New Home in the West

This short film traces the journey of the first Ukrainian settlers in Canada. Seeking freedom and opportunity, they came here and became instrumental in helping to open the Canadian West. Though they had little in the way of money or machinery, they had courage and faith in the future and were willing to put in the hard work. Every member of the family helped in the struggle, and in time, their efforts paid off.

Terra Firma

In a small commercial harbour in the south of France, two Moroccan sailors are watching over ferries that were abandoned by ship-owners. Young Syrians make a stopover to load their cattle, African traders prepare a convoy of second-hand vehicles. Men, machines, and animals transit through this space open onto the sea.

The Five Obstructions

Lars von Trier challenges his mentor, filmmaker Jørgen Leth, to remake Leth’s 1967 short film The Perfect Human five times, each with a different set of bizarre and challenging rules.

Spectres of Shortwave

A mysterious web of international shortwave radio towers once dominated the Tantramar marshlands near Sackville, New Brunswick. For almost 70 years the RCI shortwave towers broadcast around the world. Due to budget cuts, the site was decommissioned in 2012 and dismantled in 2014. Examining themes of identity and memory, the film captures images of the towers over four seasons in various weather conditions, accompanied by the voices of residents and technicians narrating accounts of hearing radio broadcasts emanate from their household appliances.

One Second in Montreal

A silent succession of black-and-white photographs of the city of Montreal.

Kindergarten

A childhood story is narrated while home movie footage is displayed. The narrator recounts her assimilation experience: moving to America, learning English, giving up your culture and a part of yourself.

Promises to the Future

As the filmmaker pursues a creative career, she goes looking for others in similar positions to explore what her decision entails. Mixing experimental art and documentary film, the work explores the real and imaginary boundaries of creativity.

The ram's nap

Lucía and Valeria take out three Tarot cards that reveal the first two dishes of a menu that takes them from Embún, Spain to Llanquihue, Chile; the towns of their grandmothers. Among improvised still lifes, maps and video calls, the friends try to discover the meaning of the third card through a ritual that connects both continents.

Qu'est-ce que c'est?

An experimental docu-fiction short from hours of collected material shot by the director. Different scenes, from drunk parties with friends to shots of the Dutch landscape during a train ride, are cut together to see if a narrative story can be constructed from nothing but randomly shot footage.

Barn Rushes

"…elegant yet rustic in its simplicity of execution; tugged gently toward different sides of the set by hints of color and motion interactions, positive and negative spaces, etc., and the unyielding delivery on one of the great apotheoses of poetic cinema at fade-out time." – Tony Conrad

Chez Jolie Coiffure

Rosine Mbakam is invited to step in Sabine’s small hairdresser’s because it is dangerous in the street. She accepts and pushes in with her camera. Sabine’s stories and the customers’ joys, worries, problems and fears bring depth and life into the premises. At times, it feels like the entire African quarter of Brussels had squeezed in. Laughter abounds, anecdotes and life stories elicit emotions, and a male visitor brings a touch of flirt into the salon.

EXPRMNTL

Knokke, Belgium. A small mundane coastal town, home to the beau-monde. To compete with Venice and Cannes, the posh casino hosts the second ‘World Festival of Film and the Arts’ in 1949, organised in part by the Royal Cinematheque of Belgium. To celebrate cinema’s 50 year existence, they put together a side program showcasing the medium in all its shapes and forms: surrealist film, absolute film, dadaist films, abstract film,… The side program would soon become a festival in its own right: ‘EXPRMNTL’, dedicated to experimental cinema, and would become a mythical gathering of the avant-garde…

Pelle vegetale. Un'intervista

Song 5

SONG 5: A childbirth song (the Songs are a cycle of silent color 8mm films by the American experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage produced from 1964 to 1969).

Dilema I: Burundanga Boricua

Combines animation, documentary footage, and hand-painted film as well as slide projections, a painted 12" x 24" backdrop, and sculptural palm tree to create a kaleidoscopic portrait of the Puerto Rican psyche.

Swole

In Swole I continue to document my commitment to an intensive and transformative gym and diet regimen, as well as the communities that form around such activities, sustaining themselves through texting and sharing videos and photos on social media. I learn the vocabulary of my new community.