Malaika began filming her brother Jonny after the passing of their mother. The intimate act of filming became a delicate membrane connecting their dreams, conversations, and a form of cinematic prayer. From this, Orpheus emerged: a poignant map of grief, a meditation on loss, and a heartfelt Mourning Diary.
Material Ghosts.
-
La Cancha
La Cancha is a film about basketball—but also about the rhythm of shot, counter-shot, and the art of backdoor cuts, both on the court and in cinema. It captures a space shaped by people, time, and its own layered images. Within this space, a paradoxical community emerges: a rather negative community, unavowable yet united by shared rituals, games, and unspoken bonds. Filmed over four years, La Cancha assembles a mosaic of characters, a collage of moments, and the relentless pulse of countless intense games.
La Cancha (2024, 54′, Canada)
-
Fall Colours
Fall Colours, 16mm/Super 8, 9 min, 2022
A series of short sketches captured on 16mm and Super 8 during fall 2021. Fall Colours marks one of my early explorations of the diaristic form, using fragmentary observations and everyday moments as a mode of personal documentation.
Primarily shot on Kodak Ektachrome and scanned at Main Film.
-
If Not, Winter
“Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.”
― Mary Oliver -
like memories of houses you never lived in
I have said elsewhere that memory cannot exist without attention, and that where there was no attention at all paid to something, it is impossible for any recollection of it to remain or come back. Attention can be greater or lesser and according to the memory (natural or acquired) of the person, and according to the greater or lesser durability and keenness of the recollection which follows from it. It can indeed be minimal, but if any recollection at all is present, it is certain that some degree of attention preceded it, It can also be the case that someone is not aware, does not think, does not remember that he ever paid any attention at all to that thing that he remembers, but in such as case, which is not uncommon, he is deceiving himself. Perhaps the attention was involuntary, perhaps it was even against his will, but it was no less attention for all that. If the particular thing struck him, made him pause, even only momentarily, even only very slightly, even decidedly against his will, even if he immediately turned his mind away from it, that is enough, the attention was there; that it struck him is the same as making him pay attention, however little and for however short a time, but making him do it in spite of himself. (Z3737) Leopardi – Zibaldone
