re:assemblage collective

― DIFFUSION 1: Three Turns, 67' ―

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Outdoor Screening
Thursday 08 August 2024 · 9:00pm screening
401 Richmond Courtyard · 401 Richmond Street W., Tkaronto

Entrance by donation at the door

Wheelchair accessible venue

Moving through familial histories and domestic spaces both intimate and fleeting. The five films in our first program touch upon acts of witnessing, whether loss of domestic space, the death of a relative, the impact of natural disasters, or the revisiting of one’s homeland. Each frame is a window into the past, present and future.

Holographic Will · Mike Stoltz A Hail Mary · Faisal Karadsheh No Door, One Window, Only Light · Chris Zhongtian Yuan I Am Also Part of the Three Turns · Monica Maria Moraru avant seriana (before seriana) · Samy Benammar

avant seriana (before seriana)

Directed by Samy Benammar
Algeria/Canada · 2024 · 19'00

Mom, you brought me back to our homeland. All I know about these harsh landscapes I learned from books written by the hand that burned these mountains. I try to undo the colonial myths engraved into my memory, but the hills escape my gaze. Do you think I, too, have become the white djinn spoken of by the legends surrounding our martyrs?

avant seriana is an essay film shot in Super 8mm film in the Aurès region of Algeria. Observing the landscapes of my native land, I realize that they are divided into several images and times. Two different countries are formed : the Algeria of the mountains and an imaginary one born of the tales I've read in colonial archives. My gaze no longer belongs to the places where I was hoping to return to my roots.

Samy Benammar is a Montreal-based artist and film critic. His work as a writer and filmmaker has developed as a form of experimentation around socio-political issues inherited from his Algerian and working-class origins. His films include kaua'i'o'o (2023), peugeot pulmonaire (2021) and sous-ex (2022). They have been shown in festivals across Canada and abroad, and are distributed by Winnipeg Film Group, Vidéographe and CFMDC. His writings can be read in magazines such as Hors Champs, 24 images and Panorama cinéma. He is also conducting a PhD in research and creation focusing on the Wilaya of Batna, Algeria, and colonial photography. He listens to the bleating of the goat. No matter how domesticated, they remain unpredictable, and resist docility. [↗]