The Chronology of Water
$11.50
The Index Reframed features short films that interweave the boundaries between the real and the imagined, the evidentiary and the poetic. Through animation, performance, lyrical montage, and experimental film, these films reimagine the cinematic index as a fixed trace of reality that is also a site of embodiment, memory, and re-enactment. Drawing from discourse on expanded documentary and animated testimony, the program explores the idea that truth can emerge through aesthetic invention as well as factual representation. Themes of migration, dislocation, intergenerational knowledge and joy flow through these works, revealing how subjectivity itself becomes an archival gesture reframing what it means to bear witness and remember in an era where the image holds proof and projection.
Curated by Leslie Supnet. This program is rated 18A.
ALA (2025), Dir. Ebunoluwa Akinbo, 2025, Canada, 2 min
During a difficult week marked by homesickness, a lady finds herself caught between waking life and dreamscapes inspired by early Nollywood aesthetics. Drawing on montage, multi-camera experimentation, and symbolic animation, the film examines the tension between belief and disbelief, memory and fiction, while embracing a distinct visual language.
From Oran to Almería, Dir. Lina Saïdani, 2023, France, 6 min 06:22 min
Aghilas, a young Algerian, is consumed by a life that offers him nothing in his native country. The prospect of an elsewhere will push him and a group of harraga to accomplish a dangerous crossing.
Interurbain, Dir. Marc-Olivier Huard, 2025, Canada, 9 min
Interurbain explores a mother’s emotional void in the face of geographical distance and the absence of her son. Through foggy train windows, passing landscapes reflect both separation and connection. Her voice messages go unanswered as silences stretch on. The film delves into a space of waiting, where fragmented memories and unfinished conversations come together, making the journey a metaphor for longing and the impossibility of filling the void
Oh Mother, Oh Prairies, Dir. Ibrahim Shuaib, 2024, Canada, 6 min
Oh Mother, Oh Prairies is an exploration of prairie life through the filmmaker’s lens in three parts: Acceptance, Observation, and Farewell.
Ibuka, Justice, Dir. Justice Rutikara, 2024, Canada, 23 min
April 6, 1994. A day like any other has turned into an apocalypse for the Rwandan people. In Kigali, Valentine and Jean-Claude, a new couple of young parents, face the threat of a mass hecatomb over their entire country. With the help of several people, they will multiply their attempts to escape from their region with their baby to escape the worst. Ibuka, Justice is an animated, poetic rendering of the crucial moments in this odyssey, narrated by Jean-Claude and Valentine and imagined by Justice, their now grown-up child.
Canada in the 12th Century, Dir. Jack Parker, 2025, Canada, 10 min
Two Canadas from the 12th century. One real, one imaginary.
River Revelations, Dir. Darcy Tara McDiarmid and Chantal Rousseau, 2024, Canada, 5 min
Along a sacred river’s edge, enchanted animals navigate mysterious landscapes along a trail from deep time. Starlight and lightning reveal the interchange of ancient peoples and the animals that have the care of the earth. As the animals traverse through the seasons of life, they learn that knowledge is power and that the land still speaks to us. The land still speaks to us!
Pidikwe, Dir. Caroline Monnet, 2025, Canada 10 min
Featuring indigenous women of various generations, Pidikwe integrates traditional and contemporary dance in an audiovisual whirlwind that straddles the border between film and performance, somewhere between the past and the future.
