Issue

Are You Listening?

September 2020

Sound is vibrations; waves that travel through space and time that are capable of moving matter. We make it, we perceive it, we communicate through it. Living or inerte, our sounds are unique and they define us. We are constantly surrounded by sound, but are we aware of it? Soundscapes, speech and music are examples of sounds that impact our memory, our feelings and the recognition of our surroundings. Our ability to hear can define how we interact in the world and how we are perceived. And even if we can’t hear sound, we’re able to feel it through vibration and rhythm. "Are you listening?” explores the importance of communication through sound in our world and universe, whether it be as individuals, as a society or as a planet. It aims to showcase the dynamics of communication that relies equally on the messenger and the receiver. Do we hear? and if so, are we listening?

- Cristina Suarez

5

FILM United Kingdom 2008
Graeme Hawkins

An exploration of childhood memories, combining (loosely interpreted) scientific theory, the wandering mind of a child, and largely abstract sound design to evoke feelings of nostalgia, familiarity and comfort.

An Eyeful of Sound

FILM UK 2010
Samantha Moore

I don't know if you've ever heard a goat eating carrots? It's almost too much, it's so lovely' An Eyeful of Sound conjures up the fascinating visually complex internal world of audio-visual syn-aesthesia, where senses make unique connections the rest of us don't experience. In this Wellcome Trust fu

Quiet Zone (2015)

FILM Canada 2015
David Bryant Karl Lemieux

In Quiet Zone, the filmmakers take us deep into the world of those who suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity. These "wave refugees" settled in West Virginia around the Green Bank observatory, in an area known as the National Radio Quiet Zone. Combining elements of documentary, film essay and

Soundprint

FILM USA 2014
Monteith McCollum

The second film in a trilogy on sound. "SoundPrint" explores the marks left by sonic frequencies. Imagery from optical soundtracks and micro photography of records play against similar signals received by sand, water, and people. Sounds of the ocean and the Midshipman fish are the backdrop for a ric

Suspended by Sound

FILM Brazil 2015
Tiago Marconi

Researchers from University of São Paulo (USP) have developed a device capable of levitating objects using only sound waves. It could help the manipulation of dangerous materials or sensitive ones, such as compounds that are used in manufacturing of pharmaceutical products.

The Sound Inside

FILM USA 2014
Tyler Trumbo

After experiencing substantial hearing loss, three individuals take up a lip reading class to stay connected to the world that is slowly leaving them behind. Through a journey of sound design, this short film takes a leap into the world they are able to hear, the sounds they are losing, and the smal

Vostok Zero

FILM Finland 2015
Perttu Inkilä Velda Parkkinen Liis Mehine

May 1961. Italian amateur radio operators record the voice of an unknown female cosmonaut re-entering the Earth's atmosphere in a malfunctioning spacecraft of the Soviet Vostok program. According to Soviet officials this never happened. If it did, she was the first woman in space.

20Hz

FILM UK 2013
Ruth Jarman Joe Gerhardt

20Hz observes a geo-magnetic storm occurring in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Working with data collected from the CARISMA radio array and interpreted as audio, we hear tweeting and rumbles caused by incoming solar wind, captured at the frequency of 20 Hertz. Generated directly by the sound, tangibl

IR Planet

FILM Japan 2014
Hirofumi Nakamoto

A man catches crabs which live in river of Japan. He releases them in his hotel room in the dark. Large number of nocturnal crabs are spread around and they move freely around the room; on the bed, on the desk, on the carpet. Infrared camera to observe them quietly, but for them, it has nothing to d

Paramusical Ensemble

FILM United Kingdom 2015
Tim Grabham

A short documentary following the preparation and performance of the musical composition 'Activating Memory' by the Paramusical Ensemble, comprising of four severely motor-impaired patients and a string quartet at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, London. The parts for each instrument are gen

COLORCONDITION

FILM USA 2016
Jason Chew Rodrigo Valles

Color Condition is a glimpse into the sensory overlap experienced by someone with the neural condition, synesthesia. Synesthetics have an overlapping sensory modality in which stimulation of one sense involuntarily, and simultaneously, triggers another. However, the scientific explanation does littl

The Loneliest

FILM USA 2014
Lilian Mehrel

Go 'behind-the-scenes' of British nature show Ocean Discovery in this tragicomic mockumentary: Violet (a camera-girl with a wry sense of humor) and Ingrid (a marine biologist with a singular passion for whales) go looking for the loneliest whale in the world (with a voice too high for the others to

Insan

FILM United Arab Emirats 2017
Alexis Gambis

Shakhbout shares with us the story of the first speaking Arabian Oryx "Mozaik" that changed the course of his life and for that matter the future of humankind.

