WANDERING, A ROHINGYA STORY

Here is a place beyond space and time” says Kalam, who guides view­ers through the world’s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh. His poetic words form the frame­work of the film. 600,000 Rohingya have been living tight­ly packed in this muddy city, pro­vid­ed with makeshift relief sup­plies, for years. When it rains, the paths turn into streams, people wade through mud, but the chil­dren and young people still play soccer devot­ed­ly in all the mud. And when the wind blows, they fly kites. No one is allowed to leave the camp. The cam­er­a’s view is con­stant­ly blocked by all kinds of grids, but it finds ways into the huts and knows how to show the people in the most beau­ti­ful light. All the more stark is the con­trast to her reports of expul­sion, murder and rape. The camera rests on faces, on every­day ges­tures, a preg­nant woman sews a dress, the mother combs her daugh­ter’s shiny black hair. A hut is built, the chick­ens are fed. Life goes on even in stag­na­tion. Kalam only wants free­dom, and that the world learns of this tragedy.  

Olivi­er Hig­gins and Mélanie Car­ri­er are film direc­tors and pro­duc­ers from Quebec, Canada. In the con­text of this film, they also cre­at­ed the mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary exhi­bi­tion “Wan­der­ing, a Rohingya Story” on view at the Nation­al Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec (MNBAQ). 

Direc­tors: Olivi­er Hig­gins, Mélanie Carrier
Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Renaud Philippe, Olivi­er Higgins
Edi­tors: Olivi­er Hig­gins, Amélie Labrèche
Pro­duc­tion: möfilms
Dis­tri­b­u­tion: SPIRA, Québec

RECLAMATION

RECLAMATION is a doc­u­men­tary-style imag­in­ing of a post-dystopic future in Canada after mas­sive cli­mate change, wars, pol­lu­tion, and the after­ef­fects of the large-scale colo­nial project which has now destroyed the land. When Indige­nous people are left behind after a mas­sive exodus by pri­mar­i­ly priv­i­leged white set­tlers who have moved to Mars, the orig­i­nal inhab­i­tants of this land cope by trying to restore and reha­bil­i­tate the beau­ti­ful planet they belong to.

This film will be screened simul­ta­ne­ous­ly at Con­flic­to­ri­um as part of our #Junction_Ahmedabad, fol­lowed by a shared discussion.

TJ Cut­hand grew up in Saska­toon Saskatchewan. He makes films about sex­u­al­i­ty, mad­ness, Queer iden­ti­ty and love, gender, and Indi­gene­ity, which have screened in fes­ti­vals inter­na­tion­al­ly. His work has exhib­it­ed at gal­leries includ­ing the MOMA in NYC, The Nation­al Gallery in Ottawa, and The Walker Art Center in Min­neapo­lis. He com­plet­ed his BFA major­ing in Film and Video at Emily Carr Uni­ver­si­ty of Art and Design in 2005, and his Mas­ters of Arts in Media Pro­duc­tion at Toron­to Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty in 2015. He has per­formed at Live At The End Of The Cen­tu­ry in Van­cou­ver, Queer City Cinema’s Per­for­ma­to­ri­um in Regina, and 7a*11d in Toron­to. He is a Whit­ney Bien­ni­al 2019 artist. He is of Plains Cree and Scots descent, a member of Little Pine First Nation, and cur­rent­ly resides in Toron­to, Canada. He also coined the word Indigiqueer. 

IN THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS (Excerpt)

Just before con­di­tions on Planet Earth became unsuit­able for human life, a small group of chil­dren received a mes­sage from a far­away galaxy: an ancient civilization’s plea for notes describ­ing life on Planet Earth. This film is made from all that is left of those notes. 

This film will be screened simul­ta­ne­ous­ly at Con­flic­to­ri­um as part of our #Junction_Ahmedabad, fol­lowed by a shared discussion.

