Polina Teif

A farmer struggles to make a living on his land near the coast of the Dead Sea.

After years spent dealing with her family’s rejection, Karla Rae James, 60, is finally ready to transition from male to female. Polina Teif followed her for three years, the duration of her journey. The bond between the director and Karla allows us intimate access to a very complex process, full of pain and struggle. Showing her operations and the importance of time passing, Bittersweet Becoming is an incredible portrait of affirmation of identity and intergenerational dialogue.

New Mineral Collective is the largest and least productive mining company in the world. The company provides counter- prospecting operations and geo-trauma healing therapies at 259 Lake Shore Blvd E and Small Arms. This video installation, Pleasure Prospects, follows the process of acquiring prospecting licenses for alternative values and takes a critical look at “perforated landscapes”—land altered by extractive industries.

Eulogy for the Dead Sea is a poetic experimental documentary chronicling the disappearance of the Dead Sea from the initial manufacturing enterprises dating back to 1930 to present day. The Dead Sea borders Jordan, Palestine’s West Bank and Israel. It constitutes the lowest place on earth and known for its therapeutic high sodium and mineral rich waters. Despite its name, the Dead Sea basin is a host to many wildlife species and is superb for farming. Unfortunately, due to the diversion of water from the Jordan River and mass mineral extraction though evaporation pools, the Dead Sea’s water reduction currently measures at 1.3m annually. Turning the lens on sites of existing and abandoned infrastructure, marking the lake’s current and former receded shores, Eulogy seeks to explore the potential for unifying international conflicts and examine alternatives for commerce and conservation through the lens of ecology and environmental responsibility.

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