REELING: Dance on Screen (Online Film Access)

HOW IT WORKS
On-Demand Films. A selection of the REELING: Dance on Screen films are organized into programs that are coming out over a period of days. These films are all online and available for viewing by donation.

BIG SCREEN. Mile Zero Dance and FAVA have curated a selection of Best in Show films to present at a late night outdoor screening. Join us on July 26 at 10 PM at MZD (9931 78 Ave NW) for the show on the BIG SCREEN.

We’re thrilled to announce the selection of curated films that will be screened on the MZD BIG SCREEN on JULY 26 at 10 PM!

REELING Headliner Program (in-person)
Runtime: 44:47

Taha, ua (one, two)
Ngaire Lyden-Elleray (Matriarchs Uprising)
BOLERO.S (France)
a drift in space (Canada)
Offering (Canada)
Shame (عيب) (Lebanon)
Le Peuple Manque/The people are missing (Spain)
Flamenco at the Shop (Canada)
In Petrichor Daze (Canada)

The Cost of Living (UK) | Directed by Lloyd Newson, the founder of DV8 Physical Theatre
Runtime: 20:00

A disparate group of dancers, preferring to express themselves through dance rather than speech, clash with each other and members of the local community.

ONLINE FILM ACCESS
The 2025 REELING: Dance on Screen Film Festival features films in six collections, these national and international shorts will be available for online viewing! Films will be sent to registrants throughout the festival run on the dates listed below and films can be viewed until August 30, 2025.

1. Human Relations | releasing July 14
2. Architecture | releasing July 16
3. Abstractions | releasing July 18
4. Matriarchs Uprising | releasing July 20
5. In Nature | releasing July 22
6. X-treme (films over 18 ratings) | releasing July 24

HUMAN RELATIONS | releasing July 14

Bronx Magic | Marta Renzi
USA

The everyday magic of dance is everywhere in a Bronx neighborhood. Near the ice cream truck, under the elevated train, and at the subway station, everybody becomes part of the daily dance.

Flamenco at the Shop | Rosanna Terracciano, Tracy Cumberbatch 
Canada

Flamenco at the Shop is dancer Tracy Cumberbatch’s love letter in film and dance to her dad’s auto shop which also held an important space for her flamenco dance studio. “It’s not a glamorous space, but my parents carved out a small section in the back mechanic bay to build a make-shift dance studio for us to use and make as much noise as we needed.” For over 14 years, Combie’s Auto has become a place for the Calgary flamenco community to come together and share their love of flamenco.

Rosanna Terracciano | Director, camera and editor
Tracy Cumberbatch | Concept and dancer

Dulce | Pedro H. M. Marques, Paul Bessa
Brazil

Dulce is a unique cinematic experience that portrays a couple’s relationship through body expression and dance. The film immerses the audience in a sensorial world, aiming to awaken deep and moving feelings with its visual poetry.

Shame (عيب) | Hadi Moussally
Lebanon

In the 19th century, in the Levant region, Salma Zahore, along with her parents and neighbors, participated in a photoshoot using a long exposure technique. At the end of it, Salma decided to take off her coat, revealing her body. Unaware of the chaos this gesture could cause within her circle, she did not know it could lead to shame (عيب).

Sincerely | Nhyira Oforiwaa Asante
United States

Sincerely, is a dance film that explores the pressures women of color face growing up too quickly in today’s world. It tells the story of a young woman who escapes the burdens of adulthood by retreating into a hazy and oversaturated, childhood fantasy. However, this utopia begins to crumble as hidden struggles and emotions become physical, disrupting it. Realizing that escape is impossible, she returns to her regular life, only to repeat the cycle of yearning for her lost youth and innocence.

ARCHITECTURE
releasing July 16

BOLERO.S | Mehdi Kerkouche
France

Ravel’s Bolero, thanks to its universalitý and contagious energy, transcends generations and cultures. Conceived for dance, it continues to inspire artists. Mehdi Kerkouche brings us his version of BOLERO.S, choreographed in keeping with his inclusive and visual universe, recounting the life of a youth in different scenes in Créteil.

