I didn’t hear the wind echo
Thoughts on control and care
Eva SwiatkowskiThoughts on control and care examines the power structures of colonial history in the context of botanical gardens. In episodes of stillness and movement, the voice-over repeatedly examines the filmmaker's own clearly structured ideas and definitions of nature and questions the hierarchical systems of botany.
Please join Nala Haileselassie and Amani Bin Shikhan in conversation with the filmmakers after the screening.
Amani Bin Shikhan is a writer, researcher, editor, producer/director, host, and community/culture worker from Toronto’s East End. In her work, she aims to undo what needs to be undone so that what should be done may come to light.
2 Sussex Ave, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Sidewalk-level entrance, elevator and ramp available, door width 32 inches, no automatic doors. No accessible parking on-site. Four wheelchair accessible seats in the cinema. 15 step-free seats in row 9. Accessible gender-neutral washroom located on the 2nd and 3rd floor.
For a map of Innis Town Hall, click here
Images Festival is committed to providing an accessible festival and continues to work to reduce barriers to participation at our events. This year, we are implementing a COVID-19 policy to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission for all, and to prioritize the participation of people who are disability-identified, immunocompromised, or part of an otherwise vulnerable group.
The following guidelines will be in place: Self-Assessment: We ask that staff and participants screen themselves for COVID-19 before visiting the exhibition.
One star burning out does not extinguish the light of the constellation. Where many may see separation between the personal and the collective, the student filmmakers included in this program, I didn’t hear the wind echo, create and strengthen connections despite an assumed polarity. Through the use of mixed media animation, archival footage, as well as the essay film format, these films act as stars in a constellation—a constellation that illuminates the film space with a more holistic, well-rounded approach to storytelling that refuses a singular perspective or narrative. One does not exist without the other. Individually, they are points in the sky. One is no more important than the other.
I didn’t hear the wind echo features imagemakers who unpack the intimate and the power or significance of landscape through shared themes of sight, translation, and memory. The struggle for memory and translation spotlights the need, the desire, for memory-making through reflexive documents. It recalls Lucille Clifton’s 1988 poem, “why people be mad at me sometimes”:
they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and i keep on remembering
mine.
In this poem, Lucille Clifton breaks the idea of certain memories and, like a constellation where single stars in communion create an image, blurs the individual and the collective. Her words highlight how we make and unmake ourselves with both what we hold ancestrally and what we know through our experiences. Her poem prompts us to ask: How do we learn about each other and how do we learn about care?
The films in this program continue this line of questioning: How might the personal archive undermine greater, collective freedom? How does that process of personal-history-making show us the limitations of memory? And how can the camera—and by extension, filmmaking—be a part of an artist’s journey through memory?
Alejandra Harrison
Alejandra Harrison is an emerging Toronto–based photographic artist, and a current student at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Image Arts photography program, where she has developed her skills in lighting, studio work, art direction, and post-production. Her personal approach to photography is inspired by the human character and visual storytelling, driving her interest in environmental portraiture and narrative-focused works.
Alejandra Saldivar
Alejandra Saldivar is a Mexican experimental animator and filmmaker whose work explores how our perception influences our experience with the environment and interpersonal relationships. Alejandra holds a bachelor’s degree in Animation and Digital Art from Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey.
Amel Moyersoen
Amel Moyersoen is an Algerian-Belgian filmmaker, programmer, researcher, and producer based in London who is interested in diasporic histories of resistance and intergenerational transmission of memory. She recently graduated from the Other Cinemas film school and is also part of SAFAR Futures Young Curators 2024, LUX Moving Image London, and Anekdote, a production house for Arab-European film. Her latest research project is titled “Collectif Mohamed: Archival Practices in the Diaspora.”
Eva Swiatkowski
Eva Swiatkowski was born in Wiesbaden, Germany. She studied art, German, and gender studies, which was followed by work in the field of art education, including at documenta fifteen. Since 2022, she has been studying at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, focusing on documentary work in the moving image and photography.
Liz Adler
Liz Adler is a Toronto-based stop-motion animator and documentary filmmaker. She studied Experimental Animation at OCAD University, exploring video production, sound design, and illustration alongside her animation practice. In 2023, worked on Birute Sodekaite’s short, In Perpetuum, doing visual effects as an intern at Stop Motion Department Inc. Liz’s most recent work, Zhivachka, visualizes one of her mother’s anecdotes from a childhood in Soviet-era Moscow.
Sandra Ignagni
Sandra Ignagni trained in film production at York University (MFA, 2024) and the UnionDocs Centre for Documentary Art. She alsoholds a PhD and Master’s in Indigenous Studies. Her films have played festivals around the world, including TIFF, CPH:DOX, and the Chicago International Film Festival. Highway to Heaven was produced by the National Film Board and was nominated for a Banff World Media Award (Short Documentary).
Tram Anh Nguyen
Tram Anh Nguyen (he/him) is an interdisciplinary artist specializing in filmmaking and photography. With a backdrop of silent poetry, he presents explorations of queerness and his Vietnamese familial roots. Collectively revealing themselves in more subtle or conscious ways and looking with a softened gaze, his work examines universal themes woven together of vulnerability, tenderness, longing, hope, grief, gentleness, resilience, and memory.
