Forget what you know about commercial cinema — a commodity safely curated to appease the masses. At the Poetic Lens International Film Festival, typical artistic conventions are abandoned for the spirit of curiosity, experimentation and personal expression.

From Nov. 2-3, spectators gathered for a colorful and challenging 3-hour screening at Eugene’s Art House, welcoming filmmakers from all over the world to reinterpret the medium.

Festival Organizer Craig Mahaffy hammered home the power of absorbing stories from underrepresented perspectives.

“When someone isn’t trying to create a product for someone else’s expectations, something magical happens,” Mahaffy said. “They are transmitting something of themselves and their perception of the world on screen.”

144 films from 28 countries entered the festival, with 20 ultimately chosen to illuminate the big screen.

The evening got off to a vibrant start, as French filmmaker Erwan Le Gal’s animated short “The Forest of the Honey Bees” presented 12,000 hand drawings stitched together over the course of 10 years.

Another standout was Marisa Papen and Michael Chichi’s multi-layered meditation, “Flow of Life,” which explored the suppression and misunderstanding of women and their blood. For one lunar year, Papen created a series of menstrual paintings to free herself from the shame and guilt she previously associated with her body.

A flooring, gut-wrenching exploration of grief, Anahita Safarnejad Choobary’s “Liminal Space: Diving Within” deserves to be consumed at a broader level. Choobary perfectly weaves archival footage with poetic narration and visually stunning, nightmarish experimental shots. A dreamy life slowly fades as her father dies of cancer, challenging our perceptions of childhood, identity, loss and acceptance. Its apt placement just before the 15-minute intermission gave the sniffling audience a chance to wipe their tears.

Oregon’s Michael Granberry showcased his dazzling stop-motion animation “Les Bêtes,” where a mysterious rabbit with a set of magic keys summons a host of strange creatures to entertain a wicked king and his court. Granberry sculpts some of the most grotesquely inventive claymation characters I’ve ever seen, culminating in a chaotic, dark and peculiar 12 minutes.

Willow Kasner and Robert Maclom Foster’s “Poisoning” is an Oregon-set experimental short exposing the devastation of the forests surrounding a small coastal community. Kasner called out profit-driven acts of destruction and outdated forms of forest restoration.

“This film came out of necessity,” Kasner said. “Necessity is the mother of invention and creativity.”

Though many of the films at PLIFF were screened for the first — and perhaps last — time in front of an audience, the sheer curiosity and boundary-pushing dedication present throughout the night will stick with me for a long time — a stunning synthesis of art and expression like no other.