Shadow Puppetry

XINEMA [zin-em-a] is an artist-run experimental film series and lab founded and based on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations ("Vancouver", BC). They began operation in 2022 in VIFF Centre's 41-seat Studio Theatre, with a focus on BC-based and connected media artists, stringing emerging and established artists together into monthly thematic programs. Housed in the Norquay Park Fieldhouse, XINEMA now connects local and international artists through ongoing screenings, workshops, and related events in diverse spaces and regions.

Their priorities are to remain low-barrier and platform underrepresented artists and media forms, connecting cinemakers and cinephiles of various backgrounds, disciplines, and career levels. Submissions of films of any year or medium, and proposals for workshops and curatorial collaborations are accepted on an ongoing basis.

Shadow Puppetry

Workshop / 2026
Friday, August 7th from 6-9pm
XINEMA's Fieldhouse

Hosted by Eric Leiser and Niloufar Samadi.

In this workshop, participants will create handmade shadow puppets that explore organic forms, speculative creatures, and improvised image-making processes inspired by Leiser’s practice in holography, analogue cinema, sculpture, and performance. Puppets created during the workshop will become part of a collaborative expanded cinema performance presented outside XINEMA’s Fieldhouse with Samadi on the opening night of Holos Gramma (Whole Picture), combining live shadow play, and 16mm film projection.