Viento del este (East Wind)

Maia Gattás Vargas
Argentina | 2023 | DIGITAL H264 | 75 MIN | Spanish with English subtitles

In Viento del este (East Wind), Maia Gattás Vargas brushes against the multiple collisions between the materiality of land and the territory of memory. Seeking her lost roots in Palestine, Maia investigates the mystery of her father’s disappearance in the La Plata River. The water, snow, rivers and roses of the Patagonian landscape of her home becomes a bridge if not the surrogate textures in recovering her family’s memory of Palestine. Navigating familial memorabilia, dreams, and bodies of water, her search leads her deeper into mystical epiphanies and existential queries of her diasporic Palestinian identity.  

Traveling to the West Bank, despite the trauma of Israeli occupation, Maia’s refusal to forget and conviction to return to her father’s homeland, culminates in the moments she finds herself in the Jordan River, immersed in the deeper meaning of her ancestral name.

Viento del este (East Wind), Maia Gattás Vargas (2023). Video Still.
AFK | Screenings

Viento del este (East Wind)

In Viento del este (East Wind), Maia Gattás Vargas brushes against the multiple collisions between the materiality of land and the territory of memory. Seeking her lost roots in Palestine, Maia investigates the mystery of her father’s disappearance in the La Plata River. The water, snow, rivers and roses of the Patagonian landscape of her home becomes a bridge if not the surrogate textures in recovering her family’s memory of Palestine. Navigating familial memorabilia, dreams, and bodies of water, her search leads her deeper into mystical epiphanies and existential queries of her diasporic Palestinian identity.  

Traveling to the West Bank, despite the trauma of Israeli occupation, Maia’s refusal to forget and conviction to return to her father’s homeland, culminates in the moments she finds herself in the Jordan River, immersed in the deeper meaning of her ancestral name. 

Please join us following the screening for a conversation between Annie Wong and Maia Gattás Vargas.

Curated by
Annie Wong
ASL
Date / Time
April 14, 2024
4:30PM – 5:45PM EDT
Location
Innis Town Hall

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. Please note that there is construction on site; the venue remains accessible.

For a map to Innis Town Hall, click here

(ARTIST)

Maia Gattás Vargas
Presented With:

Images Festival operates on land stolen from the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, the Huron-Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Tkáron:to is currently home to diverse Indigenous and Métis peoples as well as people who settle on this land. As part of Treaty 13 and the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Covenant, we acknowledge that we all eat from the same bowl and spoon, and must take only what we need, ensuring resources are available for all. 

As art workers, artists, and curators, we see the process of untangling ourselves from settler complicity as internal, structural, and ongoing. It is not something to be taken lightly. The inclusion of Indigenous artists and curators into our program is just the first step of necessary and deeper change. Extending from our organizational accountability work, we strive to not only undo forms of complicity, but also actively create an environment and infrastructure that can support Indigenous peoples who work with us. 

Images expresses our solidarity with Indigenous people on Turtle Island and globally. We are committed to continuing to learn, critique, and challenge the settler colonial structures we are complicit in.