The short film program will include 6 short films: works by Yen-Chao Lin, Alisi Telengut, lwrds duniam, Fallon Simard, Gabrielle Tesfaye, Lou Pipa, Esther Az, Barbara Carnielli, and Emily Pelstring.
The Spellbound project was originally commissioned by The Toronto Animated Image Society as a short film program in 2019 and has been expanded for The Witch Institute in 2021. Spellbound Expanded revisits themes revolving around regenerative and healing-based rituals found in spiritual practices outside of Christian dogmatism. These sacred spaces have the potency to be a catalyst for social change by generating an embodied consciousness that extends beyond patriarchal and colonial modes of being. The emerging reclamation of oppressed spiritual knowledge is now sustainably rooted through caregiving work, ancestral reconnections, and community building. We are all spellbound.
Kiko Pace (https://kikosounds.com) will be tailoring an opening and closing sound bath ceremony for the screening.
The screening will also be accompanied by a multimedia Collective Spell Package. The multimedia Collective Spell Package is a mailed offering that includes: postcards, stickers, notes on medicinal plant knowledge, and divination and meditation guides to co-create a better future. Each component is envisioned as a practiced manifestation of the themes explored in the screening Spellbound Expanded. Those who attend the screening will automatically be entered into a raffle to win this package.
This project is sponsored by the George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund at Queen's University.
Please Note: this event will not be recorded.
This stop-motion 16mm film offers an audiovisual meditation on the material animation of stones. The concept is inspired by Camillo Leonardi's "Speculum Lapidum", published in 1533, which describes the magical healing virtues of a variety of stones, categorized by colour. The character-based animated vignettes are inspired by the woodcuts in “De Hortus Sanitatis”, a natural history encyclopedia published in 1485, which details various methods of harnessing the power of gems. It was believed at the time that a given gem's powers could be absorbed through focused viewing. Proposing an analogy between this belief and attraction to cinema, this film offers audiences an opportunity to absorb the depicted stones’ energies by viewing their images. The title, Somnium Lapidum, or Dream Stones, is a reference to the imaginative content of the “Speculum Lapidum” and the dreamlike experience of cinematic viewership.
Sounds by Katherine Kline.
Supported by the Queen's University Fund for Scholarly Research and Creative Work.
- Year2016
- Runtime3:19
- FilmmakerEmily Pelstring
The short film program will include 6 short films: works by Yen-Chao Lin, Alisi Telengut, lwrds duniam, Fallon Simard, Gabrielle Tesfaye, Lou Pipa, Esther Az, Barbara Carnielli, and Emily Pelstring.
The Spellbound project was originally commissioned by The Toronto Animated Image Society as a short film program in 2019 and has been expanded for The Witch Institute in 2021. Spellbound Expanded revisits themes revolving around regenerative and healing-based rituals found in spiritual practices outside of Christian dogmatism. These sacred spaces have the potency to be a catalyst for social change by generating an embodied consciousness that extends beyond patriarchal and colonial modes of being. The emerging reclamation of oppressed spiritual knowledge is now sustainably rooted through caregiving work, ancestral reconnections, and community building. We are all spellbound.
Kiko Pace (https://kikosounds.com) will be tailoring an opening and closing sound bath ceremony for the screening.
The screening will also be accompanied by a multimedia Collective Spell Package. The multimedia Collective Spell Package is a mailed offering that includes: postcards, stickers, notes on medicinal plant knowledge, and divination and meditation guides to co-create a better future. Each component is envisioned as a practiced manifestation of the themes explored in the screening Spellbound Expanded. Those who attend the screening will automatically be entered into a raffle to win this package.
This project is sponsored by the George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund at Queen's University.
Please Note: this event will not be recorded.
This stop-motion 16mm film offers an audiovisual meditation on the material animation of stones. The concept is inspired by Camillo Leonardi's "Speculum Lapidum", published in 1533, which describes the magical healing virtues of a variety of stones, categorized by colour. The character-based animated vignettes are inspired by the woodcuts in “De Hortus Sanitatis”, a natural history encyclopedia published in 1485, which details various methods of harnessing the power of gems. It was believed at the time that a given gem's powers could be absorbed through focused viewing. Proposing an analogy between this belief and attraction to cinema, this film offers audiences an opportunity to absorb the depicted stones’ energies by viewing their images. The title, Somnium Lapidum, or Dream Stones, is a reference to the imaginative content of the “Speculum Lapidum” and the dreamlike experience of cinematic viewership.
Sounds by Katherine Kline.
Supported by the Queen's University Fund for Scholarly Research and Creative Work.
- Year2016
- Runtime3:19
- FilmmakerEmily Pelstring