100 M | Monika Szpunar
Poland

A short dance film based on a precise choreography of the camera and the dancer reflecting an individual journey through different stages of grief. Shot in a single take in a long industrial tunnel, within its strict time and spatial framework, ‘100m’ underlines the uniqueness of this intimate experience.

Ikigai | Marina Waltz
United Kingdom

Drawing on her background as a curator of contemporary art, Marina makes dark, surrealistic short films which playfully explore questions around conformism and dystopia.

Offering | Marlene Millar
Canada

OFFERING creates a meaningful and joyful convergence between the Migration Dance Film Project’s body percussion artists and emerging artists from dance (gigue, contemporary, street) and circus arts. The choreography uses the power of procession in Montreal’s urban borough of Little Burgundy to amplify its storyline of (re)imagined homescape in the era of mid-pandemic. The procession formed by movement artists from across communities weaves its way through urban corridors, neighbourhoods, green spaces — an uncoiled assemblage of nomadic storytellers anchored in the intimate knowledge of individual and shared experiences in unison. OFFERING imbues movement in stillness within our city and takes refuge in its powerful migratory patterns traced across our urbanscape.

Sister | Céline Loriente
France

One day, Léo sees and hears things that only he can perceive. Since then, Zoé has been wondering about how to be with him as a sister.

Le Peuple Manque (The people are missing) | Pau Pericas, Georgia Vardarou
Spain

Only the act of resistance resists death, whether the act is in the form of a work of art or in the form of human struggle.

ABSTRACTIONS
releasing July 18

Between the Lines | Rachel Hunter
Canada

Exploring linear composition in film, dance and fashion.

late_night_project | Erin Cairns Cella, Jascha Narveson
United States

Late night project is an ongoing dance video + sound collaboration in which new one-minute (or less) videos are created every nine days. A five- day visual countdown precedes each new visual installment within that nine day time keeper. The rhythm provides structure, predictability and accountability, creating a lifecycle, and cyclical ritual for the makers and those experiencing the work. The literal “late night” window in which this work is made influences the dreamy, albeit lucid, mood, vocabulary and tone of work.

The North Wind and The Sun | Anat Pollack
United States

Choreography is created through editing in a multichannel work with original audio.

Traces of Loss. 상실의 흔적 | jinyoung park
Republic of Korea

Park has been part of many choreography and video art projects as well as exhibitions
in Korea and Europe.

MATRIARCHS UPRISING
releasing July 20

Yinarr | Amelia Jean O’Leary

Yinarr is a glimpse into the discovery and exploration of Gamilaroi Woman, Amelia Jean O’Leary’s, journey with identity. Yinarr means ‘Aboriginal Woman’ in Gamillaray Langauge. With music, editing, filming and dance by O’Leary, she shares a raw physical depiction of the internal vortex of identity, sisterhood and culture. In this iteration of Yinarr, O’Leary reflects on how sisterhood and the Blak Matriarchy have strengthened her as Yinarr.

Nimîhtowin Askîhk | Jeanette Kotowich

The creative process of this work took many iterations in the embodied journey to uncover and reveal Nimîhtowin Askîhk. What has taken shape is our dynamic and complicated, yet beautiful relationship to Dancing the Land – Nimîhtowin Askîhk. As we sensitized ourselves to each landscape, it became clear that even in our heartfelt attempts to inhabit our surroundings without imposition, the Land itself has been imposed upon in irreversible & unavoidable ways. And so… we followed our intuition, senses and Spirit in the mindful extraction and shaping of this work. In collaboration with the Land we attuned our ideas to site, weather, sun, cloud, sky, tide and time of day. This process called for our whole selves to be in observation, integration, reflection, and creative activation. Nimîhtowin Askîhk means Dancing the Land in the Cree language.

