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
A Sad and Beautiful World
This Lebanese love story chronicles the romance between a level-headed businesswoman and a romantic restauranteur across several decades in wartorn Beirut. It's funny, charming, melancholy and you'll feel it all.
How to Divorce During the War
Screenwriter Vytus is left reeling when on successive days his wife demands a divorce and Russia invades Ukraine. Blazevicius' masterful feature emerges as an engrossing satire about virtue signaling, nationalism, good intentions, and survival modes.
Edie Arnold is a Loser + Q&A
Loaded with breakneck gags in the spirit of Scott Pilgrim, but with a distinctly female-centered point of view, Megan Rico and Kade Atwood's hilarious teen comedy hits VIFF Centre on its 16 city whistlestop North American tour. Filmmaker Q&A.
The Sun Never Sets
At the suggestion of her much older (divorced) boyfriend, Wendy (Dakota Fanning) takes a summer to reevaluate her life and date other people. She's reluctant at first, but then reconnects with an old flame... A gentle indie comedy from Joe Swanberg.
Hanging by a Wire
The Himalayas, Aug 22, 2023: a cable car bearing 8 passengers (six of them schoolkids) is left dangling 900 feet above the ground when two out of three cables snap. This nailbiting documentary recounts the increasingly frantic rescue attempts.
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.