a river holds a perfect memory
Water, labour, migration and diasporic memory coalesce in a transporting essay film connecting Jamaica and the UK. Assemblages of archival footage, 16mm and LIDAR scans mobilise water as a medium through which to connect disparate people across the flow of time and against the persistence of colonial erasures.
Programmer’s Note
Verdant, watery landscapes of Jamaica shine with radiance in Hope Strickland’s latest work, contrasting with archival footage of industrial Britain to explore different potentialities of water as a transporting and transformational force. Its soft gurgle is accompanied by chimes and birdsong, cultivating an atmosphere of gentle repose. As we journey down a river led by a tour guide, we are invited to listen by our captain. He asks “do we hold ancestral memories in our bodies?”, an invitation to reflect on diaspora and dislocation.
~ Myriam Mouflih
Director Biography
Hope Strickland is an artist-filmmaker and researcher from Manchester, UK with British-Jamaican heritage. Her work sits at the intersection of experimental film and documentary practices, moving across archival, analogue and digital formats in order to quietly sit across from and outside of time. Her practice wrestles with violence, disparate colonial landscapes and attempts to ask how we might live in a world and relate to one another with care whilst amongst and against systems of power and control.
Hope’s work has screened internationally at film festivals including the 59th New York Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Scotland and Exis Experimental Film Festival, Seoul. She was awarded the 2023 Aesthetica Emerging Art Prize.
Director Filmography
a river holds a perfect memory (2024), Holdings (2023), I’ll Be Back! (2022), If I could name you myself (I would hold you forever) (2021), Home Soon Come (2020)
My Senses Are All I Have to Offer
As Minhas Sensações São Tudo O Que Tenho Para Oferecer
Isadora Neves Marques’ subtle queering of the sci-fi genre tells a story of class, family, intimacy and the many distances between us. It follows Lourdes and Lana, a young couple who meet telepathically using “sensory pills”, a technology allowing unrestricted access to other’s sensations. When they visit the country house of Lourdes’ parents an unforeseen storm locks them indoors, bringing news of a missing child.
Programmer’s Note
Isadora Neves Marques continues her subtle investigations into technology through the lens of speculative fiction in this new work which loosely follows her previous film Becoming Male in the Middle Ages (2022), revisiting familiar characters decades later. With a playful yet delicate approach, she examines the depth of human connection and our yearning for intimacy. In this world, telepathy offers a way to forge relationships that transcend the corporeal. Through Lana and Lourdes’ evolving psychic dynamic the film explores whether an extrasensory bond might foster intimacy or invasion, and how one maintains personal space in such an interconnected union. Together with radiant cinematography by Marta Simões and hypnotic sound by Fá Maria, Neves Marques creates a richly sensual cinematic world that’s a pleasure to dwell in.
~ Alice Miller
Director Biography
Isadora Neves Marques (b. 1984, Lisbon) is a director, visual artist, and writer.
Her cinema releases include the short fiction films “Becoming Male in the Middle Ages”, which was awarded the Ammodo Tiger Short Award at its premiere in the IFFR – International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2022. Her films have been shown in festivals such as NYFF and TIFF, as well as in major art institutions like High Line, Reina Sofia, Castello di Rivoli, Pérez Art Museum of Miami, Tate Modern, and Palais de Tokyo. In 2022 she was the Portuguese Official Representation – Portugal Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia. She was also awarded a Pinchuk Future Generation Art Special Prize and the Present Future Art Prize for her art career. She is co-founder of the film production company Foi Bonita a Festa and of the poetry press Pântano Books.
Director Filmography
My Senses Are All I Have To Offer (2024), Becoming Male in the Middle Ages (2022), The Bite (2019), Art and Hurt (Toxic Image on the Street) (2018), Exterminator Seed (2017)
