-3.png)
Dance, Loss and Renewal: 'Something Has To Give' Comes to NewCinema/Experiment+
Filmmakers Allison Fan and Fred Midgley explore loss, redemption and the search for renewal through movement in Something Has To Give, a six-minute experimental dance film coming to Whush as part of the NewCinema/Experiment+ showcase.
Made in the United States in 2025, the film places its performers inside a stark, empty warehouse, using the relationship between bodies and space to explore what happens in moments of profound loss.
The project also brings together two different disciplines. Fan and Midgley met while studying at SUNY Purchase College, where Fan was part of the dance conservatory and Midgley studied in the film conservatory. Their paths crossed creatively when Fan received grant funding to translate her choreography into a dance film.
Movement in an Empty Space
Something Has To Give is built around ideas of redemption, rebirth and the desire for salvation.
Rather than approaching those themes through a conventional narrative, the filmmakers use choreography and the physical environment as their primary means of expression.
The empty warehouse becomes an important part of that approach. Against its sparse surroundings, bodies move between tension and release as the film considers whether the world around them can offer sanctuary in the aftermath of loss.
The filmmakers describe that central question through the contrast between a sterile white room — apparently devoid of life — and a space that might instead contain the possibility of renewal.
Where Dance and Film Meet
The origins of the project reflect the film's combination of movement and cinema.
Fan and Midgley attended SUNY Purchase College at the same time but trained in separate conservatories. Fan's background was in dance and choreography, while Midgley's was in filmmaking.
The opportunity to turn Fan's choreography into a film brought those practices together, allowing movement originally conceived through dance to be reconsidered specifically for the camera.
The result is a short work in which choreography, performance, location and filmmaking operate together rather than using dance simply as the subject of the film.
From New York to Ghent
Something Has To Give had its world premiere in New York City on January 16, 2026 and has since begun building its festival record.
The film was selected for Dances With Films and later screened at Ghent International Film Week, where it received the Best Dance Film award.
That recognition places particular emphasis on the collaboration at the centre of the project: a meeting between Fan's choreographic background and Midgley's filmmaking practice.
Coming to NewCinema/Experiment+
Something Has To Give will now stream worldwide on Whush as part of NewCinema/Experiment+, bringing the filmmakers' short-form exploration of dance, loss and renewal to a wider audience.
Across its six-minute running time, the film uses movement rather than conventional storytelling to examine the desire to find something beyond grief — and the possibility that an apparently empty space can become a place for change.
Something Has To Give (United States, 2025), directed by Allison Fan and Fred Midgley, runs six minutes in English and will stream worldwide on Whush as part of the NewCinema/Experiment+ showcase.
Comments