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Monday 29 May 2023
8:00pm
Clayoquot Sound Community Theatre
380 Campbell Street
TOFINO • British Columbia

FREE admission

Rooted
Fiji • 5 minutes • Mia Kami

An energizing reflection on the deep connection between people of the Pacific, their land, sea, and identity.

Mia Kami is a singer/songwriter & activist from the island of Tonga. She is passionate about the importance of Indigenous knowledge, decolonizing the mind, and climate activism. She incorporates her passions into her music and uses her music as a platform to advocate for issues she feels are relevant to her Pacific brothers and sisters.

A Bear’s Necessities
Vancouver Island • 9 minutes • Jemma Titheridge

One scientist’s decades-long mission to understand the secrets of black bear dens – and how to protect them before it’s too late.

Jemma Titheridge has been part of teams producing science and nature inspired documentaries for both global broadcasters and focused, local outlets and campaigns. In 2020 Jemma joined Vancouver Island based production company Wild Bus Films and harnessing her scientific background in biology with her experience working on the highest standards of film production, she directed A Bear's Necessities in partnership with Hakai Magazine with the ambition to shine a light on the challenges which face the iconic black bears of the Pacific Northwest.

Tiny
Vancouver Island • 16 minutes • Ritchie Hemphill & Ryan Haché

'Nakwaxda'xw Elder Colleen Hemphill tells the story of her life as a youth growing up on a float house.

Ritchie Hemphill grew up on Tsulquate reserve and was raised by his community, the Gwa’sala-’Nakwaxda’xw people. Ritchie is both a filmmaker and a recording musician, working to create art that is healing for himself and for his people. Ritchie co-founded the award winning stop motion animation film studio Bronfree Films with his film partner Ryan Haché in 2015, and created a number of short films that include Indigenous legends, language revitalization and Elder storytelling. Ritchie’s goal is to render his people’s traditional stories in a beautiful light through his films.

Ryan Haché is a self-taught stop motion animator and short film director working in claymation and 2D animation. His works range from realism to abstract absurdity and macabre humour. Ryan is driven to create alluring oddity in his work hoping to charm people with the innate strangeness of claymation. In 2015 he co-founded the creative studio Bronfree Films and has since produced dozens of independent short animations in collaboration with indie artists and musicians. He continues to seek creative collaboration with diverse artists to facilitate and actualize human expression and beauty.

ƛaʔuukʷiatḥ (Tla-o-qui-aht): Dugout Canoe
Vancouver Island • 10 minutes • Steven Davies

After working as a clearcut logger in what is now known as the Clayoquot Sound, master carver and land defender Joe Martin reconciles his past by revitalizing the ancestral knowledge and artistic practice of the traditional Tla-o-qui-aht dugout canoe.

Steven Thomas Davies is a Coast Salish (Snuneymuxw/European-Canadian) filmmaker who was born and raised in the traditional territories of the Lekwungen speaking Peoples (now known as the Songhees and Esquimalt), W̱SÁNEĆ, and the Salish Sea. He makes films and media art that centre spiritual, cultural, and political themes, to reconnect with Indigenous histories and epistemologies to educate himself and share with others.

The Minute I Was Born
Vancouver • 5 mintues • Sina Moazzenizadeh

A short film tackling the symbolic gender equality and black oppression in the Middle East.

Sina Moazzenizadeh is an emerging Iranian-Canadian filmmaker, and graduated from documentary filmmaking at Capilano university. Within the last two years, he established his poetic filmmaking style by producing and directing award-winning documentaries and short films. His journey continues as a founder of HELZ PICTURES which produces and supports indie films.

Out of Water
California • 13 minutes • Madi Stine

When a disenchanted mermaid-for-hire is mistaken for a real mermaid, she plays along to disastrous consequences.

Madi Stine is an award-winning writer/director based in Los Angeles. She's drawn to stories about dreamers who see the magic in the everyday. A graduate of Harvard (BA) and Columbia (MFA), her shorts have screened internationally, her writing has placed in various competitions, and she's attended CineStory’s Feature Retreat.

My Name is Arnold
Victoria • 16 minutes • Arnold Lim

A Korean-Canadian boy struggles adapting to his new life after moving with his single mother to a small, rural BC community in the early 1990s.

Korean-Canadian director Arnold Lim was selected as a recipient of Telefilm’s Talent to Watch program twice, with past awards from the BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, BravoFACT, Harold Greenberg Fund and the DGCBC Greenlight Award, and a graduate of the National Screen Institute’s Features First Program.

The Fourth
California • 12 minutes • Johnny Kirk

Eager to celebrate the 4th of July, Rey and his friends experience a police encounter that shatters the meaning of the holiday.

Johnny Kirk is a filmmaker, writer, and director with a mixed cultural heritage. His recent script tackles the complexity of black and brown identities, communities, and mental health. Kirk's rich work uses surreal, magical realist narrative methods to engage the audience in an experience best described as visually immersive.

Slip
Victoria • 11 minutes • Sonya Chwyl & Anik Desmarais-Spencer

After she is evicted, Laura stumbles onto a horrifying opportunity.

Sonya Chwyl & Anik Desmarais-Spencer began their creative partnership in 2018. Since then they have directed several short films, including Baby Teeth (2020) and Carissima (Dearest) (2021). As storytellers, they seek to explore difficult subjects using dark humour, a queer lens, and absurdity grounded in reality.