With his camera and tripod, BAFTA-winning documentary filmmaker Christopher Morris began filming each day in a field near his home, telling the story of one Cornish field told over one climatic year.

‘The said and the unsaid’ is aemi’s exciting, new 2025 touring programme, an annual selection platforming some of the most exciting new moving image work by Irish artists in conversation with key international works. This programme includes new Irish works by Frank Sweeney and Jonathan O'Grady alongside works by filmmakers Maryam Tafakory and Stephanie Barber. This eclectic programme of work shifts from an act of deliberate and playful obfuscation (3 Peonies) to a process of attempted rediscovery (In Search of the Forenaughts Longstone) to an uncovering of media artefacts that speak to both deliberate and discrete forms of expression in the face of state sponsored censorship (Nazarbazi and Few Can See). Together these works describe a variety of creative means of expression borne out of a necessity to speak, however indirectly. Followed by a discussion with filmmaker Frank Sweeney. This programme is 76 min.

Fiercely independent 90-year-old Agatha Bock lives alone on her ancestral farm. Despite health challenges, she defiantly tends to her land, cultivating heirloom seeds passed down through generations. Employing antiquated techniques, Agatha plants and harvests her expansive field of watermelons, beans, flowers, herbs, and vegetables entirely by hand. Without a car, cell phone, running water, or even a functioning landline, Agatha’s meditative processes and daily rituals form a vivid counterpoint to the rapid pace of contemporary life. Made intentionally with sensory sensitive viewers in mind, the film carves out a (mostly) calm space in a chaotic world. Shot by an all-female crew—including director Amalie Atkins and cinematographer Rhayne Vermette— over six years on 16mm film, using a windup Bolex and an ArriSR2 studio camera, the project captures the handmade materiality inherent in both the medium of film and Agatha’s tactile world. Her century-old farmhouse, with its grey exterior, contrasts with the bursts of vibrant colour and texture inside. Unchanged since the 1950s, her home serves as a living archive of a vanishing era, rooted in her esoteric practices that predate modern conveniences. Agatha’s Almanac serves as a powerful conduit for often-overlooked stories, amplifying voices and rural perspectives. Agatha’s life offers a window into the experiences of a nearly lost generation, whose values and ways of living are at risk of fading as the world rapidly changes. Plays with Red Onion, Dir. Zachary Finkelstein, 2025, Canada, 8 min Red Onion is a formalist response to a structuralist question. This single-take film pays homage to Hollis Frampton’s Lemon (1969), addressing Frampton’s stated preference for his film to have been completed in a continuous take and my own cinematic obsessions.

Brown Town Muddy Water honours the ancient relationship between Indigenous people and the meeting place known as The Forks. This television special chronicles musicians who shaped Winnipeg's main street in the 1960's like the late Percy Tuesday, Errol Ranville and Billy Joe Green. For the emerging urban Aboriginal community, echoes of home sounded through music, dance, story and gatherings. Peoples lived experiences of emergence, segregation, racism, camaraderie and resistance are as resilient as the downtown streets of Winnipeg. The professional musicians that grew up on this notorious strip paved the road to success for forthcoming generations of Indigenous artists. Join us as local music and memory reverberate throughout the decades!

How do we organize attention, and who do we grant this authority to? Perhaps the ‘second family’ of chosen ones (or did they pick you?) offers new portals and possibilities. This program looks at the too familiar aftershock of the American election (surely as Zizek suggested, everyone in the world should be allowed to vote on such an important matter), 9-1-1 (as it used to be known, the CIA-led coup in Chile) and Palestine. The program ends with an extended swim with my mother, followed by a closing letter from my friend Fred. Curated by Mike Hoolboom.

How do we organize attention, and who do we grant this authority to? Perhaps the ‘second family’ of chosen ones (or did they pick you?) offers new portals and possibilities. This program looks at the too familiar aftershock of the American election (surely as Zizek suggested, everyone in the world should be allowed to vote on such an important matter), 9-1-1 (as it used to be known, the CIA-led coup in Chile) and Palestine. The program ends with an extended swim with my mother, followed by a closing letter from my friend Fred. Curated by Mike Hoolboom.

