2026 Sunset Kino Film Festival Premiere: Films by Ali Cherri
About this Event
The outdoor avant-garde film festival returns to Gairloch Gardens for four weeks of film under the summer sky.
As the sun sets over Lake Ontario, experience a curated program of films and video works by Canadian and international artists in one of Oakville’s most beautiful outdoor settings.
This year’s festival launches with a special program of films by exhibiting artist Ali Cherri, presented in dialogue with his solo exhibition. Exploring the theme In Ruins, this opening program offers a rare opportunity to experience Cherri’s substantial body of film and video work, reflecting on the artist’s profound understanding of the relationship between humans and land, and his penetrating ability to represent history.
All films are screened outdoors in Gairloch Gardens. Please dress appropriately and bring seating and blankets. With inclement weather, screenings will be indoors in the Studio, adjacent to the Gallery.
Program Details
Films by Ali Cherri
Programmed by Séamus Kealy
Pipe Dreams, 2011 (7 mins)
Two moments in the history of contemporary Syria that echo the situation across all Arab countries: a memorable phone call between the Syrian cosmonaut Muhammed Faris who was part of the Russian mission to the Mir Space Station and the late president Hafez al-Assad, and the removal of the statue of Assad by the Syrian government to prevent its destruction by the demonstrators.
Un Cercle autour du Soleil, 2005 (15 mins)
This film is a reflection on growing up in Beirut during the civil war years, and how to adapt to the “post war” life; accepting the body that is in ruin, and learning to live in the city that is always already in ruin.
The Disquiet, 2013 (20 mins)
Earth-shattering events are relatively par for the course in Lebanon, with war, political upheaval and social revolts. Lebanon stands on several major fault lines, which are cracks in the earth’s crust. The film investigates the geological situation in Lebanon, trying to look for the traces of the imminent disaster.
The Digger, 2015 (24 mins)
For twenty years, Sultan Zeib Khan has kept watch over a ruined Neolithic necropolis in the Sharjah desert in the United Arab Emirates. This film’s movement between day and night along with the soundscape of the man’s singing and his radio here resist an otherwise deep solitude.
Somniculus, 2015 (15 mins)
Filmed inside a series of empty museum galleries across Paris, Ali Cherri's Somniculus articulates the tension between the lives of dead objects and the living world that surrounds them
The Watchman, 2023 (26 mins)
Sergeant Bulut dutifully maintains a solitary guard atop a remote watchtower. Night after night, Bulut scans the horizon, awaiting an enemy that never materializes—until the sudden appearance of late-night visitors disrupts his routine.
Image: 1. Ali Cherri, still from 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘮𝘢𝘯, 2023. Courtesy of the artist, Fondazione In Between Art Film, and Galerie Imane Farès, Paris.
Oakville Galleries operates with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario and the Corporation of the Town of Oakville, along with our many individual, corporate, and foundation partners.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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