MARK THE LISTENING
Thursday, May 30 | 7:00 PM | Dave Barber Cinematheque | PG
Seeking the signal in the noise, but preferring the ecstasy of the noise. Between bird calls, dance halls, and guided meditations, the five films in this program translate the act of listening to a collective experience with transcendental and political possibilities. At turns tranquil and exhilarating, a collection of work that resonates with the emotional flutter of a chord change.
*This program is rated PG. Total runtime 62.5 minutes
In Spite of the Score, dir. Julia E. Dyck
2022 | Canada | 14.5 | video | Manitoban premiere
In Spite of the Score considers the potential of listening as a queer act, one that is embodied and situated in identity and addresses an understanding of queerness as an ephemeral possibility and mode of sociality and relationality. Sound always continues to change and react to a space in relation to what is present, allowing for many potential connections and perceptions. A video between performance and documentary, the project brings attention to the experience of collective and embodied listening, sounding, and transmission.
Double Around the Interlude, dir. Stefano Miraglia
2023 | France/Italy | 15 | video | Manitoban premiere
A flock of memories activated by various musical exercises, to strike the past to the heart, to build something utopian: the future, a sonic architecture. Music as a tool, transcriptions of YouTube tutorials as poetry, percussion exercises as descriptions of reality.
why some people be mad at me sometimes, dir. Mahlet Cuff
2024 | Canada | 3 | video | Canadian premiere
A meditation on the misappropriation of Dancehall music while using Black Feminist Citational praxis.
weak signal, dir. John Winn
2023 | USA | 6 | video | World premiere
"Nature, as it stirs mortally and tenderly in its beauty, does not yet exist. The shame felt in the face of natural beauty stems from the damage implicitly done to what does not yet exist by taking it for existent." - Theodor Adorno
A Few Attempts to Understand the Sky, dir. Liyan Zhao
2023 | USA | 24 | video | Canadian premiere
How do we live in a shared world, under a shared sky? A few strategies are offered.
Images from: Julia E. Dyck's In Spite of the Score and Stefano Miraglia's Double Around the Interlude (top) and Mahlet Cuff's why people be mad at me sometimes, John Winn's Weak Signal and Liyan Zhao's A Few Attempts to Understand the Sky (bottom)