Lost and nihilistic drifter Utamaro chances upon Giko, a female-presenting shoplifter who immediately catches his eye. One thing leads to another and the couple soon find themselves on the lam for murder. This provides for a delightful pretext to explore notions of societal malaise, free love and gender fluidity in a rapidly evolving 1970s Japan, as both Utamaro and Giko begin to know each other on the road by way of a variety of encounters, alternating between surrealistic, psychedelic and sexual. The sole feature film directed by Isao Fujisawa, who learned his craft as an assistant director to Hiroshi Teshigahara on New Wave classics such as Woman in the Dunes and The Face of Another, Bye Bye Love is a deeply personal reckoning with sexual identity. Bridging the distance between Pierrot le fou, Bonnie and Clyde and Funeral Parade of Roses with an impeccable sense of style, splashes of Godardian color as well as strong anti-imperialist and existentialist themes, this iconic jishu eiga (self-produced film) was long thought lost until recently shepherded towards restoration by director and programmer Akihiro Suzuki. A new landmark of Japanese queer cinema, it is now distributed in North America for the very first time in 50 years. “Anticipates the transgressive New Queer Cinema movies of Gregg Araki and Gus Van Sant...” — Luke Goodsell, Metrograph Content warning: This film contains scenes of violence and nudity. Welcome to Cult-O-Rama, our brand-new monthly screening series exploring beloved sleaze, trash, and underground cinema! A celebration of bad taste curated and introduced by Cinematheque Film Programmer Olivia Norquay. Presented in partnership with Sookram’s Brewing Co. Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.

From renowned filmmaker Lynne Ramsay, Die My Love is a visceral and uncompromising portrait of a woman engulfed by love and madness. Anchored by a ferocious, tour de force performance from Jennifer Lawrence, and co-starring Robert Pattinson. The film follows Grace (Lawrence) and her partner Jackson (Pattinson), who have recently moved into an old house deep in the country. With ambitions to write The Great American Novel, Grace settles into her new environment, and the couple welcome a baby soon after. However, with Jackson frequently – and suspiciously – absent, and the pressures of domestic life starting to weigh on her, Grace begins to unravel, leaving a path of destruction in her wake. Based on Ariana Harwicz’s celebrated novel and co-starring Sissy Spacek, LaKeith Stanfield and Nick Nolte, Ramsay marks her eagerly-awaited return with this fearless new cinematic vision that charts the complexity of love and how it can change and transform over time.

Freedom Road is a five-part documentary series that tells the inspiring story of Shoal Lake 40 Anishinaabe First Nation and their battle to build a road, after their community was forcibly relocated and cut off from the mainland over 100 years ago, so that water could be diverted to the city of Winnipeg. Director and Shoal Lake 40 member Angelina McLeod uses an innovative, community-driven approach to storytelling that highlights the community’s dignity, strength and perseverance, as they take back control of their narrative and their future in the process of building Freedom Road.

Join us for the world premiere of 10 new short documentaries created by local filmmakers. Gimme 10 in 30! is a new documentary incubator challenge wherein 10 participants chosen via random lottery draw were tasked with completing a new documentary film in 30 days. There were no restrictions or parameters to the films created, except they couldn’t be longer than 7 minutes long. The resulting films are presented here for your enjoyment and demonstrate the creative spirit and originality coming out of our local documentary scene. Each film is eligible for a $500 cash prize for the Audience Choice Award furnished by DOC Manitoba, which will be voted on live by the audience after the screening. Presented in partnership with DOC Manitoba.

An essay film about the mysteries of consciousness and communication channeled through neurophysiologist and “psychonaut” John C. Lilly, a daring experimenter with dolphins and psychedelics. Lilly’s motto — “My body is my laboratory” — carried him into realms of radical self-investigation, while his research also helped bring dolphins and whales into the collective dreamlife of the 20th century.

