lessons on flight, 4:27 mins, 16 mm/DCP – 2024
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Shot on B&W 16 mm film, eco-processed with olives and hand coloured on site in rural Chile, lessons on flight examines the flight patterns of the green-backed firecrown hummingbird.
lessons on flight is an exercise in site-based eco processing, where the film’s shooting site also provided the materials for processing. The film was shot in rural Chile, at the site of the filmmaker’s father’s childhood home, and was developed with olives freshly picked in the yard. The oil from the olives left a cast on the film that interacted with food colouring placed on the film following fixing, leaving unique reticulations and other markings. The sound was recorded with contact mics attached to leaves on site and processed with a sound app; the sound is used as output, without change.
The appearance of a hummingbird is an omen, a message from a soul that is no longer physically with us. With a beginning that resembles Muybridge’s investigations of movement, Cecilia Araneda in her film Lessons on Flight pays tribute to the hummingbird as a mythical bird, and with a unique rhythm that turns the material of film into a deep landscape, over which the spectral trace of the hummingbird dances with greater cadence. The pictorial material nature in the film situates us in a microscopic and material vision of the inside of a plant, or perhaps in a spiritual dimension. The film emerges from the artist’s personal experience of observing her grandparents’ house in Chile, experiencing mourning over exile and the passing of the years. The slight movements and the multiple possible directions create a moving tribute to the beauty and wisdom of a being who inhabits this Earth, flying, vibrating spiritually with the fluttering of its wings, soaring over mourning and tragedy; summoning a hopeful sound that resonates, above all, from within. / Ivonne Sheen – S8 (Spain)
AWARDS
• Finalist, Concurso Internacional de Artes Mediales y Audiovisuales Juan Downey (Santiago, Chile), 2025
FESTIVAL SCREENINGS
• International Film Festival Rotterdam (Rotterdam, Netherlands) – 2024
• Ann Arbor Film Festival (Ann Arbor, USA) – 2024
• Festival des Cinémas Différents et Expérimentaux de Paris (Paris, France) – 2024
• RIDM: Montreal International Documentary Festival (Montreal, Canada) – 2024
• Antimatter (Victoria, Canada) – 2024
• FIC Viña (Viña del Mar, Chile) – 2024
• Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano (Havana, Cuba) – 2024
• FIFA: Festival International du Film Sur L’Art (Montreal, Canada) – 2025
• Experiments in Cinema (Albuquerque, USA) – 2025
• Dawson City International Short Film Festival (Dawson City, Canada) – 2025
• Athens International Film + Video Festival (Athens, USA) – 2025
• S8: Mostra de Cinema Periférico (A Coruña, Spain) – 2025
• MUTA (Lima, Peru) – 2025
• Vancouver Latin American Film Festival (Vancouver, Canada) – 2025
• Ottawa International Animation Festival (Ottawa, Canada) – 2025
• RPM Festival (Boston, USA) – 2025
• Planet in Focus (Toronto, Canada) – 2025
• Engauge Film Festival (Seattle, USA) – 2025
• Festival Inflamável / Inflammable Festival (Florianópolis, Brazil) – 2025
• L’Alternativa (Barcelona, Spain) – 2025
• Brussels Independent Film Festival (Brussels, Belgium) – 2025
• Harkat 16 mm Film Festival (Mumbai, India) – 2025
• Traverse Vidéo (Toulouse, France) – 2026
• Montreal Underground Film Festival (Montreal, Canada) – 2026
• Flatpack (Birmingham, UK) – 2026
• Adriatikino (Fermo, Italy) – 2026
• Unarchive Found Footage Fest (Rome, Italy) – 2026
CURATED SCREENINGS
• The Botanical Turn, Dandelion Film Collective, curated by Franci Duran and Derek Jenkins (Hamilton, Canada) – 2024
• Nature = Queer, EQO and International Film Festival Rotterdam, at Roodkapje Art Gallery (Rotterdam, Netherlands) – 2024
• Birds on Record, Labocine (Brooklyn, USA) – 2025
• Vidéos de Femmes dans le Parc, GIV: Groupe Intervention Vidéo (Montreal, Canada) – 2025
• Sala de Artes Mediales, Biblioteca de Santiago (Santiago, Chile) – solo exhibit, 4 March / 12 April, 2026
• National Broadcast: CanalARTV (Santiago, Chile) – June 3, 5, 6, 7, 2026
• Red de Salas / Corporación Chilena de Video Tour, with five screenings at Casa Verde (Los Andes, Chile), Cineteca Nacional de Chile (Santiago, Chile) and CC Coyhaique (Coyahique, Chile)
Special thanks to Franci Duran, Elian Mikkola, Chad Tremblay, the Araneda Espinoza family and the Canada Council for the Arts for making this film possible.
In memory of María Laurina Espinoza Hernández, who planted the gardens the hummingbirds feed on, and who wished for this place to never be forgotten.
