Waking up in hospital. A shopping list, a wildfire, the urban sprawl and a modern-day pirate. Soft collisions of memory and dream. Three films that trace the sometimes imperceptible, always permanent impressions that capitalism leaves on our everyday lives.
Hey Sweet Pea – Parental ageing and an existential wave collide in fun and surprising ways in the suburbs of LA. Dislocated B-roll, meandering voicemails, and readings from the 1984 children’s sci-fi movie The Neverending Story combine to situate our collective grief in the hazy mundanities of everyday life.
Golden Dragon – Vicheka wakes up in hospital, adrift in a world of dreams and memories. With the help of a local nurse, he sets about piecing together the fragments of his past that have led him back to the city of his childhood. Boren Chhith’s delicate drama observes the interplay between personal trauma and national transformation, visualised through the shifting urban landscapes of contemporary Cambodia.
Mother of Fog – Farah Al Qasimi’s genre defying work questions Western-centric historiographies of the Gulf by engaging the mythic figure of the pirate. Departing from a fictional retelling of the 1819 siege of Al Dhayah fort Qasimi constructs a multi-layered portrait of imperialism on the high seas from the perspectives of an ancient jinn, the ghost of an Al Qasimi pirate, a Jack Sparrow Impersonator and a Victorian naval officer.
Hey Sweet Pea | Dir. Alee Peoples | United States | 2023 | 12m | English
Golden Dragon | Dir. Boren Chhith | Cambodia | 2023 | 17m | Khmer with English subtitles
Mother of Fog | Farah Al Qasimi | United Arab Emirates | 2023 | 20m | English and Arabic with English subtitles
Content warning: Mild physical violence, suicide/self-harm, mental health issues, loud noises