This Line Connects the Void

Filmed in the artist’s family apartment on the edge of Parkdale in the city of Toronto, this work explores the poetics of grief and precarity for the family around the time of death and dying regarding the artist’s sister. With non-linear storytelling and fragmented images, the work moves between speculative fiction, documentary, and experimental film. Referencing Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee (1982) and Anne Carson’s poem On Walking Backwards (1995), it considers the space and metaphor of a void and the desire that moves between the dead and living.

  • Tram Quynh Nghiem
    Director
  • Tram Quynh Nghiem
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental
  • Runtime:
    15 minutes 48 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 10, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    20,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    16mm/Super 8
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • non-syntax Experimental Image
    Tokyo
    Japan
    World
    Official Selection
  • L'Alternativa, Barcelona Independent Film Festival
    Barcelona
    Spain
    Official International Selection
  • ANALOGICA
    Bolzano
    Italy
    Official Selection
  • WNDX
    Winnipeg
    Canada
    Official Selection
  • Antimatter [Media Art]
    Victoria
    Canada
    Official Selection
Distribution Information
  • CFMDC
    Distributor
    Country: Canada
Director Biography - Tram Quynh Nghiem

Tram Nghiem (they/them) is a queer Southeast Asian cultural programmer and artist working with stills and moving images. Trained in digital video, their art practice uses process-based inquiries, digital/analog methods, and explores personal history, to consider how people are both influenced by and instrumental in shaping the spaces that surround them. They have produced work for the Syros International Film Festival and are currently working on an experimental video work funded by the Canada Council of the Arts.

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Director Statement

"The vast ambiant sound hiss between the invisible line distance that this line connects the void and space surrounding entering and exiting." -- Theresa Hak Kyung Cha