Mostly seen on the gay pink circuit and recently restored by its director to its rightful place in the Japanese arthouse canon, Akihiro Suzuki's debut takes the death of a young gay porn performer named Takachi as its starting point. Looking for an Angel follows Shinpei and Reiko as they process their friend’s disappearance, their memories coalescing into a bold exploration of grief set against the backdrop of a nostalgic, blue-hued city shot in a variety of filmic formats. As the viewer begins to piece together Takachi’s story, laden with desire for another boy named Sorao, between the cities of Tokyo and Kochi (“where the boys look like angels”), a powerful free-associative beauty emerges from a unique work described by Suzuki himself as “neither straight, gay, queer, bisexual, asexual or pornographic, but [rather] anti-heterosexist” — a film completely free of dogma and convention. “At the time, I felt a sense of rebellion against the heterosexual-dominated world, and wanted to portray sexuality and identity through an ambiguity that cannot be categorized. I wanted to make a 35mm film like an 8mm film, mix various visual media, and include people of diverse sexualities around me in it.” — Akihiro Suzuki

One of the most joyously British movies ever made, this endlessly quotable non-stop gigglefest about the filthiness and absurdity of the Middle Ages never fails to put smiles on the audience’s faces. Our iconic Pythonites in Cleese, Idle, Palin, Jones, Chapman and Gilliam were never funnier. Honestly perfect, no notes. Join us for McDonald at The Movies, where comedian, star and co-founder of Kids in the Hall, Kevin McDonald presents a film handpicked from the archives of comic history. Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.

Inspired by her own acclaimed documentary "Birth of a Family", Tasha Hubbard’s "Meadowlarks" tells the story of four Cree siblings, separated since childhood and now in their fifties, who agree to meet for the first time over a holiday weekend in Banff.

Measures For a Funeral, from director Sofia Bohdanowicz, follows a young academic who pursues acclaimed early 20th-century Canadian violinist Kathleen Parlow while escaping her failed musician mother's shadow in this poignant character study.

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk offers an intimate, first-hand perspective on life under siege in Gaza, captured through video calls between director Sepideh Farsi and 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and poet Fatma Hassona. Combining raw immediacy with deep humanity, the film captures daily life during the conflict through the eyes and unwaveringly optimistic presence of Fatma, a talented photographer whose generation is trapped in an endless cycle of war, famine, and resistance. Her conversations with Farsi bring us into the heart of the conflict, even while their physical distance underscores the dire situation inside Gaza. Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is an essential document that now stands as a heartfelt memorial and final testament: Fatma and her family were tragically killed by a targeted Israeli airstrike on April 16, one day after the film was announced as a selection of the Cannes Film Festival.

The new film from legendary underground novelist Dennis Cooper and visual artist Zac Farley is a side-eyed, tonally unpredictable portrait of a family-run haunted house in the California desert, with an undercurrent of menace that evokes the early films of Bruno Dumont. In the lead-up to Halloween, a family transforms their home and yard into a haunted house and invites a local high schooler (Chris Olsen) to walk through it, but it appears the father’s (John Williams) increasingly obsessive fantasies are taking a toll on the family. Willfully eccentric, full of left turns but always controlled and precise, Room Temperature marks an exciting creative breakthrough for one of America’s living masters of regional transgression and surrealism. — LAFM Join us on November 1 at 7PM for a pre-recorded Q&A with filmmakers Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley. Content warning: This film contains scenes of violence.

Leaders of iconic Indigenous basketball team, the Skidegate Saints as they compete for two titles - defending their championship title at the 2024 All Native Basketball Tournament, and the political title battle for their lands and waters.

