No Borders x Nowness Asia: Stories of Heartland and Soul
We are thrilled to announce our upcoming collaboration with Nowness Asia, for which we will be curating films every month and creating more space for independent POC filmmakers. As we journey into the #NBfilms space, we are so excited to celebrate and share stories from around the world.
Over the last few years, we have developed a truly special relationship with Nowness Asia, including the debut of our first short film, A Return to Our Roots, a narrative on the artisans behind our first No Borders in-house collection. We’ve also worked to curate films for our #NBexperiences over the years. At our recent pop-up in New York, we had the honor of screening a beautiful collection of Nowness Asia’s short films and meeting many of the directors who attended our event.
In the next few weeks, we’re bringing you the films screened during our event in NYC. This week’s selection is stories of Heartland and Soul.
Rituals: The 99 Names of God by Yumna Al-Arashi explores the magnetism and soul of Islamic tradition.
“Piecing together the old and the new, I aimed to create dreamlike imagery that breathes fresh air into a subject rarely seen in a positive light. The importance of geometry, nature, spiritual connectivity, style, meditation and feminine power are components of Islam that the modern media have failed to depict.” -Yumna Al-Arashi, 2018
Watch here.
Liberté, Égalité, Sagacité (2023) by filmmaker Jessamine Yú Fok and creative director Pierre Kwenders is a story of connection – to land, to community, to home. L.E.S. explores the African diaspora, border violence, indigenous practices, and Afrofuturism.
“The core of it is about finding power within your origins. I also think it’s about finding comfort and home within yourself, rather than searching for it elsewhere.” -Jessamine Yú Fok, 2023
Watch here.
Akkel (2023), made by Kyrgyz filmmakers Aibek Baiymbetov and Erzhan Arakeev, seeks to uncover the daily life of storyteller Rysbek Jumabayev as he narrates The Epic of Manas, a poem native to Kyrgyzstan.
“All the cultures of the world have their heroes. Manas is the hero given by God to the Kyrgyz people. He was born among us. He served the nation…The epic Manas is an ethnography of the Kyrgyz. It is our history, our philosophy.” -Rysbek Jumabayev, 2023
Watch here.
SEER (2023), created by filmmaker Tony Wang and performer Demetris Charalambous, is an exploration of soul through the body. The film deals with movement, memory, and disharmony against a striking visual landscape.
“There seems to be a search for a sense of home when trying to heal, whether a physical place or safety within ourselves. In this case, the earth and its familiar texture directly informed this sort of ‘homebound’ movement that emerged.” -Demetris Charalambous, 2023
Watch here.
The Fourfold (2020) by Alisi Telengut portrays through animation the shamanic rituals native to Mongolia and Siberia. The film leans into mystic Eastern belief systems that foreground animism.
“The film aims to expand my own and the viewer’s sensory experience with nature, cultivate a sensibility and heighten one’s sensitivity to nature and our 'environment' in the age of the Anthropocene.” -Alisi Telengut, 2020
Watch here.