process
For beginners who've been waiting to start.
For those with no prior filmmaking experience
An entry point into creativity through meditation, sound, and shared exploration
Discover how intuitive expression can be a pathway to calm, reflection, and connection
Schedule & Activities: Subject to Change***
9:30 AM → Arrivals & Breakfast
10:00 AM → Intention Setting & Introductions
10:15 AM → Sound Bath 1
10:50 AM → Screening: Films Group Discussion & Reflection
12:00 PM → Lunch
12:45 PM → Sound Bath reprise
1:50 PM → Prompts & Instructions for Shooting
2:00 PM → Shooting/Archive
Meals will be provided!
4:20 PM → Editing/Consultations
6:15 PM →Work is due // Screening
Lindsay Hess has always been driven by curiosity and connection—two forces that fuel every great story. After getting her start at The Martin Agency, she set off on a six-month journey around the world—from South America to Southeast Asia—collecting experiences, perspectives, and an appreciation for storytelling across cultures and creativity without borders.
For the past six years, Lindsay has been fully immersed in the world of production. Millions of people have seen her work and it’s won dozens of awards. She thrives on the beautiful chaos of production, solving creative puzzles, bringing ideas to life, and delivering exceptional work with a team that's as passionate as she is.
Recently, she founded Tilt Studio Sessions, a recurring community event where art, sound, and story collide, while also serving as Director of Production and Operations for Rest Fest, local festival celebrating wellness in the community through group classes, live music, speakers, and local vendors for a transformative day of collective healing.
Whether she's producing work for global brands, creating immersive art experiences, or building spaces for people to gather and heal, Lindsay's practice is rooted in the same conviction: the best stories happen when we come together. She's endlessly curious about what makes us human, and she builds the experiences that help us remember.
For more than 15 years, Nikita has worked with wonderful creative teams across film, academia, advertising, music, and touring. As Program and Production Manager at VCUarts Cinema for nine years, she built program frameworks and guided the next generation of filmmakers.
As an experimental filmmaker, she explores hypnagogic states: the threshold between waking and sleep where structured thought dissolves and images drift freely. Her work centers on mistakes and rest as disruptions of control and productivity: moments when accidents are embraced rather than corrected, and failure becomes a method. She studied personal and experimental filmmaking with Rouzbeh Rashidi at the Experimental Film Society in Berlin and was accepted into the Harkat Fish to Water Film Residency.
This inquiry into threshold states informs both her moving-image work and her producing practice, where she builds structures that create margins for improvisation to occur. Her work as a producer has aired on MTV and PBS and has been shown at festivals worldwide. Her recent projects, HIGHER LOWS and LOVE IN TWO LANGUAGES, were international co-productions shot in the Czech Republic and Morocco.
Currently, Nikita is producing the feature YASMINE/JASMINE (Sundance Producing Lab semi-finalist, Doha Film Institute development grant, 2024 Muslim List), the short MR. SHAME, and developing the music documentary series STREET MUSE. She is also working on several experimental projects while serving as Senior Project Manager at Tilt Creative and Production.