It's back. The annual rite of passage for Film/Animation/Video seniors at the Rhode Island School of Design: live screenings of their projects Friday and Saturday night at the RISD Auditorium.

"Swallow Flying to the South" by Mochi Lin is a stunning meticulous stop-motion animation that tells a personal story based on her mom's real-life experiences growing up in China.

"My mother grew up in the 70s during the Cultural Revolution," said Lin. "The main protagonist is a 5-year-old little girl who is abandoned to a public boarding pre-school. This whole process was definitely an exploration for me."

In the open media discipline, Eva Konig's "GIRLBOT" mixes real life locations juxtaposed with generated elements to tell the cautionary tale of a young woman's increasing reliance on the online world and social media. She explains it "shows a little more of the frightening sides of technology being integrated in our lives. It was really stressful but exciting."

"Playing it For You," a live action movie by Aastha Kannan, deals with the young woman's new adventure as a radio D.J., that's taking her out of town, away from family and friends. Kannan said "the pandemic forced me to slow down and decide where I had the energy to give time to. And so I came out of it having learned to pick projects I really love doing, and to work with teams that I love working with."

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The traditional screenings, the first time since 2019, return to the RISD Auditorium through Saturday night, and now for the third year, an online live stream component.

Both the auditorium screenings, and the May 20 & 21 live online screenings of all the projects on RISD's YouTube channel are free.

"A lot of good things came from the pandemic as well as all the terrible things," said RISD's Film/Animation/Video coordinator Rebecca Paiva. "This is a particularly strong year of work. I was blown away by the quality."