2026 Films

Nachi Bakal and Camila Donoso (Chile) YOUTH
World Premiere
Duration: 6:27

In Santiago, a community of waackers led by Cami HT and Oscar Manuel is dedicated to teaching classes and organizing events to grow this lesser-known dance style. Matu introduces us to the classes through personal experience, taking us on a journey from frustration to self-acceptance and a sense of community. Cami HT and Oscar Manuel teach us about characterization and the creative process, while waackers Mati and Edu reveal the inner world of the dance through an on-camera performance accompanied by voiceovers sharing their feelings.

Director: Nachi Bakal and Camila Donoso
Cinematographer: Nachi Bakal and Camila Donoso
Dancers: Pandamonio, Cami HT, Edu Salinas, Matías Méndez and Oscar Manuel

Juá Silva Leindecker (Brasil) YOUTH
Duration: 9:23
Canadian Premiere

[ Salvador, Bahia] It crosses by the São Pedro clock; passes along Rua do Cabeça; cuts through Largo Dois de Julho; enters Rua do Meio. ROTA is the encounter with new possibilities of imagining surreal daily lives at the crossroads of the concrete jungle.
For those who look closely and have the chance to dance with the path. Not every day, but almost.

CAST / ELENCO
Roman The Kunty
Iraê Kiriri
Thalieta Crodi
Philipe Estevão
Brisa Okun
Juá Leindecker
DIRECTED BY / DIREÇÃO
Juá Leindecker*
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR / ASSISTÊNCIA DE DIREÇÃO
Flora Leles*
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY / DIREÇÃO DE FOTOGRAFIA
Flora Leles
EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION / PRODUÇÃO EXECUTIVA
Juá Leindecker
Flora Leles
SCREENPLAY BY / ROTEIRO
Juá Leindecker
Flora Leles
COLOR GRADING / COR
Juá Leindecker
EDITING / MONTAGEM E EDIÇÃO
Juá Leindecker
ASSISTANT CAMERA / ASSISTENTE DE FOTOGRAFIA
Tempuh Carvalho
PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS / ASSISTENTES DE PRODUÇÃO
Dave Barros
Camila Nantes
Tempuh Carvalho
GRAPHIC DESIGN / PUBLICITY / DESIGN GRÁFICO E DIVULGAÇÃO
Juá Leindecker
SOUNDTRACK / TRILHA SONORA
Coisa 1 – Letieres Leite e Orquestra Rumpillezz
Coisa 4 – Moacir Santos
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS / AGRADECIMENTOS
Byoncinha
ROG
Lara Boker
Agradecimento especial aos passageiros e moradores do 2 de julho.
(Special thanks to the passengers and residents of 2 de Julho.)
PRODUCTION / FINANCIAL SUPPORT / REALIZAÇÃO E APOIO FINANCEIRO
Este projeto foi realizado com o apoio do Edital de Incentivo a Ações Artísticas PIBEXA/2025 da PROEXT/UFBA.
(This project was carried out with the support of the PIBEXA/2025 Artistic Actions Incentive Notice from PROEXT/UFBA.)

Aysia Tse (Canada) YOUTH
Vancouver Premiere
Duration: 3:01

CURRENTS explores the fluid bodymind in fluid space, engaging the tensions that come with embodying a multiplicity of identities. Moving through watery space as a site of the in-between, the unsure, the unresolved, the not-yet-known, the work leans into a feeling of ambiguity, transformation and the possibilities that emerge from movement.

The work dreams towards new ways of relating to the self that does not require a fixed answer, but allows for space to process, articulate, unfold, or to reject the need for definition entirely.

Director, editor and performer: Aysia Tse
Sound designer: Kurtis Perrie
Cinematographer: Jasmine Myers

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

Joanne Park (Canada) YOUTH
Duration: 6:47

In an Adjoining Room is a memoiristic street dance film exploring dance in the form of Krump and Waving functions as a liminal space for self regulation and connection.

Director: Joanne Park
Dancers: Joanne Park and Colby Mclean
Videographer: Devon Meadows
Sound by: Adam Smith

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

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

Xiaolu Wang (USA) Emerging
Canadian Premiere
Duration: 9:06
Content warning: flashing and dizzying images

A dragon dance troupe, an aikido class, an ice skating rink. Three scenarios or scenes through which the sensation of falling, or learning to fall, become metaphysical ruminations on modes of existence that draw strength from letting go.

