Ryan Iwanaka and Maxym Miller (Canada) YOUTH
Vancouver Premiere
Duration: 2:25

Where are you going? is an exploration, without a destination. Rather than ending up anywhere explores the moments in-between. Media and movement, for just that.

For our first film together we had to explore, not what we knew what would work; but what we thought might not. This film is a culmination of various explorations as dancer and animator, as mixed media artists, as Max and Ryan, together.

Where are you going?

Director: Maxym Miller
Cinematographer: Maxym Miller
Dancer: Ryan Iwanaka
Assistant Rotoscope Artist: Helaina Appleyard-Miller
Sound Design: Ryan Iwanaka
Additional Videographer: Chanel Hulston

Andrew Heule (Canada) EMERGING
World Premiere
Duration: 12:40

Starting from a place of crip care and radical crip acceptance, Between Grit & Joy set out to document the movement of 6 different lower limb amputees. Then, the rhythm of each person's unique movement were interpreted creatively into percussion-based musical pieces. My hope is that this work serves as a way of pushing back against an ableist view that renders non-normative ways of moving unacceptable, and forces us to try to mask our disabilities while filling us with shame for not always being able to do so.

Director: Andrew Heule*
Cinematographer: Rico Moran*
Music: Andrew Heule
Movers: Patty de Guia, Brian Ellison, Therese Estacion, Matthew Porter, Andrew Heule, Patricia Raulino
Access Consultants: Natasha Courage Bacchus, Sage Lovell, Theodore Walker Robinson

Steven Jorge Johnson (Canada) YOUTH
World Premiere
Duration: 2:30

How can the body become the tongue; how can the dance become the paragraph? Through every sense or linguistic medium, this film endeavors to pinpoint the concept of existence in relation to time. Living is in the small moments, and yet happens in a tapestry of minutia. Infinity finds love in the millisecond. Created to be viewed as an infinite loop, Pattern Recognition probes the importance of a moment in the choreographic continuity of living. Every letter has a place in a word; every word, a line. Every line, a life.

Director: Steven Jorge Johnson*
Cinematographer: Chace Haw
Dancer: Steven Jorge Johnson

Jude Pierre and Samantha Sutherland (Canada) EMERGING
World Premiere
Duration: 11:36

Fire ignites, grows, burns, and devours. Once it decays, what destruction does it leave behind? How does the earth regrow out of the ashes?

ʔa·kinq̓uku, the word for fire in the Ktunaxa Language, is a work that follows the life cycle of a wildfire, and the regrowth that occurs after. This piece was created in reaction to a wildfire that burned through the artists’ home community of ʔaq̓am in the summer of 2023.

Co-Directors: Jude Pierre and Samantha Sutherland
Cinematographer: Jude Pierre
Editor: Jude Pierre
Choreography and Performance: Samantha Sutherland
Composer: Edgardo Moreno
Costume: Cindy Sutherland

Bai Li Wiegmans (Netherlands) EMERGING
Canadian Premiere
Duration: 10:35

HOME - 家 is an autobiographical dance short film telling the story of a Chinese adoptee in The Netherlands.

Director Bai Li takes you on an intimate exploration of self-discovery and acceptance in search of a sense of belonging. Through dance, music and poetry, she delves into the diverse emotions surrounding her adoption journey.

The story serves as an ode to those who navigate the complex terrain of adoption and dual identities. Giving voice to those without a fixed feeling of home and offering comfort and understanding to anyone who has ever felt caught between worlds.

Director: Bai Li Wiegmans
Dancer and choreographer: Bai Li Wiegmans
Composer and music producer: Bongjin Jung
Director of photography: Christopher James Viñalon
Voices: Xiaojie Pan, Bai Li Wiegmans, Henri Wiegmans
Poem: Li Bai - Quiet night thoughts

Special thanks to: Het Cultuurfonds

cát nguyên (Vietnam) EMERGING
Canadian Premiere
Duration: 14:11

Trigger Warning: Death

In the living video-performance-collage, “Heart Scars, Where Homeland Hums,” cát nguyên embodies their grandfather’s poetry alongside their own through mud calligraphy: the bountiful harvest of soil, sun, and soul from their family’s burial site. Their palms channel the rivers flowing within the smooth stone skin of a mortar and pestle carved of rock native to Quảng Nam. From the earth, cát nguyên divines ink, then incarnates their bloodlines onto ancient photographs, a hand-woven sedge mat, and banana leaves – corporeal transmission of memory and prophecy, déjà vu that travels generations. What the fields and mountains of homeland engrave are not merely crops of tragedy, but rather a sky that offers ancestral reconnection. This poetic inscription-ceremony is therefore an organic, transcendent act of reintegration and regeneration, a poem that grandfather and grandchild have written together throughout more than a century.

A film by cát nguyên

Bai Li Wiegmans (Netherlands) EMERGING
Canadian Premiere
Duration: 10:35

HOME - 家 is an autobiographical dance short film telling the story of a Chinese adoptee in The Netherlands.

Director Bai Li takes you on an intimate exploration of self-discovery and acceptance in search of a sense of belonging. Through dance, music and poetry, she delves into the diverse emotions surrounding her adoption journey.

The story serves as an ode to those who navigate the complex terrain of adoption and dual identities. Giving voice to those without a fixed feeling of home and offering comfort and understanding to anyone who has ever felt caught between worlds.