Simone Rapis­ar­da Casano­va born and raised in rural Sicily, used to be a com­put­er sci­en­tist before becom­ing a film­mak­er. His first fea­ture THE STRAWBERRY TREE won acco­lades being picked by Film Com­ment as one of the 50 Best Undis­trib­uted Films of 2012. His second fea­ture THE CREATION OF MEANING won him the Best Emerg­ing Direc­tor Award at Locarno in 2014 a.o. notable awards. He cur­rent­ly teach­es film at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Con­tem­po­rary Arts in Van­cou­ver, Canada. 

Dara Cul­hane is one of the found­ing mem­bers of the famed Centre for Imag­i­na­tive Ethnog­ra­phy and teach­es Anthro­pol­o­gy at Simon Fraser Uni­ver­si­ty. Her work is inspired by prac­tices of sen­su­ous, cre­ative, and imag­i­na­tive ethnog­ra­phy. As an asso­ciate teacher of Fitz­mau­rice Voice­work. a fas­ci­na­tion with voice and oral/aural per­for­mance infus­es her research and ped­a­gogy. 

Regie, Buch: Simone Rapis­ar­da Casano­va, Dara Culhane
Pro­duk­tion: Ibidem Films

MUSIC, SOUND, NOISE

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 Popper, a pos­i­tivist ethno­g­ra­ph­er arrives in the neigh­bour­hood of Park­dale, Toron­to, to study the grow­ing con­cern of people van­ish­ing into total vir­tu­al real­i­ty (the film was shot during the summer of 2020). On his jour­ney he encoun­ters Mr. Noise, who embod­ies the desire for the vir­tu­al and tries to lure Popper to join him. Rep­re­sent­ing the lim­i­nal­i­ty between the vir­tu­al and phys­i­cal, Mr. Sound, anoth­er res­i­dent of the neigh­bour­hood, tries to save Popper. 

Jared Epp is a PhD Can­di­date in social anthro­pol­o­gy from Car­leton Uni­ver­si­ty in Ottawa, Canada. His research focus­es on the inter­sec­tion of place, imag­i­na­tion and pre­car­i­ty in a Cana­di­an urban con­text. He is cur­rent­ly based in Edmon­ton, Canada, fin­ish­ing his dis­ser­ta­tion and work­ing as a com­mu­ni­ty arts facil­i­ta­tor with indi­vid­u­als living unhoused and/or with a con­cur­rence of mental health bar­ri­ers and addictions. 

Direc­tor, Editor: Jared Epp
Camera: Jared Epp, Isaac Giles

ZAGROS

This film describes the cre­ation of a work of art in all its amaz­ing indi­vid­ual steps. We are in the west­ern moun­tains of Iran, the land of the Bakhtiaris. Wool is the common thread that runs through nomadic and seden­tary cul­tures, con­nect­ing the worlds of weavers, dyers and shep­herds. The car­pets form the social fabric of their lives, giving it shape and color. From the pome­gran­ate fruit, whose seeds are painstak­ing­ly removed from the husk by hand and dried, comes one of the nat­ur­al dyes. And then the heavy moun­tains of wool sink into steam­ing vats of dye, and the dyer does not reveal the secrets of his sweaty craft. Those who have had little enthu­si­asm for car­pets may dis­cov­er their beauty here - and the respect for a sus­tain­able pas­toral cul­ture from which they originate.

Best Cana­di­an short or medium-length film, Mon­tréal Int. Doc­u­men­tary Fes­ti­val (RIDM) 2018

Ariane Lor­rain is a doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er of Iran­ian and Cana­di­an ori­gins based in Mon­tre­al, where she obtained a BFA from the Mel Hop­pen­heim School of Cinema. Her short film BETWEEN THE GARDEN AND THE SEA (2016) screened at fes­ti­vals inter­na­tion­al­ly. In 2018 she par­tic­i­pat­ed as one of 7 direc­tors in the omnibus con­cert-film THE SEVEN LAST WORDS. She also works as a direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy and found­ed the dark­room coop­er­a­tive „Le Trou noir“ in Mon­tre­al in 2014, which gath­ers analog-lovers around work­shops and a shared studio space.

