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Closing Screening: Commissioned Artists' World Premieres

  • SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts 149 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC, V6B 1H4 Canada (map)

From shadowplay by Andy Liu, Iris Gao, and Edro Gonzales

Closing Screening:
Commissioned Artists’ World Premieres
Saturday November 16 at 7:00PM - 8:30PM PST

With Live Talkback facilitated by danielle Mackenzie Long
Closing Party catered by Nuba 
Location: SFU - Djavad Mowafaghian Theatre, 3rd floor
Doors: 6:30PM

A central heartbeat of F-O-R-M, the annual Commissioning Fund Program celebrates the ambitious creativity of Youth and Emerging artists as they make new films exploring the range of intersections between movement and film. Additionally, it is a catalyst for these artists to distinctively share powerful stories, and an opportunity for their voices as creative leaders to be nourished.

Unique to this year, the cohort of our 2024 Commissioned Artists are all based in so-called Vancouver. With a smaller group of 4 artistic teams, the program focused its energy to cultivate meaningful in-person connections, through a Creative Workshop Intensive, various Artistic Consultant meetings, and work-in-progress screenings. Their care, curiosity, and commitment to expand and challenge the development of their creative voices clearly shines through on screen, leaving a resonating invitation to continue connecting with others once the credits roll.

We are thrilled to support these artists' vulnerable approaches as they reimagine and redefine what a filmmaking process can be from start to finish. With great excitement we look forward to premiering their distinct personal explorations on the big screen for all to witness and experience for the first time.

List of films:

before transforming we exist
Shapeshifter Media Collective (Vancouver, BC) YOUTH
World Premiere

Taha, Ua (One, Two)
Ngaire Lyden-Elleray (Vancouver, BC) YOUTH
World Premiere

Shadowplay
Andy Liu, Iris Gao, Edro Gonzales (Vancouver, BC) EMERGING
World Premiere

a drift in space
Kaya Tsrumi (Vancouver, BC) YOUTH
World Premiere

Click the arrows on the right to swipe through the films:

Closing Screening: Commissioned Artists' World Premieres
before transforming we exist
Youth, World Premiere, Vancouver
before transforming we exist
Youth, World Premiere, Vancouver

Shapeshifter Media Collective (Vancouver, BC) YOUTH
World Premiere
Duration: 9:00
Content Warning: closeup of patterns/textures could trigger trypophobics

What is alive in spaces left to re-wild? “before transforming we exist” centers the cycles of ruderal species and microorganisms transmuting ruin to regeneration. This is embodied through subjects engaging in a guided plant meditation to attune with more than human kin. Dancers extend, gather and throw their grief under late stage capitalism to move towards feeling for what is growing through the cracks.

Directors: Chantal Dobles Gering & Rae Grant Duff
Soundscore: Chantal Dobles Gering
Editors: Chantal Dobles Gering & Rae Grant Duff
Cinematography: Chantal Dobles Gering, Rae Grant Duff & Reed Jackson
Dancers: Alyssa Amarshi, Roya Bahiyyih Abdi, Chantal Dobles Gering, Rae Grant Duff & Reed Jackson
Special thanks to Bijan Karim, Rafa Narciso, Nancy Lee, Joshua Lam, Sasha Langford, Sophia Mai Wolfe, Sarah Wong, Pia Massie, F-O-R-M team & Cineworks.

Special thanks to Reed Jackson (Reaume Rodzinyak) for being a key collaborator during rehearsals, research calls and film production. We appreciate their attention to care and asking constructive questions that deepened the project. Special thanks to Daryl-Lee Schalm for sharing the plant meditation with Chantal. 

Further Reading: 
Saving Time by Jenny O'Dell
The Mushroom at the end of the world by Anna Tsing
Islands of Abandonment by Cal Flyn

Co-Commissioned by Mascall Dance

Youth, World Premiere, Vancouver
Taha, Ua (One, Two)
Youth, Vancouver, World Premiere
Taha, Ua (One, Two)
Youth, Vancouver, World Premiere

Ngaire Lyden-Elleray (Vancouver, BC) YOUTH
World Premiere
Duration: 5:00

Combining poetry, dance, and film, “Taha, Ua (One, Two)” navigates the grief of displacement, the kinship of community and the resistance of reconnection. The film explores what it means to be 'home' when from an Indigenous diaspora perspective.