Blakwork | Katina Olsen

Blakwork is a dance film collaboration of Wakka Wakka Kombumerri Choreographer Katina Olsen and Gomeroi poet and legal researcher Alison Whittaker. Created through yarns using inspiration from Alison’s book of the same name, Blakwork speaks to those who came before us, their work and the work we continue in their footsteps against all adversity in so-called Australia.

Mokimoki ( Fragrant Fern) | Kelly Nash  (Ngāpuhi, Ngāi Te Rangi)

Two queer women trace the entangled terrain of their relationship through body memories and fragmented stories that surface within a shared therapeutic body practice. Anchored by the native MokiMoki plant of Aotearoa, the fluid essence of water and the quiet strength of plants weave around them, cleansing and mending both body and spirit.

Taha, Ua (One, Two) | Ngaire Lyden-Elleray

Combining poetry, dance, and film, Taha, Ua (One, Two) navigates the grief of displacement, the kinship of community and the resistance of reconnection. The film explores what it means to be ‘home’ when from an Indigenous diaspora perspective.

Ch’odza | Raven Spirit Dance

Ch’odza is a Han word that translates into “She is dancing”. Ch’odza is a call to the world. In their dancing, these young dancers are a manifestation of Indigenous joy and hope. Their gestures are interwoven with the land and the water that surrounds them indelibly linking them to legacy and matrilineal power they all hold within. It is a reminder to dance with the land, that the world is beautiful and what powerful young Matriarchs we have leading us forward with bravery and grace.

IN NATURE

a drift in space | Kaya Joy Tsurumi
Canada

A drift in space is a dance film about three cosmic beings and a meandering astronaut who move through inner, outer and imaginary spaces.

Sapna | Namsang Limbu
Canada

Sapna is an experimental dance film that traverses the porous boundary between dream and memory, body and landscape.

FLOW | Shoko Tamai
United States

Renewal
Wild and pure,
A cycle of creation,
Through pain and strength.

Lettre à ma fille | Michael Maurissens
Benin

Unfolding on the beaches and streets of Benin, a heartfelt letter from a mother to her future daughter expresses the challenges and joys of growing up as a woman. Through song and dance, a tribe of women dispel fairy tales myths to center embodied values of feminine power: strength, independence, and self-worth. Their rebellious spirits find freedom and joy through the rhythms of their bodies as hands clap, shoulders shake, hips swirl, and feet stomp out their bold dreams of womanhood.

The creative spark that follows saying “I don’t know” | Glen MacKay
Croatia

A dance exploration film tapping into the excitement of a creative spark. For many, saying “I don’t know” is difficult. But the moments after saying I don’t know are the most exhilarating moments there is. It means we’re going to learn, discover or experience.

Le Poids du lieu, a virtual choreography in three acts. Act II: Field | Caroline Hayeur, Sarah Bild
Canada

In an abandoned city, in the middle of a field left barren by the harvest, on a deserted railway track, travels an autumnal figure transformed by the places she inhabits. First, a playful sprite who wanders the frontier between asphalt and wasteland under a sparrowhawk’s gaze, she changes form as she enters a flat stretch of farmland, now a nomad.Like migrating birds, the exile must make this journey to come back to the self. The meandering ends in the forest. Now a witch, this strange figure peacefully returns to the sand, the river, the plants and the roots.With a calm wildness, amidst the rustling of raven wings, she is absorbed into the earth, finding solace at last.

X-TREME (over 18+ ratings)

