Thursday | Oct 24 | 6pm
Screening @ Deluge
Tender Loving Care
Personal journeys of transformation; searching for connection and communication, places of belonging between disparate realms.
Watch Online Free: Friday, Oct 25 (24hrs)
No Moon Tonight
Laura Ohio | 2023 | Canada/USA | 17 min | W Cdn Premiere
No Moon Tonight is an essay film that journeys through a personal archive of erotic thresholds and institutional borders. Ohio examines the possibility of personal transformation within both the dark, unsettling spaces of intimacy and the systems of hyper-visibility constructed by histories of enclosure and white supremacy.
Laura Ohio is a Canadian visual artist working across sculpture, video and performance. Her work engages the physical body, personal archives and metaphorical architectures to examine the psychic and material pressures of late-stage capitalism. Recent films trace the affective lines between marriage, immigration, prostitution and the desire for undetermined self-authorship.
Roses, Pink and Blue
Julia Yezbick | 2022 | USA | 5 min | Cdn Premiere
An elegy for a lost balloon. This short poetic piece reaches out for things lost on currents unseen. A balloon, a hand, a loved one. It is a practice in letting go and allowing for transformative change.
Julia Yezbick is a filmmaker, artist and anthropologist. She received her PhD in Media Anthropology and Critical Media Practice from Harvard University and an MA in Visual Anthropology from the University of Manchester. Her audio and video works have been exhibited at Berlin International Film Festival, Art Gallery of Ontario, MOMA PS1, New York Library for Performing Arts, Station Arts Space (Beirut), Ann Arbor Film Festival, Broad Underground Film series (Lansing), AgX Film Collective, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit. Yezbick's creative practice is primarily one of experimental nonfiction addressing topics of labour, movement and the body, feminism and social commentary on issues ranging from ethnicity and gender to housing and urban transformations. She is a 2018 Kresge Artist Fellow for film, the founding Editor of Sensate: a journal for experiments in critical media practice and co-directs Mothlight Microcinema in Detroit. Yezbick is currently an Assistant Prof of Media Arts and Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Uncle Bardo
Luke Mistruzzi | 2023 | Canada | 14 min | W Cdn Premiere
Through an innovative blend of documentary and experimental stop-motion animation Uncle Bardo delves into the mind of an estranged family member who has undergone a near-death experience and awakens, lost, between two worlds.
Luke Mistruzzi is a stop-motion animator, documentary filmmaker and installation artist. He is a member of A Common Collective and has presented his works in Ontario, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and Kassel, Germany. Uncle Bardo is his second animated film, and his first to bridge stream of consciousness animation and conventional documentary filmmaking.
Things We Swallow
Carleen Maur | 2024 | USA | 4 min | Cdn Premiere
Things We Swallow is a film on composure. It’s my bisexual dance party. It’s scary but not too funny.
Carleen Maur’s work examines the intersections between sociopolitical structures and the way in which people communicate their experiences within those structures. She received her MFA in film and video production from the University of Iowa in 2017.
Tender Loving Care
Kalina Pulit | 2023 | UK | 20 min | Cdn Premiere
Tender Loving Care is a poignant exploration of loneliness and connection in the urban sprawl of London. The film intricately portrays the blurring lines between personal and professional realms, critiquing the coldness of consumerism and redefining the essence of communication in our digital era. It is a deep dive into a world where routine phone calls to customer care become heartfelt conversations about life, mental health and the pursuit of belonging.
Kalina Pulit is a Polish-born, London-based filmmaker, photographer and creative director, with a focus on lens-based media. A maker of short films, music videos, press shots, campaigns, lookbooks and branded content, Pulit explores explores the spectrum of human emotion within micro and macro communities, highlighting people, places and scenarios that might otherwise go unnoticed. Social critique, social justice, cultural identity, migration and mental health are overarching principles and core themes in her practice, which often stems from personal experience, including her diasporic heritage and moments of intimacy within the mundane.
Thursday | Oct 24 | 8pm
Screening @ Deluge
Location, Location, Location
The tyranny and temporality of architecture and real estate: sites and symbols of acquisition and luxury reclaimed by nature and entropy.
In-Person Screening: Location, Location, Location
Student/Older Adult $6 (use code 25OFF at checkout)
Watch Online Free: Friday, Oct 25 (24hrs)
Hidden Rooms
Bernd Oppl | 2023 | Austria | 7 min | NA Premiere
White-painted wooden beams are joined together into building-like structures that glide across the image in slow and steady rotational movements. Static shots are spliced together and accompanied by harmonious sine tones, which rise and fall in sync with the incidence of light.
Bernd Oppl was born in Innsbruck. He studied painting and graphic design at the Kunstuniversität Linz as well as video and video installation at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste. He currently lives and works in Vienna.
Location, Location, Location
Robert Hamilton | 2023 | Canada | 4 min | W Cdn Premiere
An ironic, top-down summary of the language used in real estate superimposed on a Canadian neighbourhood.
Robert Hamilton's work, which encompasses video, photography, animation and interactive gallery installations, has been featured in international festivals, galleries and museums since 1986. Notable exhibitions include Maison des Arts de Laval in Canada, Museum of Contemporary Art in Castello, Spain and Transmediale in Berlin. His video work has received awards such as the German Video Art Prize and the Silver Hugo Award at the Chicago Film Festival and is in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.