Acoustic Ocean

FILM Switzerland, Norway 2017
Ursula Biemann

in development Acoustic Ocean (working title) is an artistic exploration of the sonic ecology of marine life in the North Atlantic. Located on the Lofoten Islands in Northern Norway, the video centers on the performance of a marine-biologist diver who is using a life-size model of a submersible equi

The Art of Flying

FILM Netherlands 2015
Jan Van Ijken

Short film about "murmurations": the mysterious flights of the Common Starling. It is still unknown how the thousands of birds are able to fly in such dense swarms without colliding. Every night the starlings gather at dusk to perform their stunning air show. Because of the relatively warm winter of

See a Dog, Hear a Dog

FILM United States 2016
Jesse McLean

With YouTube videos of dogs, chatbot dialogue windows and iTunes visualizers, See a Dog, Hear a Dog considers the defects and value produced by attempts at communication among humans, animals and machines, both directly and as mediated by one another. Through this, the film becomes an analytical tra

15 Corners of the World

FILM Poland, Germany 2014
Zuzanna Solakiewicz

Eugeniusz Rudnik revolutionized the idea of music itself with a pair of scissors and a magnetic tape. As part of the legendary Experimental Studio of Polish Radio, he revealed hidden value in rough and rejected sounds long before the rise of the DJs. In an era of electronic music created in a worksh

Chuchotage

FILM Hungary 2018
Barnabás Tóth

During a professional conference in Prague, two simultanous interpreters in the Hungarian booth realize that only one person is listening to them.

Cry Baby, Cry

FILM Österreich 2017
Antonin Svoboda

For more than a year CRY BABY, CRY accompanies three families with newly-born babies. Their problems are very different: Levi has no sleep-wake rhythm, Konrad is a so-called 'crybaby', Lotta is constantly quite restless. Not yet able to speak a language, these babies and toddlers tell in their very

Night Fair

FILM Canada 2020
Cynthia Naggar Gueze

Unique alliance of art and science, the experimental film Night Fair focuses on brain activity through the different cycles of a night's sleep. Through voice mail, media artist Cynthia Naggar and sound designer Gueze collected the dreams of citizens. These are ingeniously combined with graphic and s

Sweet Talk

FILM Canada 2014
Esteban Azuela

Oil-covered fish meet skateboards and the War on Terror in this razor-sharp satire of media, government, and the tycoons who take advantage of the system. Inspired by found sound of kids talking about oil and gas, hand-drawn with love and produced as part of the 10th edition of the NFB's Hothouse ap

Listen

FILM Canada 2009
David New

"A soundscape is any collection of sounds, almost like a painting is a collection of visual attractions," says composer R. Murray Schafer. "When you listen carefully to the soundscape it becomes quite miraculous." David New's portrait of the renowned composer becomes a lesson unto itself, gracing vi

Twice Upon a Time

FILM Canada 1979
Giles Walker

This short satirical film takes us to Stereoville, a city where citizens must literally double up in their efforts to deal with the community's 2 official languages. In Stereoville, each speaker of one language is tied to a speaker of the other, back-to-back. Into this two-stepping society stumbles

No Wave

FILM Canada 2017
Stephane Lapointe

Henry is dying to relax. Anxious, Henry is having trouble sleeping. In an attempt to rest, he listens to the sounds of ocean waves on a relaxation radio station. But when he hears the screams of a man drowning in his calming sea, Henry's life swirls into a downward spiral.

