The Body Undone Q&A – “The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open”

The Body Undone: In Conversation with Loss is a programme of film screenings and discussions organised by Sana Rizvi for Oyoun's EMBODIED ARTS FESTIVAL. The selected films look at various kinds of loss held by different bodies - with a focus on storytelling from new voices. Using film, an embodied memory in itself, an invitation is made to reflect on the question: can we discover new possibilities in the workings of loss and grief by allowing spaces for these feelings to be held and acknowledged in an embodied way?

For this Q&A event, Sana Rizvi will be talking to The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open directors: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn. You are invited to join in the conversation. 

This event will take place on zoom, you can register here. Please note that the zoom discussion will be live-streamed on Oyoun's online platforms - YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook.

The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open will be available for 12 hours starting at 14:00 on 12th April.

Contact us at hallo@oyoun.de to get sent the link and password to view the film. (This is limited to people in Germany) 

"Inspired by the poetry of Meena Kandasamy, the writings of Christina Crosby and Balbir Krishan’s art, I began my reflections on embodied memories connected to loss and grief. Their work helped me map new areas of inquiry and pose questions away from a more conventional outlook on the linear notions of loss’s predestined path, in a culture frantic for resolution. And instead, look at loss as holding social, political, and aesthetic implications for the body. A loss that doesn’t rely on linearity but that is profoundly intimate, from the deep space and time of the self. One that is birthed from the deepest parts of our bodies and times. Moreover, from this position of embodied knowing, could (re) engaging with loss generate sites for memory and history, rewriting of the past and reimagining the future? And could this engagement with loss: the irrecoverable, become, paradoxically, the condition of a new anti-colonial hope and agency." - Sana Rizvi

The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Kathleen Hepburn
105” | Canada/Norway | 2019 | English

Two Indigenous women from vastly different backgrounds find their worlds colliding as one of them, Rosie, is fleeing a violent domestic attack. What begins as an urgent and terrifying escape tentatively expands as the women weave a fragile bond in their short time together while navigating the complexities of motherhood, class, race, and the ongoing legacy of colonialism.

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is a filmmaker, writer, and actor based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is Blackfoot from the Kainai First Nation (Blood Reserve) as well as Sámi from northern Norway. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia in Indigenous Studies with a Minor in Women's and Gender Studies. Tailfeathers was the 2018 Sundance Institute Merata Mita Film Fellow and is an alumni of the Berlinale Talent Lab, the Hot Docs Accelerator Lab, the CFC/NFB/Ford Foundation Open Immersion Virtual Reality Lab, the Whistler Film Festival Aboriginal Film Fellowship, and the International Sámi Film Institute Indigenous Film Fellowship. The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open is her debut narrative feature.

Kathleen Hepburn is a Vancouver born writer and director whose debut feature, Never Stead Never Still, which Variety Magazine calls a "stoically broken-hearted debut," premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017 and was awarded Best Canadian Film and Best Director by the Vancouver Film Critics Circle, as well as Special Jury Prize at the Dublin International Film Festival.She holds an MFA in Creative Writing, and a BFA in Film Production from the Universities of Guelph and Simon Fraser respectively.

Directors/ Writers: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Kathleen Hepburn
Produced by: Tyler Hagan, Lori Lozinski
Producer: Alan R. Milligan
Co-Producer: Dyveke Graver
Cinematographer: Norm Li
Editor: Christian Siebenherz
Sound Design: Håkon Lammetun
Original Score: Øystein Braut
Cast: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Violet Nelson

EMBODIED ARTS FESTIVAL

Curators, artists and cultural practitioners have been exploring identities, belonging and embodied memories through diasporic, decolonial and queer perspectives as part of Oyoun’s first curatorial focus: EMBODIED TEMPORALITIES. The outcomes, encounters and queries will be presented and celebrated during the EMBODIED ARTS FESTIVAL from 8th - 18th April. View all events here.