Cargo | Gizem Tataroglu
Canada

Migrants from different countries, fleeing war, political persecution, gender discrimination, and racism, urgently set out to escape to another country. They make an agreement with a human trafficker, who promises to take them illegally and immediately to another country. This meeting takes place in a deserted hangar, where there are massive cargo boxes.The human trafficker cuts eye-level holes in the boxes with a knife and forces the migrants to carry these boxes on their backs. This is similar to the punishment in the Greek myth of Sisyphus, who was condemned to carry a boulder on his back. The migrants soon begin to carry the boxes, which they will later be trapped inside, and which may even become their graves. In this dystopian world, everything is dark and terrifying.The human trafficker forces the migrants to hand over their valuable jewelry, such as bracelets and rings. He pushes and shoves them into the boxes. Through small holes at eye level in the boxes, the migrants manage to communicate with the outside world and realize the horrific trap they have fallen into. They have been caught in a trap after seeking freedom. This moment is expressed through dance and body language.Trapped inside the boxes, the migrants helplessly and frantically observe their surroundings. The protagonist begins to remember their past: how they once had a beautiful life, lost their child in a war in their homeland, and felt hopeless at their grave. Each migrant embarked on this journey in search of a “better life” and freedom.Throughout the process, their experiences are expressed artistically through dance. At the final stage of waiting, they all rebel and decide to tear open the boxes they are trapped in, fighting for their freedom. In their endless search for freedom, now they must rip apart these boxes to escape.

Territory | Zachary Chant
Australia

territory
A lone terrestrial being.
Nature and its inexplicable power
The empires we build and the terrain in which we lay claim
territory explores our relationship with the natural world,
and questions the ownership and possession of the lands in which we inhabit.

KINGDOM | Jagoda Turlik
Poland

Past, Present, Future – Three orders determining the space of life. Distant, but without each other they do not constitute truth. They coexist as a sum, a stream of experience. The past stores memories, evokes sentiments, but also hides demons. There is no future, it may be dangerous. The present forces you to decide in what direction to go “here and now”.

The future is enchanted in movement and nature; in the sky and green. You decide whether your “Kingdom” is a barren, frozen vastness in which you are only apparently the “Queen/King of Your Fate”, remaining dictated by the past, or whether you take your fate into your own hands and face what has been, accept the offered hand and not look back behind you. Go towards the sky and greenery. The compass is the heart and intuition. The Future is there. In you.

Luce | Valeria Galluccio
Canada

This work, created and performed by Valeria Galluccio, invites us to follow LUCE, the film’s protagonist: a mysterious creature with aquatic, alien and human traits. After landing on planet Earth, she must learn to live in a wooded area near a lake.Isolated, without any contact with other individuals of her species, she documents her presence on our planet using a video camera.The discovery of this new world goes through all her senses. This constant dialog between her deep internal being and the fundamental elements of nature is being translated, in the protagonist, into jerky movements which evolve unto a greater fluidity, an expression of her kinestesic pleasure and her vivacious curiosity.LUCE’s passage in front of us takes a profound yet light meaning, an intimate and empathetic contact with a unexplored nature, but close to us in its cosmic dimension.

Private Flowers | HAUI
Canada

In 1832, a Canadian Infantryman was hanged for making love with another man. The victim’s rank was Private, and his name was Flowers.

Commissioned by Toronto History Museums’ Artist Mentorship Showcase: Pride with Mentor Ashley Mckenzie-Barnes with additional support from the open space residency programme at the National Ballet, TD Bank, Pride Toronto and the Ontario Arts Council.

Created as part of Awakening with Toronto History Museums. Private Flowers is part of a series of art projects by Black, Indigenous and artists of colour, operating under the principles of anti-oppression, anti-colonialism and anti-racism and is part of the City’s efforts to address anti-Black racism.

FESTIVAL LINE-UP HIGHLIGHTS:

– Come to MZD on JULY 19 at 8 PM to view the collection of films. Then stick around for the festival opening party!
– DUALITY, an opening dance party in collaboration with Sokaris Studios, on JULY 19 at 9:30 PM
– Radical Dance Intensive: 2 weeks of wide-ranging classes and workshops starting JULY 14
–A late night outdoor screening by Mile Zero Dance and FAVA, on JULY 26 at 10 PM. The highlight selection will be on the BIG SCREEN and also feature The Cost of Living (UK) | Directed by Lloyd Newson, the founder of DV8 Physical Theatre! REELING on the BIG SCREEN on July 26 | $10 suggested donation
– All films will also be released and accessible for online
– REELING features film curation by Vancouver’s Matriarchs Uprising, featuring Indigenous female choreographers
– Curation of 26 national and international shorts