Private Project

academic freedom

In the winter calm of Quebec, this sound work captures the resonance of stones falling on ice and political mourning, listening carefully to the haunting rhythm of a resistance that crosses seasons and continents.

  • Nat Nesvaderani
    Director
  • Project Type:
    Short, Other
  • Runtime:
    11 minutes 53 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    March 21, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    0 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Language:
    Arabic, English, French, Hebrew, Persian
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Nat Nesvaderani

Nat Nesvaderani (she/they) is a filmmaker and Assistant Professor of anthropology at Université Laval, where they serve as Scientific Director of the Labortoire d’anthropologie multimodale (LAM). Nat is a founding member of two collectives: The CoMMPCT Collective for Multimodal Makers, Publishers, Collaborators and Teachers and The EthnoCine Collective for intersectional feminist filmmaking. Her sound work explores affect and global solidarities through autoethnographic and feminist listening practices. Her new film project investigates the intersection between technology and tourism in the United States.

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Director Statement

This sound work is about experiences of academic freedom on college campuses today. From my smartphone in Winter 2023, I grappled with feelings of dislocation, anger and sadness and feeling deep dissonance in the relative quietness, tranquility, and even beauty in Quebec, Canada, while solidarity encampments unfold across North America, eventually extending into Europe. In winter 2023 I recorded the sound of rock falling on ice in snowy winter Quebec with the intent of drawing attention to the length of the genocide, stretching from Fall into Winter. But then Winter became Spring, and Spring became Summer. The ice breaking from these rocks melted away. When editing these sounds together, coming back to this one over and over again produced a feeling of repetition. The concept of repetition is prominent in the scholarship of Palestinian and non-Palestinian authors writing about the Nakba ongoing genocide (Alareer 2022; Allan 2014; Azoulay 2019; Bishara 2022). When editing the sounds of rock falling on ice, it stopped being specific to Winter 2023 but instead a reflection of the dissonance and disillusion of repetition.

This project is part of an essay about feminist sound work and auto-ethnography under review in a special issue of Cultural Anthropology.

Bibliography:

Alareer, Rafaad. 2022. “When Shall This Pass?” In Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, edited by Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing-Canar, and Michael Lotze. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books.

Allan, Diana. 2014. Refugees of the Revolution: Experiences of Palestinian Exile. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Azoulay, Ariella. 2019. Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism.

Bishara, Amahl. 2022. Crossing a Line: Laws, Violence, and Roadblocks to Palestinian Political Expression. 1st edition. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.