Genres: experimental
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Canada in the 12th Century
Two Canadas from the 12th Century. One real, one imaginary.
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Omar, What’s Good? (شو، يا عمر؟)
Sho Ya Omar? (Omar, what’s good?) is a found footage experimental documentary that deconstructs the public persona of Egyptian actor Omar Sharif, to retell the story of his rise to fame and subsequent fall. This visual archaeological project re-appropriates a series of fiction films that star Sharif and intercuts them with news footage, archival materials, interviews and television programs to reflect on particular moments in Sharif’s career. The film reveals, using a process of deconstructing the found footage, the colonial context and mindset that shaped Sharif’s life between the Middle East and America..
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I would like to visit
An experimental short and installation work that combines text and film to explore the simple desire to travel, through the cultural and political realities of being Palestinian. Soundtracked with the anxiety of disposition, the work opts to show a close up of text being typed and edited on word-processing software, the work complicates a simple desire to travel by adding to it the social, cultural and political realities of being a Palestinian.
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Hitori
The film is based on an early childhood memory of my natural mother. It is about the separation of a child from its roots – a child’s search for understanding of these roots. The roots beginning with the mother and the father. I am not sure if what I am remembering is a dream or a true memory. However, if it is memory, then it is my most greatest and most cherished memory. If it is a dream then – how great it is to dream. (EM)
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P is for Palestine
Language is political in this subtle short film that shows an unnamed man in Amman, Jordan repeating decontextualized political English words all include the letter P – a letter that doesn’t exist in the Arabic language and pronouncing it is coded socially and economically.
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Uncle Bardo
Through an innovative blend of documentary, archival film manipulation, and experimental stop-motion animation, Uncle Bardo delves into the memories of an estranged family member who has undergone a near-death experience and awakens lost between two worlds. Rooted in the industrial landscape of Hamilton Ontario, we get lost in Uncle Bardo’s memories of a coma as he strives to find his sense of reality and recover his health.
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The Perfect Human
Inspired by Jørgen Leth’s Black and White cult classic The Perfect Human (1968) which raises many simple yet philosophical questions about who the perfect human is, what it means to be human, or perfect, this work applies unsupervised machine learning and experimental filmmaking techniques to reexamine and question the contested notion of perfection in the eyes of artificial intelligence. Later the remake of the computer-generated moving images are transformed from digital recreation to an analog artifact of transparencies which completed the cycles from analog film to digital video and back to 16mm format, from motion pictures to still images, and…
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A Canadian Ghost Story: The Quilt for Joyce Wieland
A Canadian Ghost Story: The Quilt for Joyce Wieland is a tribute to the films and other artwork of the late Joyce Wieland. It comprises a series of vignettes, each referencing the title of one of her films and picking up themes and motifs from her work. Two characters, A and B, are engaged in a somewhat mysterious and arduous endeavour surrounding Wieland’s films. Their memories of Wieland are stitched into a tale that is being told in a time of uncertainty and looming danger. The piece explores artistic legacy, particularly in a feminist and Canadian context, with some of…
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Untitled Film Disinfection Project I
As Borges once said, “Censorship is the mother of metaphor.” This 16mm structural film explores how state control breeds its own linguistic and visual resistance. Created in response to China’s “zero-COVID” policy—with its harsh lockdowns, relentless testing, and severe restrictions that tragically culminated in the Ürümqi fire—this project treats developed image-less Ektachrome as an “unclean” object in need of cleansing. By applying chlorine dioxide to film surfaces—following government disinfection guidelines during the pandemic—the work transforms physical material into a metaphor for censorship and information control in mainland China. Untitled Film Disinfection Project examines the delicate intersection of public health measures,…
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We will talk about this after the last air raid alert stops
This film, shot within a game simulation, focuses on the opposition between culture and nature and the possibilities of dealing with obsolete mechanisms of environmental exploitation. It’s a utopia about a post-war city that launches a recultivation program. The program is an attempt to create a new society where the aims of people do not stand in the way of the aims of other people, trees, rivers, chipmunks, mushrooms…” The game simulation was used as a platform to develop a speculative scenario in which humanity survives the challenges of the current century. Looking at the dystopias of the last century,…
