the month
aphlabate (aph’la-bate)
Comprised of works hand-picked by members of the Vidéographe team, video of the month explores Vidéographe's vast collection and offers insight into the team behind the centre. New month, new video.
Siam Obregón is a Mexican filmmaker and visual artist. She completed her BFA with a Specialization in Film Production at Concordia University. Her work focuses on observation, intimacy, and themes of cultural identity. Her latest works have been featured in multiple festivals including HotDocs, Festival International du Film sur l’Art (FIFA), and REGARD.
Synopsis
aphlabate (aph’la-bate) is the illustration of a struggle with the rudiments of the alphabet. Through narration, experimentation with non-existent forms of writing and stop-action word (misspelling), aphlabate is an attempt to unlearn what most fundamentally ingrained.
A word from the team
Jean-Marc Superville Sovak's aphlabate (aph’la-bate) poses a simple question: what if we could no longer trust language?
Through narration, invented forms of writing, misspelled words, and stop-motion experimentation, the film stages a struggle with the alphabet itself. The narrator describes becoming increasingly uncomfortable with language, viewing this system that enables him to understand the world around him as something oppressive, automatic, and impossible to escape. "I can read everything," he confesses, not as a gift, but almost as a burden.
What an interesting concept: to transform literacy into something strange and uncomfortable. Reading is something that I, and maybe you too, perform unconsciously. But when we think about it, we are somewhat stuck with this ability forever. The narrator calls it some sort of “superpower,” and in a way, it is. It comes with privilege, but also with the responsibility of knowing what to do with words. Words have power. They shape our reality, and the reality of those around us. Watching the film made me think about how much language structures the way we perceive the world.
Beneath its playful experimentation lies a desire to challenge what has been imposed on most of us. I was moved by the film’s curiosity, its desire to unlearn, and its invitation to question what we understand as real. It asks us to look again at something so familiar that it has become invisible.
At a time when language is constantly being used to persuade, divide, simplify, and control, this feels like a valuable exercise. aphlabate reminds us that words are never innocent, and that questioning the structures we take for granted may be the first step toward imagining something different :)
Siam Obregón
Communications Manager and Programming Coordinator
