Cleanse and Release
new work by
Natasha Cantwell Pedro Gonçalves Ribeiro
Jera MacPherson Francisca Alarcão Rocio Mesa
Thursday, June 4 | 7:00 PM
Exhale. Sob. Sweat. Scream. A spirit of rejuvenation moves through this suite of five films, which seek to let go—of trauma, powerlessness, fear, and preconception. Self-guided rituals initiate forms of rebirth, while meditative reflections seek clarity and detoxification. Across improvised ceremonies, confessions, and acts of self-examination, we explore what it means to transform, regenerate, or be made whole again.
This program is rated 14A | Total runtime 62.5 minutes
The Teachers' Sauna, dir. Natasha Cantwell
2025 | Australia | 2.5 | 16mm on video | Canadian premiere
On the boundary of the Haukijärvi school grounds, a teachers’ sauna was built in the early twentieth century. In rural Finland the sauna marked the edges of a life. Before modern hospitals, it served as a site for childbirth and for washing the dead, preparing them for burial. This film considers the sauna as a vessel for accumulated gestures, rituals, and time. It asks how spaces absorb human presence, and what remains when those bodies are gone - when absence itself becomes an active force.
Rezbotanik, dir. Pedro Gonçalves Ribeiro
2025 | Brazil / Portugal / Spain | 18 | super 8mm on video
After heavy nights partying with drugs and sex, Rezmorah goes to the Botanical Garden of Lisbon to get sober again. More than a park, the place is a living museum: and is amidst its tropical and exotic flora that Rez talk about their relationship with the night, with that space, and with gender, wondering what plants may have to teach us about ways of seeing and thinking queer life.
with all your might and zeal, dir. Jera MacPherson
2025 | Canada | 3 | video
Clocking in at the baptism for the dead factory.
While the ritual of baptism for the dead is unique to the LDS faith, Jera MacPherson uses her ex-Mormon experience of the ritual to explore structures of power and themes of labour, community, and purity culture.
o, dir. Francisca Alarcão
2026 | Portugal / Spain | 14.5 | 16mm on video | Canadian premiere
For as long as she remembers, Francisca lives with an inexplicable and uncontrollable aversion to belly buttons. Nothing makes her more anxious than this simple part of the body and the shapes in the world that resemble it. When therapy isn't enough to solve her cherished phobia , Francisca turns to other types of methods - without any scientific basis and not recommended for anyone who suffers from the same condition.
OAO, dir. Rocio Mesa
2026 | Spain | 24.5 | 16mm on video | International premiere
OAO is a film opera in which mezzo-soprano Anna Wallace uses cinema as a vehicle to explore generational trauma, casting a spell to be reborn through the filmic medium.