Portals (of the Night Garden)

In this experimental video, while on night walks in his neighborhood, the artist Dimitry Saïd Chamy documents a series of selfies of the trees (self/trees) now threatened by accelerated construction and development. Part of the Meltiverse project which explores the threshold between the physical and virtual worlds and what is lost forever when we presume to convert nature into technology. This video premiered at Locust Projects in Miami, FL in 2022.

  • Dimitry Saïd Chamy
    Director
    A Peeling
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    2 minutes 52 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 29, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    100 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital 4K, with sound
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Portals of Introspection Show at Locust Projects
    Miami FL
    United States
    November 29, 2022
    World Premiere
    Curated by Donnamarie Baptiste
  • Florence Film Awards
    Florence
    Italy
    April 5, 2024
    World Premiere
    Winner Super Short Film
  • New York Movie Awards
    New York
    United States
    January 5, 2026
    World Premiere
    Winner Experimental Film
  • FilmHaus
    Berlin
    Germany
    October 31, 2024
    World Premiere
    Semi-Finalist Best Experimental Short
  • Hawaii International Film Awards

    United States
    February 26, 2024
    World Premiere
    Semi-Finalist Best Experimental Film
  • Nashville Independent Filmmakers Festival
    Nashville
    United States
    December 11, 2023
    World Premiere
    Semi-Finalist Best Micro Short
Distribution Information
  • CHAMY·XYZ
    Sales Agent
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Dimitry Saïd Chamy

Dimitry Saïd Chamy is a transdisciplinary artist, designer, and educator. Working from a queer, mixed Haïtian-Lebanese immigrant perspective, he explores speculative futures, generative systems, and symbolic world-building through participatory co-creation and storytelling.

An Oolite Arts Creator award recipient, Chamy has exhibited from Miami to Beijing, including Fashion Week at Lincoln Center, New York, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, and Locust Projects in Miami. Chamy holds an MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University.

Chamy has taught at six universities and is a Research Associate Professor at the Ratcliffe Art + Design Incubator at Florida International University.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I fell in love with the tropical canopy while walking in Miami. I started in winter, walking during the day. As summer approached and temperatures rose, my routine shifted toward dusk and then evening. In that liminal space, when eyes begin to fail, my memory returns to my native Haïti. I see trees with limbs fragrant with flowers or fruit in the jungle of my childhood, fifty years ago.

Where I live now, many of the live oaks and royal palms are older than that. There is an almond tree that looks over a hundred years old, though it can’t be so. When it sheds its carmine leaves, the pile could hide several cars. Very few people here seem to know you can eat the flesh of the almond fruit, as I did growing up. Other trees, palms, and plants came later. Under the protective canopy, these streets verge toward wildness—the smaller shrubs and plants seem to resist the allure of a well-manicured garden. They are all threatened by developers catering to moneyed Zoomers who fled New York or the Bay Area during the pandemic. Every week, older houses are torn down, their lots razed for zero-lot line cubic homes with Astroturf lawns and Home Depot trees.

I visit a tree. I pause and extend my arms like a human selfie stick. I take a photo or video of my limb casting its shadow on the limbs of my verdant friend. I am listening to Sheila Heti read her novel, Pure Colour, on my earbuds.

Portals (of the Night Garden) is part of my Meltiverse project, which explores the threshold between physical and virtual realities.