unhas horas, unha vida

A Land Shark hunts for human prey.

A woman faces the battle of her life when her estranged father's family tries to evict her and her grandmother from the only home she has ever known.

As queer trans and gender non-conforming children of the Vietnamese diaspora, we are fragmented at the crossroads of being displaced from not only a sense of belonging to our ancestral land, but also our own bodies which are conditioned by society to stray away from our most authentic existence. Yet these bodies of ours are the vessels we sail to embark on a lifetime voyage of return to our original selves. It is our bodies that navigate the treacherous tides of normative systems that impose themselves on our very being. And it is our bodies that act as community lighthouses for collective liberation. Ultimately, the landscape of our bodies is our blueprint to remembering, to healing, to blooming.

In a dark, ambiguous environment, minuscule particles drift slowly before the lens. The image focuses to reveal spruce trees and tall pines, while Innu voices tell us the story of this territory, this flooded forest. Muffled percussive sounds gradually become louder, suggesting the presence of a hydroelectric dam. The submerged trees gradually transform into firebrands as whispers bring back the stories of this forest.

Just when everyone thought the nightmare was over, a new menace strikes the city in a savage and bloody manner.

The Aït Atta tribe of the High Atlas mountain range in Morocco preserves their ancestral right of access to the agdal, a communal land management system that dates back hundreds of years. The film follows Ben Youssef family’s arduous transhumance journey from the desert-like landscape of Nkob to the green pastures of Agdal Igourdane, throughout uneven terrain of steep climbs and descents of these High Atlas mountains. They migrate each summer with their 800 goats, donkeys, mules, camels and dogs, as they embark on this formidable journey on foot.

In the Christmas holidays, a mysterious extra-terrestrial force bursts into the life of a suburban couple on the brink of divorce. However, none of them notices this otherwordly presence, so this entity will have to live with them in this grey, sad and lifeless home, observing as their relationship finally desintegrates.

Jarred by the loss of his closest friend, a farmer on Tasmania’s remote West Coast, begins to mentor at-risk local youth. In an area renowned for its poverty, low literacy, and high suicide rates, Stafford Heres is determined to provide opportunities for kids who have few. Eden Alone Surpasses Thee explores his relationship with the land, loss, and the young men he takes under his wing.

In 2020, just as the pandemic was beginning, Gazala purchased land in western Ohio, on which sits a disused school building. This site allowed her to explore her complex relationship with “the land.” As the daughter of displaced indigenous Palestinians, she attempts to form a proxy bond with the earth, on ground that was stolen from the displaced indigenous Shawnee people. Closeness to the Land is video footage of hand-painted text signs that translate the word الأرض (ard) into six English words, displayed performatively in multiple locations to capture the now-invisible nature of indigenous culture in Ohio. These signs were installed on the old schoolhouse in early 2021.

Something from there is a short film on the substance of our original lands. Weaving between the voices of the artist’s parents, one a refugee and the other not, the film is personal, yet evokes a shared Palestinian experience.