Director: Bai Li Wiegmans
Dancer and choreographer: Bai Li Wiegmans
Composer and music producer: Bongjin Jung
Director of photography: Christopher James Viñalon
Voices: Xiaojie Pan, Bai Li Wiegmans, Henri Wiegmans
Poem: Li Bai - Quiet night thoughts

Special thanks to: Het Cultuurfonds

Melissa Lam (Canada) EMERGING
Duration: 1:36

In honour of this year's AANHPI History Month in May, I wanted to showcase the rich diversity of the Asian-Canadian experience through the art of dance. As a Chinese-Canadian who grew up in Singapore and later moved to Vancouver, I faced my own challenges in navigating my cultural identity. Today, I feel more grounded and embrace my multicultural heritage. Dance provides a vibrant way to celebrate our unique stories, connect with our roots, and build a shared understanding with others.

Director, Editor, Mix Media Artist: Melissa Lam
Producer: Ann Dinh
DP, Cam Op: Stefan Feldmann
Dancers: Melody Meilin, Lamya Rahman, Tegvaran Sooch, Caleb Agno
Post Supervisor: Bronwyn Davies
Sound Designer: Adam Johnson
Colorist: Tyson Rider
Designer: Andy Burdin

Olivia West Alvarez (England) EMERGING
Canadian Premiere
Duration: 4:19

a moment of reverence invites us to reconsider how we experience art through the lens of accessibility. In a single, unbroken shot, a blind woman listens to a live dance performance unfolding out of frame, guided by poetic audio description and sound. As the choreography is translated through language, her response becomes the focus, shifting attention away from spectacle and toward perception. The film challenges the assumption that dance belongs to the eye, and instead frames it as a multisensory experience, shaped as much by listening and imagination as by sight.

contributor: Jasmine Thien
director, producer & cinematographer: Olivia West Álvarez
editor: Rafael Luis Fernando
composer: Katrina Rose
sound designer: Vicente Molder
colourist: Diyar Akar
performance by: Rachel Coleman
audio description written by: Caroline Burn & Olivia West Álvarez
audio description voiced by: Katrina Rose

Naomi Watkins (Canada) EMERGING
FORM 2026 Commissioned Artist
World Premiere
Duration: 8:00

Estkesép: Moving Fast and Almost Out of Sight is a creative non-fiction short directed by Naomi Watkins that considers the complexities of beginning again through a fragmented introspection on returning to land, water, and Secwépemc language. Shot between three locations, the film traces a journey of discovering an ancestral compass across Turtle Island, looking toward the birds and listening for their songs while reflecting on their relationships to movement, intuition, memory, and what it means to belong.

Directed, Written, Filmed, and Edited by Naomi Watkins 

Warm thank yous to Erin Lum and danielle Mackenzie Long for reaching out and trusting me with making this film; my partner, Devin Chambers, for their relentless support; Niya Abdullahi, Whess Harman, and Struts Gallery for their generous guidance; and my mom for an amazing trip and getting to grow a little closer throughout this whole shoot.

Mara Dupas (Canada) YOUTH
FORM 2026 Commissioned Artist
World Premiere
Duration: 5:00
Content Warning: Harsh language, mention of sexual themes related to lived experiences of misogyny.

0.3mL engages with movement, music, and poetry as sites of transformation where the self is constantly fluctuating, defended, or reshaped. This film draws inspiration from lived experiences, video archives, and love of rap music from the perspective of a mysterious being seeking the language of his/their liberation, somewhere between imitation, memories, and fiction. By intersecting lyrics, images, and sound, it explores transness and metamorphosis not as linear transitions, but as unstable, ongoing negotiations between environment, politics, body, voice, and desire. 

Artistic Director: Mara Dupas
Director and cinematographer: Ornella Salnot
Music composer and sound designer: Maître Engone Endong
Choreography, performance, lyrics, voice: Mara Dupas

Special thank you to: Familles Daniel / Dupas and Sara Kurz-Martin

Bona Lee (Canada) YOUTH
FORM 2026 Commissioned Artist
World Premiere
Duration: 5:00

In a world that constantly produces emerging yet clashing styles across endless niches, microtrends, and aesthetics, one starts to question whether these serve as inspiration for curating an original style or instead become an incoherent mixture far from one’s authenticity. In Get Dressed!, Mia attempts to curate the perfect outfit for an unknown event she gets invited to. With endless options and pressure to impress her friend Jess, she ends up in a frenzy and perhaps not the best dressed.

Director/Writer/Producer: Bona Lee
Cast: Reem Celine & Athena Tran 
Cinematographer: Aaron De Leon
3D Animation Artist: Joseph Mukoro
Video Editors: Bona Lee, Aaron De Leon, Joseph Mukoro, & Christina Tam
Makeup Artist: Keara Bright

Special thanks to Erin Lum, danielle Mackenzie Long, Sophia Wolfe, and Yazid for their guidance in making this film.

Trey Denzyl (Canada) YOUTH
FORM 2026 Commissioned Artist
World Premiere
Duration: 6:00 
Content Warning: Minor strobe lighting

PARAMIN is an experimental visual work exploring identity, tradition, and transformation in an age of information overload. Drawing from Trinidadian cultural memory, the film considers how traditions can become distorted, diluted, and reinterpreted through the constant circulation of images and media. The body becomes a site of conflict between inherited identity and an increasingly saturated digital world. Through surreal imagery, movement, ritual, and transformation, figures embody the tension between holding onto what was passed down and confronting what has been reshaped. PARAMIN exists between dance, fashion, and fine-art cinema: a meditation on cultural memory, media saturation, and the search for authenticity.

Director & Producer: Trey Denzyl
Talent: Trey Denzyl & Aiden Hill
Cinematographer & Editor: Zayden Phan
Music Composers: Hamraj Sidhu & Trey Denzyl
Makeup Artist: Chelsea Brennan
Set Design: Trey Denzyl & Terron Hill

Very special thank you to the lovely folks at Cineworks!