The Southern Alberta Art Gallery is thrilled to partner with the 2025 Lethbridge Independent Film Festival to showcase the fantastic film and video work of artist Leila Sujir. We will screen The Dreams of the Night Cleaners and Aerial.
The Dreams of the Night Cleaners, 1995, 46 minutes
A road trip, a journey, a voyage through history and memory. A complex weave of drama, archival footage and animation in a fable format to explore the public mythologies in our culture which have had devastating effects on public policy, public attitudes and individual lives. Dreams uses storytelling, humour, magic and history to sweep away the misconceptions which haunt the lives of its characters.
Through a visually rich blend of drama, archival and documentary footage with video imagery, The Dreams of the Night Cleaners weaves together many stories that radiate from Usha and her night shift cleaner friend, Devika, a recent immigrant from India. Prevailing cultural mythologies have devastating effects not only on public policy and public attitudes, but on individual lives. From both a personal and historical perspective, this art video examines Asian immigration to Canada, racism, sexism and employment fears in an uncertain marketplace.
Aerial, 2019, 9 minutes
A west coast rainforest seen through a camera mounted on a drone, moving rapidly as if it were a hummingbird: it hovers, then zigzags horizontally, then vertically. Spatial microphones mounted on a cablecam up in the tree canopy move across the Emerald Pool in the south Walbran, not far from the bridge. Four white embossed still forest landscapes extend the possibility of inner spaces, for us to step back into ourselves, to contemplate, and to engage with the memory, recording and healing process, while we view, together, this airborne sequence, exploring a forest.
The screening begins at 6 p.m., followed by a Q&A with Sujir and the Gallery’s Associate Curator Adam Whitford at 7 p.m.
This screening precedes Leila Sujir’s upcoming exhibition forest documents, opening at the Gallery on Aug. 9, 2025