What Holds Us Here
new work by
Kyath Battie Yuula Benivolski mystery byrd
Daniel Márquez Sam Taffel + Gillian Waldo
Friday, June 5 | 8:30 PM
Belonging is a political condition, shaped and (un)settled as much by architecture, environment, and colonial history, as by our traditions, loved ones, and own sense of self. Place is a constructed, contested field, not stable ground, continuously negotiated and redefined. Through essayistic, documentary and experimental forms, six filmmakers and five films explore what it means to belong where you are, and how the forces that impart meaning might be resisted or embraced.
This program is rated PG | Total runtime 58.5 minutes
Super, Natural, dir. Kyath Battie
2025 | Canada | 7.5 | 16mm | Manitoban premiere
Vancouver Island, supernatural by construct and memory, is experienced though landscapes represented by colonial icons, mysterious brilliant fountains, and a curious peacock. A tableaux of sorts, each encounter is singular yet united by stunning and devastated beauty.
You May Laugh at Me a Little, dir. Yuula Benivolski
2025 | Canada | 22.5 | 16mm on video | Manitoban premiere
You May Laugh at Me a Little is a film about a glassblower in Hebron—a place historically known for its glass and ceramics production, which shaped the city’s economy for centuries. In 2022 I interviewed the last glassblower in Hebron’s Old City, and filmed him during a typical day at his studio.
b.longing, dir. mystery byrd
2025 | Canada | 3 | video
A dialogue and poetic home video about belonging, from young people living in modern capitalist colonial society.
Behind the Statues, dir. Daniel Márquez
2025 | Canada / Venezuela | 4 | super 8mm on video
Behind the Statues documents the spaces and voices that resound in an apartment block behind a historic hotel. In conversation with architects and residents, the film resides in Winnipeg's Fort Garry Place, dwelling in its opulent paradox and taking a seat between discourse and experience.
Learning from Learning from Las Vegas, dirs. Sam Taffel + Gillian Waldo
2025 | USA | 18 | 16mm on video | Canadian premiere
An experimental adaptation of the seminal architectural text Learning from Las Vegas (1972) by architects Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi. The film charts the evolution of their professional and romantic relationship while exploring the motels, neon signs, and wedding chapels described in the book. In attempting to recreate Brown & Venturi’s concepts and taxonomies, the filmmakers find themselves caught between the past and the present, searching for meaning in the contemporary landscape of Las Vegas as well as their own partnership.