Film Categories: Culture

  • До Землі (To the Ground)

    A three-channel video installation which depicts various plants from Saskatchewan that were captured during my year-long mentorship with Sandra Semchuk (supported by BC Arts Council). The project applies the approach of ethnobotany, in this case combining stories of both Ukrainian and Ukrainian Canadian people about the medicinal use of different plants. The video triptych pairs close-ups of plants together with audio stories about them, giving an inside view of an interwoven connection between Ukrainian people and plants, while at the same time unveiling the history of immigration through individual family stories. By including both English and Ukrainian language the work…

  • HK Uprising

    A tribute to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong that are taking place three decades after the Tiananmen Square uprising. Note: This film can be displayed as a multi-channel installation with May 35.

  • Sab Shimono: Acting “As If”

    On the eve of his eightieth birthday, acclaimed Japanese American actor Sab Shimono reflects on his lifelong commitment to the craft of acting, his struggles against racism and homophobia, and how his life was transformed by gay bars and marriage equality.

  • the_other_images

    A hard drive, 2.8 terabyte leftover data from a project that was shot 10 years ago. In 2008, the author and filmmaker Iris Blauensteiner made her first short movie. Now she sifts through this waste material: outtake scenes, photographs, sound files, e-mails, script passages, discarded ideas. This data was archived and well stored, but time has taken its toll. Old data formats cannot be played anymore because they are no longer compatible with current players. The multitude of read errors and image distortions disallow a comfortable recollection of the past, the pictures and sounds are not what they used to…

  • Lavender: A Lesbian Love Story

    By accepting a lavender marriage proposal, Joy risks her secret relationship, forcing her to choose between appeasing her family and true love.

  • The Beautiful Room is Empty

    “Haddad’s The Beautiful Room is Empty explores the loaded memories of space through his aunt, Marie, (re)visiting her childhood home and recalling the abuse she endured there. […] What have the walls been listening to? What have they absorbed, retained, and released upon a return, a farewell?” – Sarah Sarofim, Canadian Art

  • Arrival 1, Arrival 2

    This experimental essay film springs from the final days of December 2020 when I moved from Chicago to Toronto. The film documents my move and then continues on alternate paths, weaving through the liminal spaces of borders, sickness, interpellation, and dreams. Content Note: This film contains extended discussions about fatphobia and disordered eating. Specifically, this film contains descriptions of food restriction, idealization of thinness, and intense emotional and physical pain after eating. After 11:41 there is no direct discussion of disordered eating. Flashing lights throughout. Loud noises throughout.

  • Savage / Future

    Editing to the soundscape of shaking Iroquois white corn and finger tapping, Seneca filmmaker Terry Jones uses personal and historic still images to link his family and the American Indian Residential Boarding School experience.

  • Don’t Forget The Water

    A phone conversation sets the diasporic table as a disembodied figure prepares Qahwah Arabi / Arabic Coffee. Here, the contradictions inherent in Google Translate’s instant camera feature are made visible through glitched mistranslations. Using these flaws as a prompt, the communication between a mother and a daughter considers ambiguity as a source of embodied knowledge. 

  • Momently Gone

    Momently Gone is a dive into the interiority, in the form of five video-poems, declining, like a theme with variations, the relationship to our missing ones. It was inspired by the mourning of two of my sisters, both of whom committed suicide, and that of my father, who died of cancer. This common thread gave birth to a set of works that is soothing rather than challenging, because there is sweetness in feeling close to those who are absent, there is sweetness in gathering around a universal reality. Thanks to digital tools, I work with layers of images and sound…