Through paper cut outs, time lapse, scratch animation, hand and eco-processing, this collection of films acts as a diaristic travelogue, exploring mediations on place, colonial structures, and the natural world breaking through the cracks. Curated by Olivia Norquay. This program is rated 18A. a beaten path, Dir. Toby Gillies and Natalie Baird, 2025, Canada, 3 min a beaten path is a study of urban prairie plant-life living between the cracks – thistles, burdock, plantain, etc – that spent the summer flourishing in surface parking lots and burned out demolition sites. A looping and constant push forward creates interconnecting cycles of growth and death of these creatures and spaces. Sous le soleil exactement, Dir. Noa Blanche Beschorner, 2024, Canada, 15 min Taking the form of language exercises, Sous le soleil exactement is a tribute to the city symphonies of Berlin - a city whose inhabitants, streets and movements inspire the traveler's observations. Noa Blanche Beschorner returns to her native Germany and, through editing, creates a dialogue between spaces - sometimes populated, then deserted. A meditative film, where time and space set the tone. La Colle Falls, Dir. Mike Rollo, 2025, Canada, 11 min At the beginning of the 20th century, a hydroelectric dam was partially built and later abandoned on the North Saskatchewan River near the city of Prince Albert. A century has passed and the concrete structures from this industrial folly continue to frame the surrounding river and forest. Through visual and sonic layerings of water, reflective surfaces, and transparency, this film mediates the consequences of colonial activity over time in a specific, ancient place. My Canada Train Journey, Dir. Sandy McLennan, 2025, Canada, 19 min 50-plus years after a memorable overnight Canadian train ride, Sandy McLennan boards regional and remote lines, with main line and public transit between them. This time shooting Double 8mm film, the same format he fell in love with while screening family home movies just for himself. What was he thinking? Wînipêk, Dir. James Dixon, 2024, Canada, 10 min Wînipêk explores Indigeneity within prairie settings while emphasizing feelings of disconnection and desire for kinship with the Land. The film contrasts experiences and landscapes that highlight the cultural dispossession of Treaty territories. It questions coexistence and contemplates the journey of finding our way back home and the enduring connection of where we come from. (for once I dreamed of you), Dir. Kate Solar, 2025, Canada, 6 min As night falls over the fields, a woman looks into unknown areas: the space after a poem, the distance between map and territory, the darkness between film frames. A pastoral nocturne turns inside out. This 16mm work was shot at Film Farm in Mt. Forest, Ontario, then re-photographed with flashlight contact-printing. Intuitive processes consider the image and soundtrack as a living thing that breathes and decays.

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.

Before they blew the world’s mind with The Matrix, Lana and Lilly Wachowski delivered a jolt of pure pulp pleasure with their hyperstylish debut, which puts a deliciously sapphic spin on a crackerjack caper premise. When butch plumber Corky (Gina Gershon) catches the eye of alluring femme (fatale) Violet (Jennifer Tilly), little does she know she’s about to be drawn into both a torrid affair and a high-stakes heist that will pit the pair against the mob. With crackling dialogue, luscious neonoir cinematography, and live-wire performances by Gershon, Tilly, and Joe Pantoliano, Bound is a genre-reimagining joyride that keeps both the tension and the erotic heat rising through each crazily careening twist. Content warning: This film contains scenes of violence and nudity. Join us for our Staff Picks series, where our Winnipeg Film Group staff select and introduce new and old favourites. This month’s selection was chosen by Cinematheque projectionist Nic Kaneski.

One man, a room, and the Sahara, in this symbolically charged film, Frank Cole casts himself in the role of a man on a quest for immortality.

A chronicle of Frank Cole's amazing 7,100 kms camel-crossing of the Sahara Desert from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

Three MiniDV tapes of life in Gaza from 2001 were recently rediscovered. This footage is now a testament to a place and time that no longer exists. What started as a search for a former prison mate from 1989—a man lost to time and war— led to an unexpected road trip from the north to the south of Gaza with Hasan, a local guide whose fate remains unknown. As the camera moves through Gaza’s streets and landscapes, it records fleeting moments of everyday life—fragments of a reality now irreversibly altered. With Hasan in Gaza transforms this forgotten footage into a cinematic reflection on memory, loss and the passage of time, capturing a Gaza of the past and lives that may never be found again.

Igloolik, Nunavut, 2000 BCE. Teenage lovers Kaujak (Theresia Kappianaq) and Sapa (Haiden Angutimarik) were promised to each other at birth. After the sudden death of Kaujak’s father, her mother marries a man from another camp, tearing the two apart. The promise of a better life quickly turns to a nightmare, with aggressive suitors backed by an evil shaman vying to win Kaujak’s hand. But Kaujak resists, holding on to hope that Sapa will one day make things right.