When we speak of garden, we inherently are confronted with a paradox. We dream of green spaces that are both guarded by and protected from humans. We imagine a piece of land next to a house or urban spaces, with flowers, vegetables, other plants and often grass. And yet garden is also a secluded, otherworldly space that we protect, preserve and create in.
"Secret Gardens" is our end-of-the-year 2023 issue that brings us through the gates of these bucolic spaces. As viewers, we're also secretly trespassing into gardens that we're meant to be visited nor seen - and yet they were recorded for a reason. Please do come in but do not tell anyone else.
They could be wandering around a secret garden, exploring outer space or swinging into a crazy jungle to spy hidden treasures, The Sun (2014)
Against the backdrop of political upheaval, an ancient network of orchards thrives in the mountains of the Sinai desert. Filmmaker Bryony Dunne shadows two Bedouins as they nurture their gardens and are nurtured by them. This poetic portrait of symbiosis digs deep into the perceptual complexities be
Based around the 20's avante garde cinema genre of the City Symphony, Seoul City Machine is a filmic poem for the urban landscape of tomorrow. The film is a portrait of a city where machines and technology are now the dominant inhabitants of space. Our guide to the city is the disembodied voice of i
With a cool, meditative calm, the director follows a young woman as she surveys an outdoor sculpture garden consisting of pieces that play upon ideas tied to the cryptocurrency. Data visualization indeed!
This personal short film uses a series of telephone conversations with the filmmaker's mother as she tries to reconcile facing cancer for a fourth time. Low-fi video filmed at night captures her mothers bond to her home, shaping the tension and isolation of living life with a terminal illness. Noctu
A powerful man, who is also the former prime minister of Georgia, has developed an exquisite hobby. He collects century old trees along Georgia's coastline. He commissions his men to uproot them and bring them to his private garden. Some of these trees are as tall as 15-floor-buildings.
Under Control shows human action from the insect's level. The botanical garden is an artificial nature-like installation where each room has its own microclimate. Despite human attempts to control the environment, pests are spreading and eating the plants all over the garden. The gardeners are fight
The father of neuroscience Santiago Ramón y Cajal wakes up one day with magnified vision. Based on the short story "The Corrected Pessimist" by Santiago Ramon y Cajal Voice over : Carlos Bardem / Brain Images by Jeffrey Lichtman / Animation by Shiv Kachiwala
On an estate, Sadia engages in a mysterious traffic. Arthur, a friend of hers, finds out what she is hiding. He will have to make a choice...
Brief reflections with AI on the nature of memory. Film created as part of the Symbiosis 2022 competition during the 15th Annual Imagine Science Film Festival around the theme of the Science New Wave.
The limits of intrusion in the peaceful lives of local folk on the island of Ikaria are being tested in a group of scientists' quest to find the secret for long and healthy life. Islanders go about in their daily microcosms - in the kitchen, in the garden, in the workplace and in their "hangouts", w
An androgynous scientist lives confined to the ice of Antarctica, taking care of a closed artificial ecosystem for space colonization. Virtual relationships, artificial suns, and nutrients dissolved in the air are the core of a crystallised world pervaded by the emotional temperature of extreme isol
A father finds shelter in the memories he created together with his daughter to whom he hasn't spoken in years. The film transforms into a go-between in an attempt to unite them through images, sounds, and letters.
Sahar tirelessly explores volcanic landscapes to find a rare mineral. But what she finds out shakes her research, her connection with the atmosphere and our Milky Way.
A filmic meditation inviting consideration of perception in vegetal beings. Vision is somatic, of the body. In humans, vision is a dominant sense for most people and can feel indistinguishable from the mind when thoughts, judgements, and reactions are unconsciously triggered through visual experienc
In the municipality of Villa Guerrero, State of Mexico, flower growers and their families live with the hope of better times; in the meantime, they live every day in a field that no longer smells of flowers...
Climate scientist Bronwen Konecky travels to one of the largest high-altitude lakes in the world to unlock a climate mystery. Working with archaeologist Sarah Baitzel, she is looking for clues at the bottom of Lake Sibinacocha in Peru. Pre-Hispanic Andean cultures used this highlands area through th
For twenty years, the programVoces del Secuestrohas allowed family members to send radio messages that they hope will reach their loved ones kidnapped in the Amazon jungle. This is an experimental documentary that pairs these radio messages with abstract portraits of the Colombian landscape.
Zaire, January 1993. Rachel's family, an 8-year-old French girl, lives in Kinshasa in a house overlooking the Congo River. Following the usual routine (shopping, lunch, nap ...) the city is subjected to violent looting by Zairean soldiers. Luckily, Rachel's family escapes their violence. She, her mo
Rift is a visual and sonic simultaneous telling of ancient and present-day ecological stories. The film depicts the formation of the Connecticut Rift Valley through geological time by following a modern-day Red maple (Acer rubrum) seedling's experience in this unique terrain. Through sounds of rumbl
France, 2045. In the midst of a food crisis, Alexandra Delpech sees activists barge into her property, determined to steal her land and transform it into fertile oases for the common good. Armed with her shotgun, Alexandra does not intend to be stripped so easily.
Antoine is moving with his mother and little brother in a modern tower with green walls and a sustainable, self-sufficient architecture. In great psychological distress, he feels like a stranger to this new environment.
On August 1st, 2008, Marc B. was seen for the last time near Dorwin Falls in Rawdon. He vanished without leaving a trace like thousand of others around the world. They are called ''Johatsu'', the Evaporated.
Images inhaled and exhaled, gently but deeply. Details of a naked person, close-ups of deep-sea creatures—jelly fish, algae, cnidaria, at first, still a stony landscape. Small, precise picture waves, as though set off by hitting the surface of still water, set Seas of Pearls in motion. With th
A teenager, Christina, loses her friends in the forest. Looking for them she finds the bodies of three drowned kids on the shore of a lagoon. On summer holiday, deep in the woods, three kids, cousins, are playing around a lake when they find a drowned young woman drifting in the water. Games, lies a
There is a gateway at the edge of the waters – not a physical gateway but rather a bottleneck that opens into a realm of shadows, leading into a dream. This dream has no inside or outside. It allows the return of what has already been experienced, suspending it in textures that flow into one a
A quiet moment with the plants. A home-grown film : shot in my garden, processed in my basement, and dried on the lawn.
This hand-processed 16mm film reflects on botanical animism. It is a song written for night-crawlers, compost, and shadows, inspired by human flower-lust. Water, fire, earth and air are interwoven with the garden's creature crew. The work draws a parallel between the photographic alchemy of cinemati
This "Field Portfolio" is a single channel version of the multichannel installation "Herbaria x pelicula." A consideration of collection as both archive and act, "Herbaria x pelicula" examines the work that takes place at the HAM Herbarium of Royal Botanical Gardens (Canada), located in Burlington O
Stamens and pistils are lit in rapid succession behind the dome of the Palm House at Allan Gardens in Toronto. The plants trade colour, making alien scenes in the conservatory. Solid forms, too near to the eye, become muddied and indistinct, in constant passage, but the dome and the grid are fixed.