Shorts Program 2: Freeforms

Iyabo Kwayana, Babetida Sadjo, Tarek El Sherbeny, Julia Mallory, Taoheed Bayo, and Mark Odumuyiwa in person for Q&A

A collection of poetic, daring and stylistic shorts that take us on a contemplative emotional journey.

By Water
Iyabo Kwayana, 2022, USA, 12m
New York Premiere
In this animated short, an unlikely hero’s journey into his own memories becomes a vehicle for reconciliation and healing for himself and his sibling.

Buzz
Mohamed Fawi, 2022, Sudan, 20m
English and Arabic with English subtitles
North American Premiere
While her situation is deteriorating, a sick mother watches her son and daughter going through her tragedy and their new reality.

Hématome
Babetida Sadjo, 2022, Belgium, 19m
French with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Twenty-five years later, Judith finally dares to break her silence and seek justice for the rape that she suffered as a child. She bitterly discovers that a trial will not take place. Thirsting for justice, she confronts the pedophile who shattered her life.

Ààrẹ
Taoheed Bayo and Mark Odumuyiwa, 2022, USA, 4m
Yoruba with English subtitles
Ààrẹ is a movement and dance performance piece that serves as archival preservation of cultural heritage and a symbolic representation of personal identity in a commemorative manner. Ààrẹ also includes the study of ewi (poems), oriki (panegyric), and the recitations of the late Adebayo Faleti in Tunde Kelani movies, among other Yoruba relevancies.

He’s Dead Now
Tarek El Sherbeny, 2022, Egypt, 12m
Arabic with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Hazem is distraught after his family secrets are made public when his mother decides to expose his late father’s sexual affairs during his funeral rites.

Yuri
Baky Dia, 2022, France, 12m
French with English subtitles
Chris Dolo is a technical engineer for Aqua-Space, a company involved in several controversies about the privatization of drinking water and the lack of it everywhere. He is also the father of Yuri Dolo, an 11-year-old genius with a passion for astrophysics who dreams of another life in the stars. As the  two characters go about  their daily lives, affected by the absence of a maternal figure, a supernatural presence seems to be watching them.

Grief Is the Glitch
Julia Mallory, 2022, USA, 3m (screens with open captions)
New York Premiere
Grief Is the Glitch is a visual and sonic meditation on the disorienting experience of loss. Mallory moves through an encounter with an oracle-like figure to archival footage of her late son, Julian, as he reflects on the impact of young lives lost to violence.

The Truth About Alvert, the Last Dodo
Nathan Clement, 2022, Réunion/Switzerland, 17m
Réunion Creole with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
On Réunion Island, little Lunet and his grandfather Dadabé set off on a quest to turn a chicken into a dodo bird whose magic feathers might save the child’s sick mother.

This screening of Shorts Program 2: Freeforms is co-presented by 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair.

  Closed captions and audio descriptions are available for the film, By Water, with our capti-view devices.

Open captions are available for the film, Grief is the Glitch.