Experiencing Interruptions?

Aquaphoria (before the waters rise)

Aquaphoria is a poetic, environmental documentary in five chapters that explores the filmmaker's encounters with and deep affective response to water. Moving from the bubbling rivers of Asheville, North Carolina to the Californian seashore to the fjords and glaciers of Alaska, the filmmaker asks what waters, on the eve of catastrophic climate change, mean to her.

At once ecstatic and grieving, Aquaphoria argues that we need new vocabularies to capture the intimate scales of the emergency.

  • Monique Tschofen
    Director
  • Monique Tschofen
    Writer
  • Imprint Documentary Collective
    Producer
  • Monique Tschofen
    Film and photography
  • Max Kronby
    Film and photography
  • Hendrick de Haan
    Sound Design
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Genres:
    Poetic documentary, environmental documentary
  • Runtime:
    14 minutes 42 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    December 10, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    500 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Cell phone camera
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Toronto Short Film Festival
    Toronto
    Canada
    March 13, 2025
    Toronto Short Film Festival
    Official Selection
  • LA Independent Women Film Awards
    LA
    United States
    Nominee
  • Experimental Forum (LA)
    LA
    United States
    Honorable Mention
  • Best Environmental Film, Montreal Women Film Festival
    Montreal
    Canada
  • Official Selection, Sofia International Film Festival
    Sophia
    Bulgaria
  • Semi-finalist, Best Experimental, Calgary Indie Film Awards
    Calgary
    Canada
  • Official Selection, Dialog Film Festival

    Greece
  • Best Environmentalist Documentary, Toronto Independent Film Festival of Cift
    Toronto
    Canada
    November 1, 2025
    Best Environmentalist Documentary
  • Selection: Shots - London International Film Fest, 2025
    London
    United Kingdom
  • Semi-finalist, Kyoto Independent Film Festival
    Kyoto
    Japan
  • Nominee, Doc Only Festival,
    Copenhagen
    Denmark
  • Black Owl Festival,
    Bodrum, Mugla
    Malta
  • Sofia International Festival
    Sophia
    Bulgaria
Director Biography - Monique Tschofen

Monique Tschofen is a Canadian-based media artist and academic. With the nine-woman Decameron Collective, she has produced and internationally exhibited two digital storyworlds. Memory Eternal (VR) was selected for juried exhibition in Portugal at the Electronic Literature Organization's Media Arts Festival, and acknowledged with a Digital Humanities Award (US) and shortlisted for the Wonderbox Digital Opening Up New Media Writing Prize (UK). Decameron 2.0 (WebGL) won Honorable Mention for the international Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature, and was featured in juried exhibitions at the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling in Kobe, Japan, Canada and the US.
Her solo work Happenings: A Tragico-Lyrical Philosophical Essay was shortlisted for both the Chris Meade Memorial Main Prize and the Social Good Prize in the 2024 New Media Writing Prize (UK), and was selected Runner Up for the Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature (2025).

This documentary, produced by IMPRINT Documentary Collective, is her first stand-alone short feature film.

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Director Statement

Aquaphoria (Before the Waters Rise) is a first-person, poetic, environmental documentary that asks, on the eve of calamitous climate change, about what bodies of water make us feel. The director travels from North Carolina to California to Alaska, taking viewers on a journey into the senses.