Wavelengths concludes with two vastly different cinematic experiences that col­lectively affirm film’s status as one of today’s most exciting art forms, unyielding and wondrously alive in face of increasing obsolescence.

Nathaniel Dorsky’s The Return (USA) is shot on 16mm and projected at silent speed (18 fps). Dorsky delves deep into multiple (under)worlds, sometimes uncanny and surreal, reflected and refracted through vari­ous natural and man-made obfuscations like grids, glass, water and brush. From its wintry willow branches to wafting hand gestures in a café, The Return harbours a phantasmal feel, offering a sentient, some­times dark rumination on the mysteries that await us.

From the resonant silence of The Return, we segue to transfixing audiovisual immer­sion in Aberration of Light: Dark Chamber Disclosure (USA), the second collaborative live cin­ema project by Sandra Gibson, Luis Recoder and Olivia Block. For the past decade, Gibson and Recoder have created performances and installa­tions that employ the mechanics and optical properties of film projection to forge hyp­notic, sculptural works of light. Using a series of film loops, crystals and manual gestures to bend, reflect and refract the projector’s beam, the artists recast the theatrical space of the cinema into a three-dimensional encounter. Aberration of Light: Dark Chamber Disclosure was developed specifically with Block, who mixes and improvises field recordings and live instrumentation, and is presented in conjunction with the Wavelength Music series, one of Toronto’s longest-running and most influential underground music forums.