Leviathan Cycle

Episode 5: Ismael

2018, HD video, 19:28

0:00

 / 

0:00

Leviathan Cycle is a multi-episode film series, and part of Shezad Dawood’s groundbreaking multimedia Leviathan project, exploring the intersection of climate change, migration and mental health. Each film has been crafted as a self-contained work blending fictional narrative and documentary footage, with the possibility of being endlessly reconfigured with other episodes to create distinctive storylines extending from the evolving corpus of Leviathan material.

Ben and Yasmine are taken captive aboard a gigantic cargo Ship, whose megalomaniacal captain entertains biblical pretensions. Ben is made to ‘pay his passage’, while a ghostly Yasmine stalks the empty corridors of the ship. Whales and whaling become a key subject – interrogating colonial and indigenous politics in the process.

Written and Directed by

Shezad Dawood

Produced by

Elizabeth Benjamin

Commissioned by / Supported by

Commissioned by A Tale of a Tub, Rotterdam, and a Canadian partnership between Fogo Island Arts Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, and Toronto Biennial of Art.

Exhibited at

Kai Art Center (Tallinn), 2020
The Ryder (Madrid), 2020
MOCA Toronto (Toronto), 2019
Toronto Biennial (Toronto), 2019
Bluecoat (Liverpool), 2019