The first wavelengths short film programme this year finally gives viewers a real international showcase. Sure, it’s a concern that this programme doesn’t have an African short, but a programme that hits five continents is quite the sight. Well, sight and sound, as the programme calls itself ‘Eye and Ear Control’, which rethinks sensory perception. Some shorts connect the sensory experience with political freedom, while others are just in this programme for the vibes. Either way, I hope my words below suffice in discussing one of the best films during this festival.

An open field is the opening location of Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik’s Revolving Rounds, depicting life in 3D. The film takes its viewers inside a greenhouse with a revolving rig of fluorescent lights, reminiscent of image carousels. There’s an unnerving moment here but it thankfully doesn’t go there as it shows layers within everyday life forms.

Next we have Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s The Diary of a Sky, a film showing the tragedy within simplicity. Abu Hamdan takes video clips of the sky above Beirut and Tripoli under terror from their southern neighbours. He contextualises these videos with data from the UN tabulating data between most of 2020 to the early months of 2021. During those months, the Apartheid state brazenly invades their airspace, filling their cities’ skies with psychologically altering noise pollution. Abu Hamdan adds further contextualization and points to Canada and other Western countries’ complicity in the Apartheid state’s terrorism. Important cinema that guides its viewers to show the emotional toll of noise and the silence that follows. Again, for context, the terror ended when the Apartheid State set its eyes on Gaza, three years before October 7.

October Noon, from Francisco Rodríguez Teare, is just as political but an approach that has its own complexities. Millennial hipsters in Chile tell campfire stories and then one fo the campfire stories ends up being about strikes. Again, for context, Chile’s recent transit strike eventually dominoed into the country recently overhauling its Pinochet era constitution. Politics makes its way through everyday conversation but there’s something funny about the framing here in a good way. The disjointedness of the images and sounds – duh – also comments on the subjectivity of history as it happens.

The programme’s penultimate short is A Black Screen Too from Rhayne Vermette, where white lines scream through black screens. All one needs to blow me away is something short and metal like the elastic images in this short. Shorts like this eschews narrative but then one can watch something like this and get anything from it.

Viewers can also associate elasticity with Archipelago of Earthen Bones — To Bunya from Malena Szlam’s images of Australian and Chilean forests. Again, this is pretty simple, as she superimposes images of different natural layers on top of each other. The dew of the earth has different colours here like stars in a sky, looking like a mini kaleidoscope. Through this collage-like technique, she makes mountains fly kilometres off the earth and uncovers mountains under the sea. It also points out the obvious thing as it shows flora and fauna, entire ecosystems living within Australia and Chile’s mountains. Pardon the high praise but I will never see anyone else’s nature shots on Instagram the same way after. Maybe there are political interpretations to the red sky but it just looks cool so we’ll leave it there.