Amir Aether Valen
Directing
Biography
Amir Aether Valen is a writer, director and photographer who works primarily within non-fiction storytelling. While studying at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Amir’s student film, "Who I Say I Am" won the Best Trinidad & Tobago Short Documentary Film Award, as well as the United Nations Award for Best Emerging Documentary Filmmaker at the Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival 2016. In 2020 Amir graduated from Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión (EICTV) in Cuba after specializing in Documentary Film Direction. He has made a number of short films across Cuba including, "The Whisper of the Leaves", which had its world premiere at Sheffield DocFest in 2021, and "While the Night Falls", which had its world premiere at True/False Film Festival 2023. Amir has been a lecturer at the UWI since 2022. He is also an education facilitator at the Living Water Community - Ministry for Migrants & Refugees, and produces commercial creative content through his production company, Elements of Mental Zen Productions Ltd.
Known For
A short film following Anthony, a young child from the small, rural town of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. We see him in different moments of his daily life as he interacts with different forms of environmental, familial, and social influences. While Anthony displays contradictory traits of creativity, destruction, rigidity, and tenderness as he interacts with his external and internal worlds, we see a story built from the the multidimensionality of Anthony's layered personality as a young man.
Pick up the Wind
A meditative observation of the poetry present in the world of Pedrito, an elderly man of the mountains and relic of a time that no longer exists, while he comes to an understanding of his physical mortality and becomes aware of his spiritual immortality.
Floating in the River of Time
A poetic and contemplative journey of harmony between different forms of life that coexist on the earth. This film is a meditation on the effect of time, movement of the human spirit, and passage to new forms of life, through the eyes, ears, and bodies of three elderly land workers living in a small community in the outskirts of Bauta, Cuba.
The Whisper of the Leaves
An intimate portrait of the lives of Delvys and Carlos, siblings who live alone with their elderly mother in a rural part of a small Cuban town. The film portrays a family engulfed in their inner worlds. Between the sacrifices they make out of love for those who are present, and their longing for things that are absent, they struggle to find meaning as they reflect, contemplate, and carry the weight of existence, trying together, to move forward.
While The Night Falls
The bittersweet poignancy of a fleeting present moment fading into memory, and the intent to capture it all. Ethereal and ephemeral, my eternal space.
Eternal Space
Bound by a deep friendship despite their vastly different upbringings, Jonathon and Myles have been inseparable throughout their university years. But when a fateful encounter forces them to confront old wounds and unspoken resentments, their bond begins to unravel. As ambitions and pride clash, the brothers-in-spirit find themselves at a crossroads: reconcile and rebuild the trust that once defined them, or succumb to the bitterness that threatens to drive them apart forever.