residencies
Every two years The Weight of Mountains Residency aims to bring together filmmakers working at the intersection of humanity and environment.
Filmmakers are curated based on their work’s quality but just as importantly on their process, ethics, and ability to work site-specifically. Filmmakers with The Weight of Mountains handle dramatic shifts or challenges due to location; extreme temperatures, wind, sand/snow storms, remoteness, or cultural adjustments are embraced.
Past selected filmmakers have gone on to present film or media artwork that they’ve created during our residency at:
Toronto International Film Festival
Reykjavik International Film Festival
The 57th Venice Biennale
no.w.here collective (London)
Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival
International Film Festival Rotterdam
The Weight of Mountains Film Festival (Iceland)
National Geographic
The Sundance Film Festival
Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (Dawson City)
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The National Museum of Art Osaka
…and a plethora of galleries and film events worldwide.
Our residency aims to engage remote, regional, or overwhelmingly present natural locations as an artistic frame to explore the audio-visual imagination through sensory immersion and filmmaking on the fly.
When visiting locations we respect locals, Indigenous rights and protocol, and the privacy of communities. We work with established arts organisations or venues and consider our program a supplement to their existing frameworks and by extension a film platform available for their community.
Past locations include:
- Skagaströnd, Northern Iceland.
- Tissarmine, Moroccan Sahara.
- Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada.
The 2020 & 2022 residencies have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2024 installment is not yet announced.