back home follows the filmmaker’s pursuit to get to know her older brother, Josh, twenty years after he took his own life. As she connects with the friends who knew him best as a teen, a complex portrait emerges. Through intimate recollections re-imagined on Super8 and 16mm, and lyrical images hand-processed with plants, seaweed, soil and ashes, back home floats between memory and present time in a fragmented meditation on identity, grief and loss: illuminating the transformative power of healing in community.

With director Nisha Platzer via Zoom for a post-screening Q+A

Location: Critical Media Lab, Peterson Hall 108

Bio: Nisha Platzer (she/her) is a queer artist and filmmaker from Vancouver, Canada. Drawn to vibrant shades, her films meld sounds and imagery that you can dream and drown in.  Nisha’s short film, Vaivén (2020) won the best film award at aluCine Latin Film & Media Arts Festival and competed at festivals worldwide including Raindance, Festival Nouveau Cinéma, FIDBA, and Ji.hlava. She studied at the renowned Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión (EICTV) in Cuba and her work has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the BC Arts Council and the National Film Board of Canada. Nisha is a member of Vancouver’s Iris Film Collective, which promotes the creation and sharing of analog film. An alumnus of IDFAcademy, the VIFF mentorship program, and the Hot Docs Accelerator Lab, her work can be found in music videos, narrative, and experimental films. Nisha’s first feature documentary, back home, is supported by Telefilm Talent to Watch and was presented at the Docs-in-Progress Canadian Showcase at Cannes Film Festival 2022.