SUNWATCHER
Music: Tidtaya Sinutoke
Book & Lyrics: Isabella Dawis
Director: Nana Dakin
Producer/Cultural Consultant: Ikumi Kuronaga
Singers: Francesca Dawis, Gemma Nha
Dancers: Akiko Aizawa, Natsuko Hirano, Kazue Peck Video & Production Designer: Suzu Sakai
Audio Mixer: Megumi Katayama
SUNWATCHER, a Noh-inspired musical, is the story of astronomer Hisako Koyama (1916-1997) – intertwined with the ancient Japanese myth of the sun goddess Amaterasu, in a retelling inspired by the structure of classical Noh theatre. Hisako was a woman with no formal scientific training – also a survivor of the 1945 US air raid of Tokyo, the deadliest bombing in history – who managed to rise to the stature of Galileo. She did so by drawing the sun in painstaking detail every day for 40 years, a landmark achievement for solar science. SUNWATCHER is a celebration of Hisako’s extraordinary dedication to ordinary observation, reminding us how seemingly small acts can have an immense impact over time and space.
The Healing of Time
Creator - Chrysi Sylaidi
The Healing of Time explores the ways in which time pushes us to heal, especially if we let it. Chrysi, in the starring role as a version of herself, explores the complexity of someone who is not only hurting, but simultaneously trying to heal. Trapped inside during the pandemic like most of the world, doing seemingly mundane activities yet there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Out of Salam
Creator - Sarah Bitar
Out of Salam is a short film that explores self-love and self-compassion, especially on those days where the burden of living feels very heavy. When stuck in bed and nothing seems to motivate us to get out of it, how can we listen in and encourage ourselves in a healing way, like our best ally would?
This is Me Eating____
Creator - Giorgia Valenti
A documentary of how the process of the series ‘This is me eating____’ came about. This is Me Eating ____' s is an episodic series about a diverse range of individuals’ stories with their bodies and their diverse struggles with the concept of beauty, flaws and mental health.
Unlabeled
Creator/Director/Performer/Editor - Fernando Vieira
Unlabeled explores the boundaries of masculinity and femininity within one person, challenging the established relationship between sex and gender.
A conversation between the "masculine" and "femenine" sides.
And even a larynx can hold you
Creator - Lyndsey Bourne
An essay film/meditation on matrilineage, on my matrilineage, on queerness, on voice, on the gender of sound and the female anatomy. On the borders between my body, my mother’s body and my mother’s mother’s body – and the borders between the U.S and Canada.
Ocean Mother
Written and directed by Inés Braun
Dramaturgy by Erin Capistrano
Music composed by David Cieri
Drone cinematography by Feder Martini Crotti
Edited by Catalina Rincón Giraldo
This is a film about traveling: a woman makes a journey to see her mother, hoping that love and safety will be there at the end of it. When she gets there, nothing goes the way she expected, and she finds herself packing her bags once again. This time, she journeys to find a place where she can be alone. She turns to the ocean as the place where she can find the love and safety that she’s searching for.
Pandemic Chapatis
Writer and Performer: Sneha Sakhare
Director: Shadi Ghaheri
A monologue by a distressed/anxious immigrant daughter to her family/parents during the Pandemic.
Starsong
Composer, Musical Director: Erika Ji
Writer, Director: Andrew Strano
Cast: Emile Aslan Lacheny, Earl Marrows, Anna Cherkezishvili, Shan Y Chuang, Sinan Usta, Sneha Sakhare
STARSONG is based on the true story of twin stars, born in a beautiful nebula at the heart of the Milky Way. These two stars did everything together, close as can be. But when they stray too close to a black hole, one twin is caught in the black hole’s inescapable pull, and the other is flung into the universe, alone…
Through light and puppetry, STARSONG explores how deeply we care for the people we love, how painful isolation feels, and how together, we find a way to heal and hope.