Shahab Mihan­doust was born in Tehran short­ly after the 1979 rev­o­lu­tion. He left the coun­try in the early 2000s for Mon­tre­al as a stu­dent of Com­put­er Sci­ence. After his Master of Sci­ence he began film stud­ies at the Mel Hop­pen­heim School of Cinema. His mid-length doc­u­men­tary MISLEADING INNOCENCE (2014, script: Francesco Garut­ti) ana­lyzes the fact that extra low bridges on the park­way to Long Island had been designed to secure access to the beach­es only for cars and their well-to-do owners. In his works, he employs both fic­tion­al and doc­u­men­tary forms to express human con­di­tions and to study how social and cul­tur­al behav­iours relate to the envi­ron­ment and landscape.

Direc­tor, Edit­ing, Pro­duc­tion: Ariane Lor­rain, Shahab Mihandoust;
Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Ariane Lorrain
Sound: Shahab Mihandoust
Com­pos­er: Far­shad Poorhos­sei­ni, Hojat Poolani
Sound­de­sign: Benoît Dame
Dis­tri­b­u­tion: Les Films du 3 Mars, Mon­tréal, Clotilde Vatrinet distribution@f3m.ca

 

 

THE NETSILIK ESKIMO SERIES

THE NETSILIK ESKIMO TODAY (18 Min.)

AT THE AUTUMN RIVER CAMP Teil I (26 Min.)

AT THE AUTUMN RIVER CAMP Teil II (33 Min.)

No Eng­lish trans­la­tion available.

QUATRE FEMMES D’EGYPTE

How do we get along with each other when our views col­lide? This is a modern, urban ques­tion which is vital and uni­ver­sal. Four Egypt­ian women dare to answer this ques­tion. Their con­fronta­tion rede­fines the notion of tol­er­ance. The four girl­friends have one common goal: human dig­ni­ty. They are full of love for their coun­try. They still remem­ber the regency of King Faruk and they had hoped for fun­da­men­tal changes after Nasser’s rev­o­lu­tion. All of them have been fight­ing for social jus­tice since then, and yet, their iden­ti­ties have devel­oped accord­ing to the rhythm of his­to­ry. Each one of them has chosen a dif­fer­ent path. Their Islam­ic faith, Chris­t­ian belief, or Athe­ist con­vic­tion are like antipodes, their dif­fer­ent notions of a state col­lide: one wants the seper­a­tion of reli­gion and state, others fight for a social­ist or an Islam­ic country.

Nev­er­the­less, the four women refuse to con­demn each other or allow dis­dain to enter into their rela­tion­ships. They listen to each other’s dif­fer­ent opin­ions and they are able to con­tra­dict each other. It doesn’t impair their friend­ship. They accept each other com­plete­ly, allow quar­rels, check each other , cal­cu­late and judge with­out with­draw­ing them­selves. They dare to judge each other and to tell each other what they think. They give each other the oppor­tu­ni­ty to explain them­selves and take revenge. And they laugh about it.

The Pro­tag­o­nists
Amina Rachid is a pro­fes­sor of com­par­a­tive lit­er­a­ture at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cairo. A left­ist mil­i­tant and a non-prac­tis­ing moslem since her youth, she worked for a decade at the nation­al research centre in Paris (CNRS) and returned to Egypt at the end of the 70s. She is editor-in-chief for ‘Nour’, a lit­er­ary jour­nal devot­ed to the work of Arab women.

Safy­naz Kazem left Egypt in 1961 to study in the United States of Amer­i­ca and stayed for 5 years. A devot­ed Moslem who wears the veil and advo­cates the strict appli­ca­tion of Sharia (Islam­ic law). She works as a writer, the­atre critic and jour­nal­ist. Recent­ly, she pub­lished an essay on the roots of her writing.

Sha­hen­da Maklad is a leader of the agrar­i­an rev­o­lu­tion and the strug­gle for peas­ants’ rights fol­low­ing the assas­si­na­tion of her hus­band, whom she suc­ceed­ed. A prac­tis­ing Muslim, she has run for elec­tion three times.

Wedad Mitry is a retired teacher, trade-union­ist and cam­paigns for the rights of women. She was par­tic­u­lar­ly active in the fight for the right of women to vote. She is a prac­tis­ing Copt.