Director: Ngaire Lyden-Elleray
Director of Photography: Juliette Leach
Editor: Nushi Sharma
Cast: Annelie Wells, Nenaa'ikiizhikok Kinew Erdrich

Mālo to everyone involved in the creation of this project and to F-O-R-M for supporting this film. Mālo 'aupito to my kāinga and community, to whom I owe all that I am.

Youth, Vancouver, World Premiere
Shadowplay
Emerging, Vancouver, World Premiere
Shadowplay
Emerging, Vancouver, World Premiere

Andy Liu, Iris Gao, Edro Gonzales (Vancouver, BC) EMERGING
World Premiere
Duration: 4:59

An office worker in white just clocked in, waiting for the next phone call, inputting data for new models and going about her day, before she realized there's nothing ordinary from the shadow she's casting. As she begins to realize the shadow isn't a part of her anymore, she slowly loses control of her hand as it picks up a pen and writes out "BACK TO WORK" on the notepad in front of her. 

Thus a game between the worker and her shadow begins to unfold. As she shifts her focus from the mind-numbing daily routine to the consciousness with her surroundings, she realizes that there's another part of her in red that goes against rules set by the shadow, which she tries to awaken. 

As the worker attempts to bring out her shape in red, the shadow also constructs a shape of its own with its own shadow cast as light. Exuberant with his new form, the shadow moves joyfully. When the red shape is finally realized, a conflict between the worker and her shadow ensues, as there's only one goal in the worker's mind: To break out of this paradoxical loop of control once and for all. 

Director: Andy Liu
Actors/Dancers: Iris Gao, Edro Gonzales
Music Score: Chris Jassmann
Sound: Ayesha Cheung
Assistant Director/BTS: Normey Liu
Poster design: Justine Dimou

We'd like to specially thank Cineworks and VIVO Media Arts Centre for production and workshop support, Justin Yunhan Zhao for production support, Spectra Film and Video for film stock development, Nicki Doyle from Negative Space for film stock scan, Sophia Wolfe and Nancy Lee 李南屏 for artist mentorship, Josh Lam, Sasha Langford and Sarah Wong for workshop support and F-O-R-M family for bringing this project to life.

Co-commissioned by BC Movement Arts

Emerging, Vancouver, World Premiere
a drift in space
Youth, World Premiere, Vancouver
a drift in space
Youth, World Premiere, Vancouver

Kaya Tsrumi (Vancouver, BC) YOUTH
World Premiere
Duration: 10:00

A drift in space is a dance film about three cosmic beings and a meandering astronaut who move through inner, outer and imaginary spaces. 

Director: Kaya Tsurumi
Director of Photography: Ethan Volberg
Performers: Ry Jackson, Nyah Xiyan Wong Penner, Yuha Tomita and Kaya Tsurumi
Costume: Allie Shiff 
Outside Eye & Costume Assistant: Emily Clarke
Editors: Kaya Tsurumi and Ethan Volberg
Sound: Ethan Volberg
Music Composition: Ry Jackson
Make-Up: Audrey Sides
Production Assistant: Isabella Jaramillo
Crafty: John Alviz
Artistic Consultants: Sophia Wolfe and Nancy Lee

Thank you to Out Innerspace, Odd Meridian Arts, Juice Truck, and The Federal Store for your support and contributions to this project. 

Co-Commissioned by plastic orchid factory and Company 605

Youth, World Premiere, Vancouver

Venue Accesibility:

149 W Hastings St
Vancouver, BC, V6B 1H7

Djavad Mowafaghian Theatre: 3rd floor

Wheelchair accessible at street level on Hastings side or via ramp on Cordova Street Courtyard side, all venues within building accessible by elevator

The building is accessible at street level on the Hastings side or via a ramp on the Cordova Street Courtyard side (across from JJ Bean Coffee).

There are 2 ramp entry points:

  • One is located against the building, near the entrance to the Woodward’s Westbank Atrium (which houses London Drugs and Nesters)

  • Another is located against the building, beside the alley.

Both the Hastings doors and the Cordova Courtyard doors can be operated by accessibility buttons located beside the doorways.

The building is a ten-minute walk from Waterfront Station, where the Skytrain, Seabus and Westcoast Express meet; city buses run directly from this hub to the Hastings Street entrance. If approaching via the Stadium-Chinatown Station on Skytrain's Expo-Millenium line, the walk to SFU's Goldcorp Centre for Arts is five minutes.

For more information about our accessibility measures, visit our FAQ page.

Earlier Event: November 16
Insight into the Artistic Process: Plant Meditation and a Rehearsal for Dying