By: Clara Xu, SFU Student
The 10th annual Festival of Recorded Movement, also known as the F-O-R-M Festival, ran in Vancouver from November 7 to 22. As a hybrid film festival, F-O-R-M programming prioritized youth artists and artists from intersectional and marginalized communities. As a member of the F-O-R-M Youth Jury, my responsibilities were to watch all of the youth films, select a winner for the Youth Impact Award, and provide a write-up discussing my reasoning for my selections. Being a part of the festival gave me such a great opportunity to express my creative opinions, and to explore a selection of groundbreaking art.
Through the F-O-R-M digital library, I watched the program Dreammaking in Frame — a collection of films playing in a dreamlike stance. Each film created this effect in different manners. Dreamscapes played with videos and audio full of texture, creating sensations in the body like when one listens to ASMR. Chrome and Ai Ki Do: The Art of Peace portrayed reflective flashback scenes with slower framerates, while using back lighting and side lighting to highlight the martial artists’ posture and movements. TATATA superimposed clips upon clips of short videos on top of each other, creating shadowy figures and silhouettes. I felt most awed by A Ki Do: The Art of Peace, when the filmmakers used a montage of moving figures, such as car headlights on city streets, billowing clouds, crashing waves, and, finally, a single drop of water in a lake, to guide the viewer through the martial artist’s emotional state as he performed his moves.
I also attended the live watch party of Public Screens: A Body Uncontained — a series of eight contrasting short films. These films have been screened on loop in art galleries, outdoor screens, and cultural centres across Metro Vancouver, making this program more accessible and flexible to audiences both in terms of time and space. These films were short and sweet, focusing on topics including migration and dancing in a wheelchair. I felt most connected to the films that quickly and firmly established their characters and inciting events, and that followed through with a clear narrative structure throughout the entire film.
Every film at F-O-R-M tells a deeply unique story, reflecting each artist’s cultural background, lived experiences, and wishes for the future.
As we move through our lives, we must always be conscious of the visible and hidden pieces of identity that make the whole of each person, a lesson I learned after my experiences at the festival.
