SOLASTALGIA
​View on Vimeo (Closed Captioning Available)

Short, Lyrical, Dramatic Film
Millefiore Clarkes - Director / Emma Fugate - Producer
13 mins
2019
www.solastalgia.ca

Solastalgia (/ˌsɒləˈstældʒə/) is a neologism that describes a form of mental or existential distress caused by environmental change.

When the panic over global crises threatens to engulf her, Ava embarks on a vision-quest to put things in perspective.

SOLASTALGIA is a lyrical film that explores the anguish that climate change and a global state of uncertainty can impart upon the human psyche.

Ava, (played by Rebecca Parent) a mother of two young children, is bombarded throughout her day with news of global disasters. Over the airwaves, on the internet, overheard at a grocery store - cataclysmic stories of the effects of climate change steadily erode Ava’s inner peace. She acutely feels the burden of guilt for her entire species. She worries about her children's futures. Her mental health is unwinding as she searches for solace and a new perspective.
​
This film is a dreamscape set to the formidable poetic verse of Tanya Davis (former poet-laureate of Halifax). It is a poetic gesture to the vast timeline of the earth and humanity's small but significant place within the web. SOLASTALGIA is a traditional drama that utilizes non-traditional, stock and archival sources for some of its imagery. It blends a straight-forward narrative with a surrealistic journey underpinned with a musical score by Philip Glass, Russell Louder and others.

Funded through FilmPEI Film4Ward program.

Millefiore Clarkes is an award-winning filmmaker from Canada’s smallest province, Prince Edward Island. Through her company One Thousand Flowers Productions she produces a variety of media work: short and feature documentaries, music videos, drama, experimental shorts, and video installations. She recently received the DOC Institute’s Vanguard Award for her work as a documentarian. Her most recent work is a short lyrical, dramatic film SOLASTALGIA that explores the theme of climate grief. It won Best Canadian Short at the Silverwave Film Festival. 
​
She has directed three documentaries for The National Film Board of Canada: THE SONG AND THE SORROW, BLUE RODEO - ON THE ROAD, and ISLAND GREEN. THE SONG AND THE SORROW won Best Short Atlantic Documentary at FIN - Atlantic International Film Fest, Best Documentary at Silverwave Film Festival, Best Atlantic Doc at Lunenburg Doc Fest, Best Mid Length Documentary at The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, and was a Top Ten Audience Choice at Available Light Film Festival. 

Her films have screened at festivals across Canada and the US and have been broadcast on CBC and Bravo! Her experimental short December in Toronto is featured on Vimeo’s Staff Picks, and her music videos have won a number of awards. 
She is passionate about making films that connect us to one another and to nature. 

PLASTICPOEMS

Plasticpoems, 2:28 minutes

Written by Fiona Tinwei Lam
Animation by Nhat Truong
Sound Design byTinjun Niu:

This short animated video depicts two concrete/visual poems by poet Fiona Tinwei Lam from her collection of poems Odes & Laments  (Caitlin Press, 2019) about marine plastic pollution

PLASTICNIC

Plasticnic, 1:13 minutes

Written/Narrated by Fiona Tinwei Lam
Animation by Tisha Deb Pillai
Sound Design byTinjun Niu:
​
A humorous animated video poem about plastic pollution that shows how we destroy nature while seeking to enjoy ourselves in the great outdoors.

​The video poem is based on a shaped poem in Odes & Laments (Caitlin Press, 2019)

QUENCH

Note: all words come from letters in “plastic” with no doubling. Each shift occurs with the addition or removal of a single letter and/or a reordering of the letters.

"Quench" originally published in  Odes & Laments, (Caitlin Press, 2019).

Fiona Tinwei Lam’s third collection of poetry Odes & Laments celebrates the overlooked wonder and beauty in the everyday, while lamenting harm to our ecosystems. She has also authored a children’s book, edited The Bright Well: Contemporary Canadian Poems on Facing Cancer,  and co-edited Love Me True: Writers Reflect on the Ins, Outs, Ups & Downs of Marriage with Jane Silcott. Lam won The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Prize and was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. Her work appears in more than thirty-five anthologies, including The Best Canadian Poetry in English (both 2010 and 2020) and Forcefield: 77 Women Poets of BC. Her award-winning poetry videos have screened at festivals locally and internationally. She teaches at Simon Fraser University’s Continuing Studies. fionalam.net @FTinweiL