Relation In Waves
Disconnect from your reality on this smooth rollercoaster of unexpected intimacy, chance encounters, and time bending journeys. Through fleeting brushes with love, loss, grief, vulnerability, and curiosity, Relation in Waves enchants theories of what it means to connect.
Program curated by Syriah Bailey
Bailey is an evaluation consultant, arts programmer and creative educator focusing on inclusive data, storytelling and futurities. They have over ten years of experience in the UK, U.S. and Canadian nonprofit sector and hold a Masters in Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy. When not engaging with consultation, programming or education, Bailey volunteers as a crisis responder supporting individuals in distress across Canada.
Partners
Films
Macaroni Soup
Alayna
A young woman falls in love with a waitress in a greasy-yet-nostalgic Hong Kong-style cafe, but a language gap divides the two – or is there something more?
Alayna is an artist-animator who specializes in making soup. That is, she tosses all the things that make up her world into a simmering pot. No matter if the audience recognizes the taste or not, Alayna makes what she likes. Alayna’s work takes place on traditional Katzie First Nation land.
Fearlessness
Diana Juárez Rodríguez
In a universe where people come and go through the Mexico City subway line, we catch a glimpse of an ephemeral meeting as two strangers gaze in soft intensity, confidently embracing their fearless parallel encounter.
Moirai
Evan Webb & Matt Nethesole
MOIRAI is an extended visual metaphor that explores the correlation between queerness and nature. Fate, magic, movement, midnight parking lots, control, sex, and swans collide in this short dance film where the harsh confinement of urban life is juxtaposed against nature’s transcendent beauty.
Evan Webb (they/them) is a graduate of the TMU Performance Dance program and holds a deep love for anthropology, philosophy and the complexity of human interaction. Evan has starred in works by Guillaume Cote, Leslie Telford, Nicole Von Arx and Syreeta Hector.
Matt Nethesole is a Juno Award nominated multi-disciplinary artist, community arts organizer, television host, writer and producer. Matt believes there is great power in showing up as your authentic self and proudly brings queer POC perspective to the work they do. Matt has appeared on stage at the Stratford Festival, Shaw Festival and in regional theatres across Canada as well as numerous television shows.
luazul
Letícia Batista & Vitória Liz
Riva returns to Brazil and finds herself more alone than ever. Flavia has no time to feel lonely. Their lives intersect as they dream around soccer fields.
Letícia Batista works in several areas of cinema, mainly in photography, scriptwriting and direction. A Vida Delas and the documentary 2704km are among her works.
Vitória Liz is a film student and researcher. Head Programmer of Pernambuco’s Black Audiovisual Week, she seeks to investigate and highlight in her work records of affection and leisure among racialized people.
St Clair W
Emily Ryder
Dabbling in love and loss, “St Clair W” explores the relationship we have with our own memories with its experimental journey from, to or through Toronto’s St Clair West Station. Shot on 16mm,, viewers experience the ways nostalgia, time and longing can play out in our everyday lives in the aftermath of connection.
Emily Ryder is a Canadian writer and director who is passionate about telling stories that explore the complexity of intergenerational relationships through the lens of queer becoming and womanhood. In 2022 they were awarded the Emerging Filmmaker Award by the UN Women USA GCC and were selected as one of ArtworxTO’s 52 Emerging Artists.
Sexy Highland Stream
Nathan Adler
Nathan Adler’s spoken word poem and minimalist audio track about a sexy highland stream offers a love letter to the beauty found in nature and the mysterious way beauty is suffused in the natural world. Written in English and Anishinaabemowin.
Nathan Adler is an artist, writer, editor, and filmmaker. He the author of Wrist and Ghost Lake (Kegedonce Press), and co-editor of Bawaajigan ~ Stories of Power (Exile Editions), he has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC, is a first-place winner of the Aboriginal Writing Challenge, and a recipient of a Hnatyshyn Reveal award for Literature. He is Jewish and Anishinaabe, and a member of Lac Des Mille Lacs First Nation.
Braided Together
Victoria Anderson-Gardner & Kyle Schmalenberg
Tenaya and Autumn, two new friends, find that their friendship means more to each other than they realize. Through Tenaya’s curiosity and Autumn’s vulnerability, we discover that one is supported through loneliness while the other is supported through deep grief.
Victoria Anderson-Gardner is an award-winning Ojibwe director and producer from Eagle Lake First Nation, Ontario. Awarded the Glenn Gould Protegé Prize by Alanis Obomsawin, Victoria is known for “Namid” (REEL Canada and Netflix), “Braided Together” (imagineNATIVE 2022 Audience Choice Award), “Becoming Nakuset” (Best Short Film, Audience Choice Award imagineNATIVE 2020).
Beș
Ayla Çekin Satijn
Asli, a young, Turkish, lesbian woman, returns to the village where she was born to attend the henna-party of her childhood friend. She fears not being accepted, but when she sees her old friends again, she comes to realize that she herself has the biggest prejudice.
Ayla Çekin Satijn graduated from the HKU in 2017. She is a voice actress and director who advocates for a broader and better representation of Turkish women and queer people. She features in the Netflix film ANNE+ (2021) and Netflix series Dirty Lines (2021). She co-directed the short film “Akela,” which was showcased at the Nederlands Film Festival in 2020.