Synopsis : Isiah Medina’s sly, perspicacious fourth feature, He Thought He Died is a fragmentary fiction staring co-producer and co-cinematographer Kelley Dong as a filmmaker conducting research in a museum vault, while an unnamed painter (Medina) plots a heist to steal back his work from the same space. Throughout, the narrative is interwoven with sequences probing the central questions of art, aesthetics, ideological structures, and commerce, here given form in philosophical exchanges, observational passages of artistic creation, exuberant bursts of music, and more.
Festival History : "Toronto International Film Festival, 2023 São Paulo International Film Festival, 2023"
Director :
Isiah Medina
Producer :
Kelley Dong, Isiah Medina, Andrei Pora
Screenplay :
Isiah Medina
DOP :
Kelley Dong, Isiah Medina
Editor :
Isiah Medina
Cast :
Kelley Dong, Myles Taylor, Alexandre Galmard, Andilib Khan, Isiah Medina
Isiah Medina makes films with his company Quantity Cinema. He started filmmaking at the age of 11. His most recent features, Night is Limpid and He Thought He Died, continue his interrogation of Canada’s relation to Europe and America, cinema’s relation to other artistic mediums such as painting and music, and the question of what it means to be an artist in the 21st century. Isiah Medina has been described by Jeonju IFF lead programmer Sung Moon as “Canada’s most secretive and astonishing director.” His films have played at various leading International Film Festivals.