Director: Xiaolu Wang
Cinematographer: Xiaolu Wang
Editor: Xiaolu Wang
Sound Designer: Dominic Bonelli*
Dialogue in Mandarin Chinese: Feifei Zhang* and Xiaolu Wang
Ice Skater: Kenji Yee*
Lion Dance Troupe: Hoàng Phúc Lion Dance*
Aikido Dojo: Chicago Aikikai*

Julia Kushnarenko (Belgium) EMERGING
Canadian Premiere
Duration: 25:00

When the Chair Fell into the Void is a hybrid film blending documentary and dance. Anonymous migrants, forced to flee their countries, express their feelings of disconnection and question notions of identity and belonging. Their untold stories emerge in an urban landscape, while the movements of masked dancers are guided by emotions and cathartic memories.

Director: Julia Kushnarenko
DOP: Victoire Bonin
Choregrapher : Manuel Ronda
Sound engineer: Anastasia Koutsonanou, Montserrat Mancilla, Zlata Veresniak
Editing: Julia Kushnarenko
Sound editing/design: Julia Kushnarenko
Mixing: Aurélien Lebourg
Color grading: Xavier Dockx

Jude Caudeville (New Zealand) YOUTH
Canadian Premiere
Duration: 3:44

A short film directed by 17 year old Jude Caudeville that explores the themes of human connection and the significance that the natural environment has on everyday life. The film explores these concepts through a physical conversation between two young Māori dancers to further visualise the friction between the modern cityscape and the natural land that surrounds them.

Director/DOP: Jude Caudeville
Writers: Jude Caudeville, Ehetere Rua and Sheldon Rua.
Dancers: Ehetere Rua and Sheldon Rua
Composer: Nils Bourotte

Adrián Villa-Dávila & Andrés Prado (Columbia) EMERGING
Canadian Premiere
Duration: 10:50

Sheltering Gestures traces the ritual and spiritual movements revived by a group of young dancers who witnessed the gradual disappearance of the traditional Danza de las Tabliteras. Determined to bring it back to life, they learned its rhythms and choreography from the four remaining elders who still carried the dance in their bodies. Once again, these gestures echo the movements that decades ago filled the community of San Antonio, Bolívar, with pride, vitality, and collective spirit.

Director, Cinematography, Editor: Adrián Villa-Dávila & Andrés Prado
Production: TRAGALUZ
Dancers: Danzas y enseñanzas de mis abuelos
Director of the dance group: Javier Serpa Toloza
Art and Costumes: Mónica Bastos Baldrich, Ana Días
Musicians: Bernardo Toloza, José de la Rosa Mejía, Carlos Ardila

Kizza Teflon Moses (Uganda) EMERGING
Vancouver Premiere
Duration: 17:00

“Amazina Mbuyaga" which translates from Luganda as "dance is a wave," is a poignant dance film that delves into the profound and transformative power of dance, particularly as experienced by Joseph Tebandeke, a contemporary dance artist with a disability. The project aims to challenge ingrained societal norms and misconceptions surrounding dance, advocating for its inherent universality and boundless potential for self-expression, irrespective of an individual's physical structure or ability. The film's central theme revolves around inclusivity and the breaking of barriers. It posits that dance is an art form that transcends professional boundaries, making it accessible to everyone.

Director: Kizza Teflon Moses
Cinematographer: Bukenya Mathias
Dancer: Tebandeke Joseph

Abbey Richens (Canada) YOUTH
World Premiere
Duration: 4:33

tennis girl is a film about accepting yourself, your competitive nature, your clumsiness, your insanity. She misses the ball, fucks up and feels like she’s gonna hurl. So much intensity, so much upheaval - and what for? Who for? This packaged up, dolled up, tied in a bow girl - is that who should be playing on the court? Or the raw, unabashed, awkward one? The one who doesn’t always get along with others or appear graceful, the girl on the inside dying to get out. What would she want?

