Project Detail

45th Parallel

Synopsis

Focusing on the Haskell Free Library and Opera House – a unique municipal site that straddles the jurisdictions of Canada and the United States – the work continually recasts the border as at once powerful yet facile, absurd yet lethal.
Filmed on location to activate the legal and symbolic potential of the site, 45th PARALLEL unfolds as a monologue in five acts, performed by acclaimed filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel. The story centres on Hernández vs. Mesa, a judicial case covering the fatal shooting in 2010 of an unarmed fifteen-year-old Mexican national by a US Border Patrol agent. At the supreme court Mesa’s bullet, which crossed the US/Mexico border, began to implicate missiles fired in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia and Libya. If this murder could be tried in the US, so too could 91,340 drone strikes.
Official Selection New York Film Festival 2022 - World premiere
Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam 2023

Details

Year
2022
Type of project
Shorts
Running time
15 min
Format
Video and two painted backdrops
Director
Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Producer
Luke W. Moody
Director of Photography
Jarred Alterman
Principal cast
Mahdi Fleifel

Production Status

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Dancing on Road Dancing on Road

Director: Lauren Gee

Year: 2024

Documenting and celebrating the Black British female roller-skating community, showcasing its long history and fixture within popular culture. Blurring the boundaries between documentary and music video, this experimental film reveals the expansive network of London’s Black skate scene through two key individuals that share their stories and delve into what this space and their skate crews and mentors provide them. This joyous exploration gives visibility to a subculture that to many outsiders is unknown but is made familiar through its nostalgic lens which pays homage to the sports DIY and music-led roots. Official Selection Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival 2025

Glaciers Requiem Glaciers Requiem

Director: Saddiq Abubakar

Year: 2026

In isolation on Iceland’s Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Nigerian-born modular synthesis artist Colloboh transforms glacial and oceanic recordings into sonic compositions - uncovering a dialogue between ice and sea that reshapes his understanding of consciousness, ecological collapse, and humanity’s place within both. As his process unfolds, Colloboh transforms these sounds into layered sonic works that blur the boundaries between observation and communion. The film culminates in a haunting gesture: he plays the completed composition back to the landscape itself, completing a dialogue between artist and environment. A meditation on impermanence, consciousness, and the fragile bond between humanity and the natural world.

Two women dressed in traditional Welsh clothing, wearing stove pipe hats. Tŷ Unnos

Director: Lily Tonkin-Wells, Nina Allmoslechner

Year: 2026

It is said that Penrhos cottage was built in one night. According to Welsh folklore, if you could build a house overnight on common land, with smoke rising from the chimney by dawn, the place would be yours to keep. 200 years later in rural Pembrokeshire, the house stands still in time. Beneath its thatched roof lived Rachel and Maria, two sisters who spent their days crafting a life that defied societal rules written for women. Quietly radical, the pair were celebrated by the whole community. A fairytale documentary told through the eyes of the children who once visited. Recounting memories of Penrhos and the legacy of its last owners, the past flickers back to life.