Open Secret: Screening, Book Launch + Workshop with Rhayne Vermette

2023-10-04 - 2023-10-23

21 + 22 October 2023

Free screenings take place at The Screening Room, 120 Princess Street, Kingston.

Book Launch + Workshop hosted at Agnes.

Open Secret: The Second Edition continues as a series composed of screenings, conversations, and workshops kicking off this season by celebrating the work of Rhayne Vermette, with an additional event, a book launch of Exovede in the Darkroom: The Films of Rhayne Vermette, in partnership with ARP Books.

This series takes its departure from Fred Moten’s words that “poetry investigates new ways for people to get together and do stuff in the open, in secret.” Similarly, cinema’s capacity to condition spaces for gathering, and the double maneuver of opacity and transparency inherent in its making sets the precedent for this sort of investigation embedded in collaboration.

Vermette’s work invites us to think through the compelling ways in which image-making and storytelling inspire visions of hauntological architectures; condition forms of an intimate materiality; and activate the potency of landscapes as they tend to divine interventions.

Curated by Nasrin Himada. Supported by the George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund, Queen’s University. Partner: The Screening Room

Screening + Conversation
21 October, 1 pm
The Screening Room, 120 Princess St, Kingston, ON
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Ste. Anne (2021)
As a party wanders into the night, word arrives that Renée has emerged from obscurity. This cataclysmic moment ignites Modeste’s awkward reunion with his older sibling. Renée has been missing for years and her presence unsettles the family, which also includes her own daughter, Athene. As Renée begins to form her dreams from fragments of her past, ominous premonitions disrupt the land.

Shot over the course of two years, Ste. Anne traces an allegorical reclamation of land through personal, symbolic and historical sites across Treaty 1 Territory, the heartland of the Métis Nation.

The screening is followed by a conversation with Rhayne, as well as co-editor of Exovede in the Darkroom, Irene Bindi, moderated by Nasrin Himada.

Book Launch + Workshop
22 October, 1:30 pm
Agnes Etherington Art Centre

Rhayne and participants have the opportunity to engage in a more intimate setting as we use this time to gather to talk, discuss, inquire about Rhayne’s practice, and workshop ideas and strategies as we watch and listen in context. We'll explore sound and vision through varied studies of how rhythm and harmony instruct varied processes in storytelling and filmmaking.

Copies of Exovede in the Darkroom: The Films of Rhayne Vermette are available for purchase.

"While Stephen Broomer and Irene Bindi address the form, feel, and context of Rhayne Vermette's filmography, they also take readers further in by meditating on her lyrical style- its textures, its poetry, and unique histories it's informed by, all the while remaining deeply knowledgeable of what has made it so singular in Canadian Cinema and beyond. This is a spellbinding book that soaks in and celebrates the beauty of Vermette's films” – Adam Piron, co-founder COUSIN, and Indigenous Program Director, Sundance Film Festival

Exovede in the Darkroom: The Films of Rhayne Vermette
Rhayne Vermette's films are opulent collages of fiction, animation, documentary, re-enactment, and acts of divine interruption. Her astounding feature film Ste. Anne mesmerized the film world internationally with its visually resplendent story of a return. In Exovede in the Darkroom: The Films of Rhayne Vermette, film writers and fellow artists explore her powerful body work encompassing both Ste. Anne and her 16mm short films. These critical and poetic responses celebrate the unruly and intimate practice of a singular film artist.

Co-edited by Stephen Broomer and Irene Bindi with contributions from Rhayne Vermette, Jennifer Smith, Claudia Sicondolfo, Suzanne Morrissette, Joshua Minsoo Kim, Sky Hopinka, José Sarmiento Hinojosa, Gwynne Fulton, Janet Blatter and Irene Bindi.