Director: Abbey Richens
Cinematographer: Shako
Dancer: Griffy Crespeigne
Editor: Abbey Richens

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

Paweł Weremiewicz (Poland) YOUTH
Duration: 3:06

Nocturna is a visual essay about the nocturnal state of our desires and minds. It was not crafted to change lives, or hope for a better future, or make any clear statement. It was created simply to express what it feels like to be lost.

Dir and DP - Paweł (pablo) Weremiewicz ⁨
⁩
Costumes and makeup - Wiktoria Mirosz
1AC - Piotr Hałas
1AD - Hanna Siodłak
“nocturn” apparition 1 - Agata Hübner
“nocturn” apparition 2 - Nicole

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

Parmida Hamdollazadehkive (Sweden) EMERGING
World Premiere
Duration: 9:51

ONCE UPON A TIME IN STOCKHOLM is a coming-of-age dance film about diaspora, identity, and freedom. Through movement and music by Mansa, dancers navigate Stockholm’s unspoken social demands, tracing the tension between conformity and self-expression in an intimate journey toward liberation.

Director: Parmida Hamdollazadehkive
Cinematographer: Malin LQ
Dancers: Marvin Kouassi, Vera Lundell, Binta Bojang, Claudia Cassibba Cunningham, Amah Gilmore, Sebastian Holmström, Amir Faradji, Mambegay Joof, Amanda Rodriguez
Choreographer: Mona Namér
Costume Design: Emma Dock
Producer: Feven Kiflom

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

Glo Romy (Canada) EMERGING
Vancouver Premiere
Duration: 7:53

RHINO traces a Black Krumper's journey, navigating the space between vulnerability and strength. Following Jamari “Rhino” Whittaker in Toronto, the film reveals how raw movement becomes both armor and confession, turning lived experience into shared Black expression.

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!

Liam Minnebo (Netherlands) EMERGING
Canadian Premiere
Duration: 17:33
Content Warning: Contains flashing lights

A young woman seeks calmness in the privacy of her home. Instead, she is pulled into a cascade of conflicting perspectives on environmental pollution. Thrifters, activists, and corporate figures flood the room. Surrounded and unable to retreat, she is forced to move through the noise, guilt, and contradiction that shape contemporary environmental discourse.

Directed by Liam Minnebo*
Written by Liam Minnebo & Klaske Duin
Director of photography: Yoel Matan*
Choreographed by Nikki Duin*
Original music by Thom Holt*

Executive producer: Moreno Koning
Produced by Liam Minnebo
1st assistant director: Sven Limonard*
2nd assistant director: Klaske Duin*
Acting coach: Megan Minnebo
Production support:
Esmee Brouwer
Sanne Haak
Emma van Os
Wilco Minnebo
Catering: Lucia Sugiarti & Bonny Supriyanti
Stunt coordinator: Edward van Tongeren

1st AC: Samuel Bommezijn
2nd AC: Jane van Luinen
3rd AC: Rick de Jager
Gaffer: Stan Veldt
Best boy: Eli Moran Odicio
Art director: Jane van Luinen
Set dresser: Anne Alberti
Make-up: Joy Voorneman
Make-up assistant: Leah Chang
Stylist: Klaske Duin

Editor: Liam Minnebo
Sound design: Onne Roncken & Liam Minnebo
Foley: Liam Minnebo & Klaske Duin
Musical sound effects: Thom Holt
Re-recording mixer: Onne Roncken
Grading: Thijs Kern
Visual effects: Liam Minnebo
Graphic design:
Liam Minnebo
Roos Haanstra
Morris Groot

Storyboard artist: Roos Haanstra
BTS: Rick de Jager

Talent:
Nikki Duin

Segara Lorber
Casey Pronk
Beau Dobbe
Sofie Schouten
Mauri Kierindoongo

Mea-Ly Verhoef
Eva Ruhulessin
Tirza Winkelman
Marc Daniel Zeldenthuis
Yun Kan

Tulum Stainoff
Nikki van Rijswijk
Jada Lynn van Mildert
Lulu Verstegen
Krijn Heijnen
Naomi Osinga
Isabelle Bouweir
Stavali Portegijs
Eden Manga-Nkoy

Voice-over: Moya Gorodecky and Klaske Duin