Dream Resort
Peter Belkin, Lauren Hartman | 2023 | French Polynesia/USA | 10 min | Cdn Premiere
A visual investigation into 12 abandoned luxury resorts in the Society Islands in the South Pacific. These sites tell unique stories of nature reclaiming architecture, of temporality and the impact of resort development. Filmed on Tahiti, Mo’orea, Huahine and Bora Bora, Dream Resort contemplates the complexities of tourism which lie at the intersection of climate change, ocean dynamics, human action and economic policy decisions.
Pete Belkin and Lauren Hartman live in Oakland, CA. Their collaborative projects have led them to explore abandoned hotels in the Tahitian jungle, dusty Gold Rush ghost towns in California, underground lava tunnels and varied sites across multiple oceans. For ten years, they have collaborated on projects reflecting the past to reconstruct the present. Their projects have ranged from short films to sculptural installation and immersive museum experiences.
Lauren teaches visual art to seafarers at the California State University Maritime Academy. Her art practice combines visual art and archival research to document the intersection of nature and human activity. Oceans are a platform to discuss global issues, physically linking us all through international waters.
Aside from being a documentary filmmaker, Pete is a visual artist, media engineer and exhibitions producer. Born in the Soviet Union, his work is inspired by a curiosity about the natural world as pursued in the sciences. Pete’s visual investigations contemplate changing dynamics between natural phenomena and human activity. His practice is varied in material and approach but remains centrally rooted in exploring the shifting conditions of the Anthropocene. His visual works have been shown in exhibitions and screened nationally and internationally.
Go Between
Chris Kennedy | 2024 | Canada | 7 min | W Cdn Premiere
Looking down at the Brisbane River—a play of masking and superimpositions. Sound by Samuel La France. Made in residency at Container, Brisbane and nanolab, Daylesford.
Chris Kennedy is an independent filmmaker, film programmer and writer based in Toronto. He is the Executive Director of the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto. He programmed for Images Festival from 2003–06, Pleasure Dome from 2000–06 and for TIFF Cinematheque’s The Free Screen/Wavelengths from 2012–2019. He co-founded and co-programmed Early Monthly Segments from 2009 to 2018. His short experimental films have screened at over 100 festivals worldwide and have been featured in solo shows at the Canadian Film Institute, Los Angeles Film Forum, Nam June Paik Art Center, La Plata Semana del Film Experimental and Pacific Film Archive. He has presented the work of others in Belgium, Egypt, Germany, USA and Canada. He holds an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute, where he was co-founder and host of a weekly film salon. His work as an artist and programmer operates in dialogue with the history of film as art, exploring the medium’s materiality in a contemporary context.
Used to Be
Dan S | 2024 | USA | 12 min | Cdn Premiere
Images and sounds from the last days of the oldest record store in town.
Dan S is a writer/director/editor and sometimes camera operator currently residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Dan uses unconventional structures, poetic imagery and immersive sound to explore technological isolation, destructive masculinity, generational violence and the commodification of human suffering by the media industry, among other things. His work has been seen at Anthology Film Archives, The Walker Art Center, MoMA, Ann Arbor Film Festival, True/False Film Festival, Fantasia, Fantastic Fest, Athens International Film & Video, Kurzfilm Hamburg, Filmstock International, Cellular Cinema, Revelation Perth, Antimatter [Media Art], FLEXFest, Cosmic Rays, Grand Illusion Cinema, Trylon Microcinema and a few other places. In addition to his production activity, Dan is a board member of The Northern Film Alliance, participant in The Bentson Critical Group at Walker Art Center, curator of the MN Unearthed Film Series and programmer of 2022 Duluth Superior Film Festival.
Foot to Ground
Christopher Thompson | 2024 | USA | 8 min | Cdn Premiere
Minimalist frontiers proliferate from acquisition. Larping utopia, shedding skins, forging new luxury amidst shards of past lives. Embracing shadows, sculpting stagnant futures in the flicker of ancient flames.
Christopher Thompson is an artist and filmmaker whose work examines desire, capital and the seemingly supernatural forces that govern its acceleration. His films and video works have been featured in festivals and exhibitions worldwide, including San Francisco Cinematheque’s Crossroads, San Diego Underground, Frontera Sur International Non Fiction Film Festival, Prismatic Ground and Mimesis Documentary Film Festival. He holds an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, where he studied video art and experimental film. He is also the director of Haters, an online moving image journal. Thompson lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Ingresso Animali Vivi
Igor Grubić | 2023 | Croatia/Italy | 15 min | Cdn Premiere
Animals from Eastern Europe for the Italian food/meat industry used to be transported to the towns along the state border in Northeast Italy. From those conveyor-belt spaces of death, only one animal managed to come in and out alive.
Igor Grubić’s work includes site-specific interventions in public spaces, photography and film. He represented Croatia at the 58th Venice Biennale. His critical, socio-politically committed practice is characterized by long-term engagement, work focusing on past and present political situations, from an in-depth exploration of the fate of historical monuments and the demise of industry, to the examination of the predicament of minority communities. Though grounded in documentarist tradition, Grubić’s work in photography and film is characterized by an affective and empathetic approach that is deeply humane and often poetic. His work has been exhibited at international exhibitions and institutions including the Tirana Biennial, Manifesta, October Salon, Gender Check, MuMOK, Istanbul Biennial, Fotofestival, Bologna, Thessaloniki Biennial, Cut/Rez, MSU, Heavenly Creatures, MG+MSUM, The Value of Freedom, Belvedere 21, Venice Biennale, Yerevan Biennial and MAXXI.