Farewell Transmission

FILM Canada 2017
Mike Rollo

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation opened the doors of the CBK Transmitter Station in 1939 to serve the prairie region of Canada. "Farewell Transmission" is equal parts an indexical record of the demolition of CBK in 2015 and a subjective response to the residual media documenting the event. The

PressPausePlay

FILM Sweden 2012
David Dworsky Victor Köhler

The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities. But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing in

Watch Tower

FILM Canada 2017
Charlie Egleston

Structured in seven parts, each segment considers the impact a transmission beacon relays into its surrounding environment. Watch Tower acknowledges the act of watching through an acute awareness of how form influences perception while also observing the communications and time-keeping properties of

Man Goes to Park

FILM Canada 2018
Geronimo Inutiq

A visit to the park turns into a moment of quietude and contemplation. -- Produced through the Independent Film Co-Op of Ottawa (IFCO) and Asinabka Film and Media Festival in the summer of 2018, "Man Goes To Park" is Geronimo Inutiq's first foray into celluloid - using both colour and monochrome sup

The Sound is Innocent

FILM Czech Republic 2019
Johana Ožvold

When does sound become music? THE SOUND IS INNOCENT invites you on an audiovisual journey into a dreamlike space that explores the meaning, function and significance of the world of electronic and experimental sound. Across five distinct chapters, the film guides us through an oscillating maze of cr

Terroir

FILM Canada 2012
Shannon Harris

Roughly translated, "terroir" can signify both a "sense of place" as well as "coming from a place". This piece is an image/sound portrait of personal geography as well as formal investigation of digital media. Captured entirely on a cell phone, the camera records a landscape in constant motion and d

The Sound of Falling

FILM Taiwan 1994
Lin Chien Yu

Mid-aged man who works in a tangerine farm for all his life, this day he has made up his mind to attend a clinical trial in the city to make some extra pocket money. But through this decision he made he slowly realized that he has lost the control of his life or perhaps he never had it.

iRony (2018)

FILM Australia 2018
Radheya Jegatheva

A film that explores the relationship between man and technology...told from the perspective of a phone. Variously described as an Animation, an Experimental Film, a Narrative, a Documentary or a Film-Poem depending on who you speak to, this hand drawn animated film is based on the poem 'Seven Billi

The Elephant's Song

FILM United States 2018
Lynn Tomlinson

"The Elephant's Song" tells the true and tragic tale of Old Bet, the first circus elephant in America, as recounted in song by her friend the old farm dog. Their story is portrayed in colorful clay-on-glass animation, where oil-based modeling clay is spread thinly on a glass sheet and moved frame-by

Commute

FILM Canada, USA 2018
Vincent Grenier

Distinct fields on the same screen, foreground each other, invite comparisons, between different times and spaces, and the constructed and natural processes that inescapably defines us thru textures and emotional spaces. Commute does refer to regular travels between one place and an other, but also

Ruptured

FILM Britian 2019
James Mansell

Truly immerse yourself like never before When something is free - it's hard to say no. When a new brand of wireless earphones are given away completely free, the consequences are horrific.

WAAAH

FILM Japan 2018
Sawako Kabuki

I synchronized the irritation of baby cries with the frustration I've experienced in my life. Everyone is born crying, and we all grow up crying. I've become an adult — but deep down, I strongly wish I could be a baby again.

Saturation

FILM Brazil 2017
Victor Galvão

A sci-fi story about unknown phenomena that made all organic processes to be as fast as to make life impossible. Images taken from 35mm slides found in a medical archive with a disruptive soundtrack made from space sound recordings. The tension of each next second getting ever closer, leading to col

Sound Ecology

FILM Canada 2014
Alexandra Guité

DO YOU TOLERATE NOISE BETTER THAN SILENCE? A web documentary on noise pollutiion and our inability to endure silence. View Interactive Project Noise overload. Urban densification. Portable personal sound environments. We live in an increasingly noisy world. Sound Ecology is an interactive investigat

Listen, Darling

FILM Taiwan 2014
Ming-Yen Su

It's Mom's birthday today. Li Si-yong is completely blind. Taking Wu Wen-ru who is visually impaired and their unborn child, they wander the streets in the dark. They try to piece together the fragmented memories of their daily life and family, waiting to welcome the arrival of a new life.