Private Project

Atmospheric Arrivals

“Atmospheric Arrivals” is a living multimedia archival project and polytemporal memory bank. I forge a unique and dynamic practice of return through active memory and revisiting my personal archive.

“Atmospheric Arrivals” is about home and the (im)possibility of return. The “atmospheric arrival” captures a means of coming into being through memory and imagination; by reaching across spacetimes to “fetch” parts of the self that may exist in elsewheres. 

To attend to the “atmospheric” denotes the practice of active presence in and across spatial temporalities. The “atmospheric” is a milieu in which the lived and the imagined intersect. It allows for an awareness of the present while gesturing towards multiple futures and pasts in order to carve out a space (even artistically) where my being is holistically possible. 

I use atmospheric here in a few ways, but it emerged (for me) out of a discussion about Sylvia Wynter and the “Third Event” or the “Great Leap” in a class that I took in the fall of 2020 (Alagraa, 2018; Wynter, 2015). I engaged with this work alongside Christina Sharpe’s writing about black public image-making in In the Wake: On Blackness and Being and others that informed the way that I think about my mode of autopoetic imagemaking.

Atmospheric Arrivals was selected as one of Director of Alchemy Film & Arts Michael Pattinson's best films of 2024 for the BFI's Sight and Sound.

  • Ayo Tsalithaba
    Director
  • Project Type:
    Experimental
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes 57 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 16, 2023
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada, Ghana, Lesotho, South Africa
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • TITE: Trans Images Trans Experience Film Festival
    Dublin
    Ireland
    April 1, 2025
  • Regent Park Film Festival
    Toronto
    Canada
    November 1, 2024
  • Q City Cinema Film Festival
    Regina
    Canada
  • Future of Film Showcase
    Toronto
    Canada
  • Translations: The Seattle Transgender Film Festival
    Seattle
    United States
  • Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival
    Hawick
    United Kingdom
    May 5, 2024
  • Toronto Queer Film Festival
    Toronto
    Canada
  • Xanadu x Nü House
    Berlin
    Germany
  • Berlinale
    Berlin
    Germany
  • Reelout Queer Film Festival
    Kingston
    Canada
  • OFFLINE Film Festival
    Toronto
    Canada
  • Black Experimental Film Festival
    Toronto
    Canada
Distribution Information
  • CFMDC
    Distributor
    Country: Worldwide
Director Biography - Ayo Tsalithaba

Ayo Tsalithaba is an award-winning filmmaker based in Toronto. Originally from Ghana and Lesotho, Ayo's work explores themes of loss, home and (be)longing for queer African diasporic subjects.

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