Sharlene Bamboat: If From Every Tongue it Drips
Screening and Talk (with Am Johal)
Saturday, October 18, 2025 | 6:00 PM 鈥� 8:30 PM
Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema
SFU School for the Contemporary Arts
149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver
presents an evening with artist and filmmaker Sharlene Bamboat in conversation with Am Johal.
If From Every Tongue it Drips (2021, 68 min.) is a film that uses the framework of quantum physics to explore the ways that personal relationships and political movements at once transcend and challenge time, space, identity and location. The film follows the lives of a couple living in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, one of whom writes Rekhti, a form of 19th century, Urdu, queer poetry; the other, her lover, the camera operator. As their personal lives unfold on camera, the lines between rehearsal and reality, location and distance, self and other dissipate and reinforce one another. Simultaneously, through poet and camera operator鈥檚 daily lives, interconnections between British colonialism, Indian nationalism and the impact of both on contemporary poetry, dance and music in South Asia is revealed.
Other Event
Artist Talk: Collaborative aesthetics in moving-image & sound practice
Sunday, October 19, 2025 | 2:00 PM
What Lab 鈥� 1814 Pandora St., Vancouver
(by donation)
馃崕 Food provided!
Sharlene Bamboat will speak about the collaborations that sustain and foster her art practice, from her long-term collaboration as part of Bambitchell, her symbiotic work style alongside cast and crew in her work, through to the arts organizations she has worked with. She will reflect on the aesthetics and tensions of collaboration through her practice, as paralleled with the merging of sound, image and text in her works. Zooming in and out of work and life, Sharlene will speak to the necessity, and political nature of collaboration as queer and feminist practice.
Biographies
Sharlene Bamboat is a Tiohti脿:ke/Montreal-based artist working primarily in non-fiction moving image. Sound and experimental sonic strategies are central to her practice, and her films often emerge from deep listening and experimentation in collaboration with others. Her works have been exhibited internationally, including at venues such as: Berlinale Forum Expanded, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Art of the Real NYC among many more. In addition to her artistic practice, Sharlene works in the cultural sector, contributing to artist-run organizations and collectives in Canada, and working as a creative producer with artists both locally and internationally.
Am Johal is the author of , and co-author with Matt Hern of and . He is Chair of the Vancouver International Film Festival and Vice-Chair of Greenpeace Canada. In 2025, he was Curator-in-Residence at the Indian Summer Festival.