Film program by Faisal Anwar & Tazeen Qayyum

Ali Kazimi is a filmmaker, author and media artist whose work deals with race, social justice migration, history and memory. He is the recipient of the 2019 Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts. and the same year he received a Doctor of Letters, honoris causa from the University of British Columbia. His award winning and critically acclaimed documentaries include Narmada: A Valley Rises (’94), Shooting Indians: A Journey with Jeffrey Thomas (’97), Documenting Dissent (’01), Continuous Journey (’04), Runaway Grooms (’06), Rex versus Singh (’09), Random Acts of Legacy (’16), and Beyond Extinction: Sinixt Resurgence (’22).


Rehab Nazzal is a Palestinian-born multidisciplinary artist based in Montreal, Canada and Bethlehem, Palestine. Her work deals with the effects of settler-colonial violence on the bodies and minds of colonized peoples, on the land and on other non-human life. Nazzal’s video, photography and sound works have been exhibited and screened in solo and group exhibitions and film festivals in Palestine, across Canada and internationally. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Concordia university in Montreal and a lecturer at Dar Al-Kalima University in Bethlehem.


Jayce Salloum tends to go only where he is invited or where there is an intrinsic affinity, his projects being rooted in an intimate engagement with place. A grandson of Syrian or Lebanese immigrants, he was born and raised on others’ land, the Sylix (Okanagan) territory. After years of living elsewheres he planted himself on the unceded stolen lands of the xʷməθkʷey̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səíl̓wətaʔł. Recognizing and acting on this is an everyday practice, but let’s face it, he could do a lot more. In/out of this context Salloum has lectured, published and exhibited pervasively at the widest range of local and international venues possible and most improbable, from the smallest unnamed storefronts in his downtown eastside Vancouver neighbourhood to institutions such as the Musée du Louvre, Museum of Modern Art, Centre Georges Pompidou, National Gallery of Canada, Bienal De La Havana, Sharjah Biennial, Biennale of Sydney and the Rotterdam International Film Festival.


Sanaz Sohrabi (b.1988, Tehran) is a researcher of visual culture and filmmaker. Sohrabi works with essay film and installation as her means of research to explore the shifting and migratory paths between still and moving images, situating a singular image in a continuum of historical relations and archival temporalities. Sohrabi’s works have been shown widely in exhibitions and festivals. Including: Berlinale Forum Expanded, International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), and IndieLisboa (Silvestre Section Best Short Film), among others. Sohrabi’s recent exhibitions include Ljubljana Biennial 2023, Berlin, VOX Centre de l'image contemporaine, Montréal, and Carpintarias de São Lázaro, Lisbon. Sohrabi received her BFA from Uni­ver­sity of Tehran College of Fine Arts and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a merit scholarship. She holds a PhD from the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture at Concordia University supported by Fonds de Recherche du Québec Société et Culture (FRQSC).

Tazeen Qayyum and Faisal Anwar are Pakistani-Canadian multidisciplinary artists and curators. In addition to their established artistic practices, they co-founded Art Address in 2018, an interactive space in Oakville that fosters creative ideas and artistic discourse.


Tazeen Qayyum's contemporary practice draws from complex issues of belonging and displacement within a socio-political context. Her work has been exhibited across the globe and is included in prestigious public and private collections, including the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), Canada; Welt Museum, Vienna, Austria; TD Canada Trust Permanent Collection, Toronto, Canada; Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto, Canada; National Gallery of Amman, Jordan; and National Art Gallery, Nepal. She is a member of the Arts Council at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital. She previously served on the Board of Directors of Oakville Galleries and the Advisory Board of Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto.


Curator of Karachi Biennial' 22, Faisal Anwar's hybrid art practice explores the intersection of art, science, nature, and data, investigating pressing concerns on climate change, sustainability, and shifts in emerging economies. Founder of CultureLab.art, Anwar's computational thinking and research are presented as interactive installations, immersive environments, and data-driven and AI-based interventions globally. Anwar graduated from the Canadian Film Centre's Habitat-LAB Interactive Arts Program and did his bachelor's in graphic design from the National College of Arts Lahore, Pakistan.