Rajat Nayyar is an anthro­pol­o­gist and film­mak­er who is cur­rent­ly a SSHRC Vanier Schol­ar and a PhD Can­di­date in The­ater at York Uni­ver­si­ty. He is the co-founder of Emer­gent Futures CoLab (EFC) through … read more

“Cli­mate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st cen­tu­ry.” (Lancet Cli­mate Change Com­mis­sion 2009) This sci-fi short film takes action and drafts a future well­ness par­adise. Taking … read more

A cau­tion­ary tale on the end­less entan­gling of infor­ma­tion shar­ing, social media, mean­ing and daily life, and as well, a satire on the anthro­pol­o­gist as col­o­niz­er of knowledge.  Dr. Carlos … read more

Caused by a dimen­sion anom­aly, mil­lions of people have exchanged places with their alter egos from par­al­lel uni­vers­es. A few years after, the Anom­aly Foun­da­tion was found­ed to inte­grate new­com­ers into … read more

The vil­lage of Shol­o­gon is locat­ed in the taiga in north­east­ern Siberia. An extreme heat wave ignit­ed fierce forest fires in the remote region two years ago. At first, res­i­dents … read more

We are in a moun­tain vil­lage of the Hmong, mem­bers of an ethnic minor­i­ty in north­west Viet­nam. For three years, Hà Lệ Diễm has come here again and again, befriend­ing the lively twelve-year-old Di and par­tic­i­pat­ing in the small strug­gles of her grow­ing up. Events con­verge on the ten­sion between tra­di­tion and the grow­ing eman­ci­pa­tion of a young gen­er­a­tion that is begin­ning to look out­wards.  

During the New Year’s fes­ti­val, it is cus­tom­ary for young men to kidnap the girls of their choice, often vio­lent­ly, often while they are still very young. Many girls are sub­se­quent­ly forced into mar­riage by their fam­i­lies. Di, too, is torn between first flir­ta­tions and resis­tance to an early for­eign deter­mi­na­tion that abrupt­ly ends her child­hood and, most impor­tant­ly, deprives her of any fur­ther edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ty. Diễm’s sen­si­tive debut fea­ture is aston­ish­ing in its rev­e­la­tion of this web of com­plex rela­tion­ships. With impres­sive hon­esty, it main­tains a bal­ance between expe­ri­enc­ing and con­vey­ing. 

Hà Lệ Diễm, stud­ied jour­nal­ism in Hanoi jour­nal­ism, earn­ing her diplo­ma in 2013. CHILDREN OF THE MIST is her first doc­u­men­tary to be sup­port­ed by a grant from the Sun­dance Insti­tute Doc­u­men­tary Film Pro­gram and received the Best Direc­tor Award at IDFA in 2021. 

Direc­tor, cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Hà Lệ Diễm
Editor: Swann Dubus
Music: Nick Norton-Smith
Pro­duc­tion: Swann Dubus for Varan Viet­nam, Thao Tran Phuong
Dis­tri­b­u­tion: CAT&Docs

Some days, the black kites lit­er­al­ly drop from the sky—the air pol­lu­tion in Delhi, India, can be so intense that flocks of the birds fall to earth. If they’re lucky, … read more