Film Categories: spirituality

  • A Celebration of Darkness

    A woman with a tortured past is triggered to take an unexpected walk down memory lane, she finds herself face-to- face with her inner child. Giving her a chance to make peace with her past. Does she find a way to celebrate darkness or does she become engulfed forever by it? In 2015, Jaene turned 40. This lead her to become introspective about her unusual life history. From a childhood of severe abuse, neglect, psychiatric institutionalization and being in care, she grew to become a street involved sex worker by 20. She met Elder, Isaac Day from Serpent River First…

  • Somnium Lapidum (Dream Stones)

    This stop-motion 16mm film offers an audiovisual meditation on the material animation of stones. The concept is inspired by Camillo Leonardi’s “Speculum Lapidum”, published in 1533, which describes the magical healing virtues of a variety of stones, categorized by colour. The character-based animated vignettes are inspired by the woodcuts in “De Hortus Sanitatis”, a natural history encyclopedia published in 1485, which details various methods of harnessing the power of gems. It was believed at the time that a given gem’s powers could be absorbed through focused viewing. Proposing an analogy between this belief and attraction to cinema, this film offers…

  • The Promise

    Set in an open field, the two men dance, jumping from reality to dream, as they follow a path, a metaphor for structure in their pursuits, giving meaning to their struggles.

  • Belen

    BELÉN is a story about the consequences of experiencing a profound inspiration. The inspiration that one woman, a humble cocoa farmer and musician from a small Afro-Venezuelan village, unaware of her powers, generated in her community and in people all over the American continent, during her life, and after her death as a spiritual being. Queen of the Quitipla. Master of bamboo’s sounds and silences. Core and bridge to the African American community, to its connected beats and historical fights. A trip into the puzzled reminiscences of this woman’s life (and death), captured through more than 100 hours of amateur…

  • Mount Misery

    Emotionally drained after learning of the death of her long estranged sister, an elderly woman spends the day lost somewhere between her past and present and her conscious and subconscious mind. In this state, she ponders the inevitabilities of life, death and the hereafter. “Mount Misery” won Best Film prize at the Black International Cinema, Berlin film festival, 2017.

  • The Fruit of our Womb

    One night, Andrea, a young woman, comes back home from a party, a bit drunk. Her loving girlfriend Marie advices her to drink some water before going to sleep, so as to avoid an hangover. Andrea goes to their messy kitchen where she can’t find any proper water… until she sees a bottle of Holy Water, shaped in Holy Mary. She drinks it all. Some time after that night, Andrea finds herself vomiting a lot and getting bigger and bigger. Marie starts to worry that Andrea could be pregnant, but it’s impossible, Andrea never had sex with a man! They…

  • Experiments In Light

    This short explores light as a meditative state while encouraging the viewer to take a moment to be present within themselves. Taking footage from my narrative self portrait A Celebration of Darkness (2015) and recutting it to refocus on the various macro shots of crystals as an expansion on the theme of light and darkness. The images in this short was made possible by the LIFT/ImagineNATIVE 16 mm Film Mentorship in 2015, it’s post production was funded by the Ontario Arts Council Access and Development grant in 2016 and completed as part of my Media Artist in Residence with Workman…

  • The Canoe

    A woman finds refuge in an empty summer home when her camping trip is interrupted by a storm.

  • Sum (Heart)

    Based on ideas of Zen Buddhism and rooted in the 7 Grandfather teachings, Sum (Heart) is a rumination on death, grief and letting go. Starting out as a visual mourning song to Wendy Babcock, Mr Toqui Wong and Jack, empty landscapes represent the yearning for the company of dead friends. Water becomes a metaphor for grief and mourning, the ebbs and flows of nature reminds us of the cycle of life which transforms into a stark ode to a new day and new beginnings. I put all my sadness, prayers and hope into this trilogy while still aching for their…

  • Viloma

    Kalpana is a young artist from the Indian state of Kashmir, who is blessed with an unusual talent that she has painstakingly learned from her aging guru. As her hand creates an artistic image on paper, a second meaningful picture miraculously materialises when the picture is rotated, depicting the antithesis of the first image, and invoking an ancient Hindu belief that life is full of dualities. Urged by her guru to share this talent and its underlying message with the world, young Kalpana enters her “reversible creations” in an international art contest … with surprising results. The story is told…