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Content Warning: Anti-trans propaganda, suicide bombing, overdose

Vtape is excited to co-present Dreams of Sunlight Through Trees with our fabulous friends at Toronto Queer Film Festival! The program features exceptional experimental short films by Indigenous, Canadian, and International artists, including Noor Gatih, Ali El-Darsa, Nathan Alder, Theo Jean Cuthand, James Dixon, Shirine Shah, and Sky Hopinka.
Shorts featured:

Mandaeans by Water

Dir. Noor Gatih, Canada, 2023, 2 min.

Noor Gatih’s spiritual and feminist work, Mandaeans by Water, honors her grandmother, one of the few remaining Iraqi Mandaeans, an ethno-religious group that faces ongoing repression. Through her exploration of light, voice, and the religious metaphors of water, Gatih delves into the affective dimensions of faith but also the connection between women in families, what is passed on and what is lost. 

The Image Remains the Same

Dir. Ali El-Darsa, Canada/USA/Lebanon, 2024, 18 min.

Originally conceived as an installation, The Image Remains the Same by Ali El-Darsa contemplates water as an allegory of journeys filled with desire, belonging, hope, and demise stretching from the shores of the Pacific Ocean in Los Angeles to the Mediterranean Sea in Lebanon, specifically the El-Mina port, where Ali El-Darsa speaks to locals about emigrating from Tripoli’s shores to Europe. 

Noongom

Dir. Nathan Adler, Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation/Canada, 2020, 2 min.

Nathan Alder’s new short Noongom explores themes of ephemerality and loss in the passing of everyday experiences. With a curious eye towards nature and home, Alder collages a myriad of colourful visuals and translation. Here, in the everyday, English and Ojibwe criss-cross and bump up against each other as he/she pronouns don’t exist in Ojbwe. 

Dreams of Sunlight Through Trees

Dir. Theo Jean Cuthand, Canada, 2024, 16 min.

Dreams of Sunlight Through Trees is Theo Jean Cuthand’s latest film, part of an exceptional body of work that explores autobiography, queerness, madness, and indigeneity. As a middle-aged trans man, Cuthand reflects on the changes during the first year and nine months of his transition. Selfies, voice memos, drawings, and video clips from his life capture a man evolving and discovering himself through his second puberty. These joyful and humorous moments are contrasted with the ongoing news cycle of anti-trans legislation. The film feels timely as conservative movements have gained the upper hand in Canada and the U.S., fueled by politicians eager to scapegoat trans people for political gain. 

Wînipêk

Dir. James Dixon, Wînipêk/Canada, 2024, 10 min.

James Dixon’s work frequently engages with the complexities of Indigeneity and the landscapes of home. Wînipêk (also known by its colonial name, Winnipeg) examines the dispossession of Treaty territories, exploring themes of (dis)connection, and the longing for return and kinship with the land. Through a blend of collage, experimental film, and documentary aesthetics, Dixon reflects on these experiences and histories.

Deliberate Ruins

Dir. Shirine Shah, UK, 2024, 11 min.

Shirine Shah’s Deliberate Ruins is a poetic exploration of their first year away from home and the onset of their medical transition. Shot on 16mm Bolex and Mini DV, this experimental diary film weaves together a series of conflicting anxieties—between the self-propulsion of faith and the gravitational pull of returning to one’s origins. Through cryptic and often destructive poems, alongside vocalized diary entries, Shah delves into the complex tensions between choice and the inescapable weight of past histories. Intimate moments of dissonance blend with historical fragments that simultaneously trap and liberate the speaker. 

Fainting Spells

Dir. Sky Hopinka, USA, 2018, 11 min.

Fainting Spells by Ho-Chunk/Pechanga filmmaker Sky Hopinka unfolds through recollections of youth, learning, lore, and departure, crafting an imagined myth for the Xąwįska, or Indian Pipe Plant—used by the Ho-Chunk to revive those who have fainted. Transcending and mesmerizing, it drifts between and intertwines the spirit world, landscapes, personal notes tenderly written, and a lush, searching score.  

This program is presented in collaboration with Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC), Indigenous Curatorial Collective (ICCA) and Vtape

   Image credit: Dreams of Sunlight Through Trees, Theo Jean Cuthand (2024)