Three short films by emerging filmmakers based in Canada. This program is a vehicle. It could be a train locomotive, a car with a manual transmission or a speedboat.

It has Three Velocities that can be engaged by the conductor/driver/ pilot.

You could shift into

First Velocity, Daphne Xu’s A Thousand Year Stage, a confident and steady acceleration towards a vision of modernity.

The Second Velocity, The Taking of Jordan (All American Boy) by Kalil Haddad, is a fevered crank that breaks the stick shift.

The Third Velocity, Frank Varga’s My Last Film, is a manic depressive oscillation between the forward and reverse modes.

This trio composes a centrifuge of intensity with no center: bundled human arrowheads blast off into nameless void.

Dreams of progress are always posited in a yet-to-arrive future. Modernity has the energy of an ascension, of developing to be better yet somehow always falling short of the mark. Our first Velocity is that of a crescendo moving towards building “Asia’s largest train station” in the Xiongan New Area in China. The local residents and migrant workers, however, find time in the grand narrative of progress to exist outside of the binds of productivity. Karaoke, dance, and joy manifest in relation to the task at hand and a spacious gaze offers a meditation on the human effects of technological progress.

The All American Boy pedals into annihilation, all hands cocked on death drive, big white smile, thick blonde mop. Michaels are Steves are Jordans in this dissolute speed that blurs identity like the smudged face of a murdered boy. Screens of red rain down and make death contagious; here, in the choked circulation of money, rope, cum, innocence is lost -- or rather it's unveiled as a gold-drizzled ideal that never was there to begin with.

Reality manifests itself as a bad dream. The good dreams, dreams of the future, remain just that, dreams. Train tracks bisect empty horizons. The promise of escape comes in like Rapture’s klaxons. BOOM! Annihilation. This Third Velocity is a terminal velocity—in more ways than one… Rockets travel at fantastic speeds yet when we watch them breach the stratosphere, they appear to move in slow-motion until they get so far away that they don’t move at all. Remember that horizon that terrorized us four sentences ago? No? Me neither.

Filmmakers

Daphne Xu, Chinese-Canadian artist and filmmaker exploring the politics and poetics of place.

Kalil Haddad, filmmaker, director, editor and video artist known for Tiger Eats a Baby (2020), Farm Boy (2019) and As I Sat in His Car.... (2018). He resides in Toronto, Canada.

Frank Varga, filmmaker and founder of Halfplace Pictures. His focus is full script-to-screen production in the areas of narrative and commercial filmmaking.

Curators

Transmedia communication and exhibition design

Ana Paola Sánchez Villalón. Graphic designer from Mexico City. Her creative development leans towards animation. She is currently studying Visual Communication at the University CENTRO de Diseño, Cine y Televisión.

Iker Aguirre Gutiérrez. Illustrator and graphic designer from Mexico City, currently studying Visual Communication at the university CENTRO de Diseño, Cine y Televisión. His work is inspired by music, videogames, cinema and visual arts.

Sebastián Paz Flores. Graphic designer and tattoo artist from Mexico City. Currently studying Visual Communication at the University CENTRO de Diseño, Cine y Televisión. His practice is influenced by illustration from the 70's and contemporary art.

Sofía Ruiz Rodríguez. Graphic designer and artist from Mexico City. Her work is inspired by the way she lives her daily life and the relationships she finds day by day in everything that surrounds her. She is currently studying Visual Communication at the University CENTRO de Diseño, Cine y Televisión.