Short Drop screening leads to long-lasting contemplation and admiration

UTM alumna leads a creative team into their first successful splash in the cinema world and enchants U of T Mississauga audience
 

UTM alumna Mary-Rebekah Reyes and her brother Romario have been collaborating on art projects their whole lives. So, they figure they shouldn’t disrupt the good flow they have going and are making it official: by branching out into filmmaking together. 

And on October 25, members of the U of T Mississauga community came together for a special viewing of the Reyes’s first short horror film Short Drop. As a bonus, the siblings were on hand virtually for a Q&A afterwards from their home country of Trinidad and Tobago. Mary-Rebekah, who graduated from UTM and Sheridan’s joint Art and Art History program in 2022, served as the film’s executive producer, and Romario, its writer and director, were joined by cinematographer/editor/VFX artist (and cousin) Israel Silva, as well as Kern Salandy, production assistant and a co-founder of Liquid Matter Studios, their producing partner for the film. 

The screening was co-hosted by the Department of Visual Studies (DVS) and UTM’s Black Staff Leadership Table, with additional organization by Heather Hines, director of the Office of the Vice-President and Principal (VPP) and Cheryl Lewis-Lindsay, Executive Assistant, Administration and Operations in VPP; Hines also serves as the Black Staff Leadership Table co-chair and Lewis-Lindsay is a member.

Several DVS faculty attended the event to help facilitate, including Mary-Rebekah’s former instructors: Professors 
Jill Caskey, chair of DVS, who said it’s not often you see someone have such impact so soon after graduating, and John Armstrong, program coordinator of the Art and Art History Program at DVS and Sheridan. 

“When we first met, Mary-Rebekah told me that she came from a family of artists,” says Armstrong.

He says that while she was a student in the program, Mary-Rebekah consistently prioritized her communication, collaboration, and community-building in her artwork.

“Her sculpture and performances are a form of storytelling that metaphorically explore her experience of her own emotions, the impressive nature of news cycles, or the travails of love, and, as you will see today, she continues to work in this way, connecting with her community and family.”   

After screening the nine-minute film, which jolted audience members with a supercharged ending, Professor Ruba Kana’an, associate chair in DVS, moderated the Q&A.

The Short Drop team explained how the project emerged, some of their process and the technical aspects for making this film, as well as their inspiration, particularly the fact that this film is based on Trinbagonian folklore, which is something that Mary-Rebekah and the creators want to resurrect. 

“The oral tradition, in general, is kind of fading away, and once the older generation dies those stories go with them,” says Mary-Rebekah. 

“Changing it and sharing through the medium of film is breathing new life into these stories and serves an educational purpose as well.”

Mary-Rebekah was also reflecting on how her program at UTM equipped her for this foray into filmmaking. 

“I loved the structure of my program at the University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College, and I just want to continue working in that vein,” she says, noting that this is just the start for her team, who plan to continue making more films.

“Any work that I do will have the Art and Art History approach – whether in the academic or art-making, or in the theoretical and the practical, because I find that that training informs everything I take on.”

This watch party aligns with the Anti-Black Racism recommendations that UTM is committed to implementing: carving out more space on campus to showcase and celebrate Black art.