If From Every Tongue it Drips
This cycle offers the opportunity to discover new voices in contemporary independent cinema and to present films that have not yet been distributed in theaters. This month, we present the first feature film of Sharlene Bamboat, a artist born in Pakistan, who is now based in Montreal, whose essayistic approach crosses language, colonial history and popular culture in order to inscribe her reflections in the present world..
The May 26 screening will be followed by a discussion about the film between Sharlene Bamboat and filmmaker Pablo Alvarez-Mesa.
If From Every Tongue it Drips is a film that uses the framework of quantum physics to explore the ways that personal relationships and political movements at once transcend and challenge time, space, identity and location.
The film follows the lives of a couple living in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, one of whom writes Rekhti, a form of 19th century, Urdu, queer poetry; the other, her lover, the camera operator. As their personal lives unfold on camera, the lines between rehearsal and reality, location and distance, self and other dissipate and reinforce one another.
Simultaneously, through poet and camera operator’s daily lives, interconnections between British colonialism, Indian nationalism and the impact of both on contemporary poetry, dance and music in South Asia is revealed.
Sharlene Bamboat
Sharlene Bamboat is a moving image and installation artist. Her practice often engages with translation, history and music, uncovering sensory and fractured ways of knowing. Film Programmer Jemma Desai states of her work, “[Sharlene’s] ongoing interest [lies in] the many ways that popular culture can be politicised, as well as the sensuous possibilities of its reclamation." Sharlene regularly collaborates with artists, musicians and writers to animate historical, political, legal, and pop-culture materials. Sharlene contributes regularly to the arts-sector in Canada, as programmer, artistic director, jury member for festivals, board member for not-for-profits arts organizations, and has been a member of various film/video collectives. Sharlene is based in Tio’tia:ke/Montréal, in Kanien’kehá:ka territory
