HIFF Dailies — DAY THREE
What a wild and wonderful Day Two!
After an intimate Artist Talk with Islands filmmaker Martin Edralin at the AFCOOP office, we camped out in the Light House Arts Centre for a Friday night double bill of Amalia Ulman's El Planeta and the Ryan Steel Retrospective.
Then we packed Good Robot's speakeasy space for a sold-out late-night screening of Jane Schoenbrun's We're All Going to the World's Fair.
Today we've got a stacked lineup of films you won't want to miss, including our annual Atlantic Auteurs showcase, plus a FREE Artist Talk with Ryan Steel and the return of the HIFF party!
Check out the full schedule below:
DAY THREE SCHEDULE
ARTIST TALK WITH RYAN STEEL
SATURDAY, JUNE 11 • 1 PM
@ the AFCOOP OFFICE (1531 GRAFTON STREET, SUITE 101)
FREE ADMISSION!
Join us for our Artist Talk with prolific DIY filmmaker Ryan Steel, where we’ll talk all things analogue.
Ryan is an independent filmmaker and animator from Treaty 1 Territory (Winnipeg). His work explores the intersections between experimental, documentary, and fiction filmmaking. His work has screened at festivals including Festival Du Nouveau Cinéma, WNDX, Photophobia, ICDOCS, Gimli Film Festival, and Pile of Bones.
SHORT VACATION
DIR. SEO HAN-SOL & KWON MIN-PYO
KOREA / 2020 / 79 MINS
SCREENING IN-PERSON: JUNE 11 at 3 PM
@ LIGHT HOUSE ARTS CENTRE
HIFF Day Three will begin with Short Vacation, Seo Han-sol and Kwon Min-pyo's story of four middle-school girls in search of the end of the world. They hop on the Seoul Metropolitan Subway line with just backpacks and disposable cameras, and what starts as a whimsical class project soon becomes a quietly moving ode to facing the unknown. This gentle, wise-beyond-its-years debut forgoes narrative conflict to produce a cinema of pure joy, packed with moments as blissful and unstructured as summer break.
HIFF FESTIVAL PASS ($35/$25 for AFCOOP members)
THIS IS MY DESIRE (EYIMOFE)
DIR. ARIE & CHUKO ESIRINIGERIA / 2020 / 116 MINS
SCREENING IN-PERSON: JUNE 11 at 7 PM
@ LIGHT HOUSE ARTS CENTRE
Up next on Day Three is This Is My Desire, the award-winning debut feature from twin brothers Arie and Chuko Esiri. Shot on 16 mm, the film is a revelatory, hopeful portrayal of everyday strength in contemporary Lagos, Nigeria, that follows a bereaved electrician, Mofe (Jude Akuwudike), and Rosa (Temi Ami-Williams), a hairdresser who works to support her pregnant teen sister, as they aspire to better their lives abroad.
HIFF FESTIVAL PASS ($35/$25 for AFCOOP members)
INDIVIDUAL TICKETS ($10)
ATLANTIC AUTEURS
SHORTS PROGRAM
SCREENING IN-PERSON: JUNE 11 at 9:30 PM
@ LIGHT HOUSE ARTS CENTRE
Every year, HIFF presents our region's most wild and wonderful new short films in our Atlantic Auteurs program. This year’s lineup meditates on notions of identity through explorations of desire and belonging, place and (re)settlement, and the construction of memory. Operating through an eclectic array of genres, as well as technical and narrative approaches, the program is iconoclastic by way of bedazzlement—curious and carefully crafted, as each filmmaker teases the ever-blurring line between fantasy and reality.
The 2022 Atlantic Auteurs program includes:
MONA • Xavier Gould
This Does Not Authorize Re-Entry • Jenny Yujia Shi
Proximity • Jamie Miller
Bha Iad Làn Sgeulachdan • Todd Fraser
Above a Grey/Green Sea • Kennlin Barlow
Terre • Angie & Tracey Richard
Tape End • Jake Delaney
Baduk • Induk Lee
HIFF FESTIVAL PASS ($35/$25 for AFCOOP members)
HIFF PARTY
@ the AFCOOP office (1531 Grafton Street, Suite 101)
June 11 • 10:30 PM–LATE (immediately following the Atlantic Auteurs shorts program)
FREE + all are welcome!
Celebrate 16 years of HIFF on June 11 at the 2022 HIFF Party! Head down to the AFCOOP office for the festivities following our Atlantic Auteurs program on Saturday night.
There will be music, drinks (for $2), snacks, cats, friends and countless other sources of joy! See you there.
ATLANTIC AUTEURS CLOSE-UP
[PHOTO BY ANNIE FRANCE NOËL]
Where are you from?
I’m originally from Shediac, New Brunswick, but am currently living in Montreal.
How did you get your start as filmmakers?
I started making films when I was a pre teen. I used to film myself dancing and making up characters in my basement and show them to my friends. Years later, once I graduated from Mount Allison University, I started putting out comedic vlogs online with my character Jass-Sainte Bourque. Once I moved to Moncton, the vlogs kept coming and the creative juices kept flowing and I did a few short films with that character. Once involved in the Acadian cultural scene, I was able to branch out and start making short films thanks to the Vollet Art Médiatique (VAM) at the Festival International du Cinéma Francophone en Acadie (FICFA). I did 4 short films within their VAM program but Mona is my first independent film.
What was the inspiration for the film you're presenting at HIFF?
There are two major inspirations, the first being the height of America’s Next Top Model in the mid-2000s. We wanted to paint a portrait of what Mona, an Acadian drag queen obsessed with the show in 2005, would look and sound like. We always went back to that era in order to answer questions about her, her living situation, her wants and dreams. The other major inspiration is where I and the entire team grew up: the southeast of New Brunswick. We all grew up in proximity to each other and speak relatively the same dialect (Chiac). Our points of references are similar and our feelings towards places like Moncton, Shediac, and the highways in between are similar. So we let those experiences and feelings towards those places guide us throughout the process. Our physical and cultural landscapes processed through a 2005 lens were really our anchor points to this film.
What films or filmmakers inspired you to make your own?
For me, the resources come first, then the story, then the visuals. Never the opposite. So once we found our 2007 HP digital camera we instantly thought about a previous shoot we had done with Samuel (Mona)’s drag character from another project. We then developed a story around her being filmed through this type of camera. We then watched a few movies for inspiration, The Blair Witch Project by Eduardo Sánchez & Daniel Myrick, Tangerine by Sean Baker, and even The Florida Project by Sean Baker.
What are you working on next?
Right now I’m working on my first poetry collection (which will be out in spring of 2023), my second play, and on my drag career. My next film, although still at its beginning stages, will be gay, fabulous and filthy.
This film will screen along with a selection of others made by established and up-and-coming filmmakers from across the region in HIFF's Atlantic Auteurs shorts program at the Light House Arts Centre on June 11 at 9:30 p.m., and will be available online for the following 48 hours. Learn more about the full program here.