After six long years in the making, our award-winning short film, Wrought, is finally composted enough to bring to the silver screen! And so we invite you to join us at the West End Cultural Centre on June 27th and 28th for Wrought’s 2-night Canadian premiere and microbial gala exhibition!
The event features a screening of the 22 minute film alongside artist talks by filmmakers Joel Penner and Anna Sigrithur and composers Randolph Peters and Joshua Maikawa followed by an audience Q&A. After the film portion there will be an interactive microbial gala you’ll want to stick around for!
The gala reception is a complement to the film, celebrating all things fermented, composted and rotten, and featuring booths run by members of our community whose work puts them in proximity with microbes! In addition to offering microbial wares for sale, the booths will be educational and interactive, and fun for all ages! Here are the awesome community members who are bringing their microbial talents to the reception so far:
- Gâto Sourdough Bakery
- Compost Winnipeg
- Next Friend Cider
- River City Mushrooms
- Loaf & Honey cheese makers
… more to come!
Please note: We are still working it out, but more booths will be at the gala reception at the Monday (June 27th) event.
Thanks to the generous support of the West End Cultural Centre and Manitoba Arts Council, admission is free to all! However, due to COVID-19 capacity limits, we recommend you register in advance for your (free) ticket on our eventbrite, here: https://wroughtfest.eventbrite.ca
COVID-19 PROTOCOLS:
The SARS-CoV-2 virus is decidedly *not* a microbe we are celebrating, and community safety is of highest importance to us. Guests must be vaccinated and attendance for both nights will be capped according to the WECC’s reduced Covid-19 audience policy. Regardless of a lack of provincial restrictions, masks must be worn at all times in the event when not eating or drinking. Hand sanitizer will be available, and we ask that audience members practice caution and stay home if not feeling well!
ABOUT THE FILM:
What can the slimy, putrid, multi-species world of rot teach us about ourselves? With time lapse videography of rotting in action, Wrought creates an intimate, immersive world where decay can be beautiful, tender and even surprisingly human.
Wrought begins with that universal moment of disappointment: despite all best efforts, our food has gone bad. But instead of turning away in disgust, Wrought zooms in, approaching the usually hidden world of decay with curiosity and stunning time lapse photography. Spoiling dinner leftovers bloom with successions of geometric bacterial colonies. Yeasts churn and froth in the torrential flood of juice leaking from a decaying melon. Cheese is slowly engulfed by carpets of furry, green mould. But, the film asks, would rot by any other name still reek?
In answering this question, Wrought unfolds a larger story about the ways we humans construct categories for the world around us that can be limiting. It explores (and challenges) terms like spoil, ferment, compost and rot as it coaxes audiences to decompose these categories and their associated binaries: self and other, human and non-human, and nature and culture. As the film title implies, we are all forged out of the relationships that transgress such binaries; we are all, indeed, wrought.
Wrought was produced with the generous assistance of Manitoba Arts Council, Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Film & Music, the National Film Board of Canada, Winnipeg Film Group and contributors to our crowdfunding campaign.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Joel Penner (video production & editing, co-director) is a National Geographic-featured filmmaker and photography teacher who uses timelapses of plants and fungi growing and decaying to inspire people to see the beauty of everyday life. He has had showings of his work at film festivals in North America and Europe. Since finishing Wrought with collaborator Anna Sigrithur, he has begun work on a new film focusing on mosses shot with timelapse microscopy.
Anna Sigrithur (writer, narrator, co-director) is a writer and artist whose work explores ecologies, language, olfaction and food/ fermentation/rot. She ran an experimental research supper club in Winnipeg from 2013-2015, exploring invasive species and feral foods. In 2015 she spent time as an intern of Noma’s Nordic Food Lab in Copenhagen where she produced a series of audio documentaries about a summer spent living in a nomadic reindeer herding community in Sámiland. From 2016-2018 she produced two seasons of Ox Tales, a food history podcast for the Oxford Food Symposium in England. Until recently she worked as coordinator Fireweed Food Hub, a nonprofit community food distribution project in Winnipeg. Anna is now based out of Montreal where she is pursuing an MA in Media Studies at Concordia University. Her thesis is on rot.
Randolph Peters (composer) is an internationally recognized composer who works in a wide range of art forms and music media. As well as many symphonic, choral and chamber music works, he has composed for opera, theatre and dance, and has created more than 100 film and television scores for feature, documentary and animated productions.
Peters’ compositions have been presented around the world by artists such as percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, the Kronos and the Penderecki String Quartets, and conductors Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Marin Alsop, and Bramwell Tovey. His work includes commissions from the Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Calgary, Québec, Manitoba Chamber, and Edmonton Symphony Orchestras, the Hannaford Street Silver Band, and the Elmer Iseler Singers, among others. His operas include Nosferatu, commissioned by the Canadian Opera Company; Inanna, set to an original libretto by Margaret Atwood; and The Golden Ass, with an original libretto by Robertson Davies, premiered by the COC in 1999.
Joshua Maikawa (composer, compost chapter) is a filmmaker and composer based in Toronto, Canada. He began writing music at the age of 14, focusing on his interests in orchestral and cinematic genres. Soon after, he developed a passion for filmmaking and went on to complete a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production at York University.
While in school, Joshua directed a variety of award-winning shorts that went on to premiere at festivals across Canada. This was also when he began scoring his music to film. Since then, he has composed original music for a variety of short films with musical styles ranging from electronic, to horror, and even classical.
Joshua is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Music Composition at York, and continues to write music for the screen.
Doors - 6pm
Screening / Talks - 6:30-8:00pm
Gala - 8-10pm
Free
By Donation