Canadian Premiere
The odds and ends within a single cabinet spark an interior rumination of the self, family, and culture that form the identity of an American-born Asian woman. This experimental work uses repetitive images and animated sequences, complemented by a self-reflective narration, to build a compelling and dense montage which explores relationships between words, images, and language structures. The film is impressionistic of how we gather disparate bits of feelings and memories and somehow piece them together to make sense of them in different ways. Empire of My Melodious Mind is a wonderful example of experimental film finding new ways of experiencing and expressing our perceptions of self, meaning, and things that bind us to our past.
Community Partner
Rachel Lin
USA
2022
In Chinese and English with English subtitles
Featured in:
International Shorts: Personal Journeys
The films in this shorts program are all about discovery. Beautiful and thought-provoking voyages of internal and external discovery that honour relations and history, while encountering stimuli that promote a new understanding of self.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Madonna: Truth or Dare
A year in the life of Madonna at the height of her fame, touring Blonde Ambition through 1990. There's concert footage, but the movie is also daringly truthful about life behind the scenes — not that Madonna is every really off-stage.
Honeyjoon
A mother and her 20-something daughter take a holiday together in the Azores to mark the anniversary of the loss of their husband and father -- but maybe the honeymoon package wasn't the best idea...
Another World
This hit anime from Hong Kong gives us an unpredictable, sometimes darkly karmic tale taking place on either side of the afterlife involving a headstrong princess with bad karma and the spirit guide who tries to help her get on a better path.
Credits
Producer
Jeannette Louie
Screenwriter
Jeannette Louie
Original Music
Gen Rubin
Director
Jeannette Louie
Jeannette Louie is a Chinese American filmmaker creating cinematic tales that express the conflict of being. Rumination, speculation, and cogitation rule the minds of her protagonists as they ask, “What am I?” Known for her award-winning films, Amygdala (2013) and The Land Within (2017), her visionary films screen globally, combining animation, narrative, and documentary means.
