Our Body is an Expanding Star

Co-presented by The Kween CompanyIn Partnership with the International Institute for Critical Studies in ImprovisationSupported by DiverseWorksCo and Queer Night Out
Venue: The ImprovLab | MacKinnon Building, Room 108, University of Guelph, 87 Trent LaneTickets: $20/PWYWScreening: 7:00pm
Our Body Is An Expanding Star
Semillites Hernandez Velasco, Tania Hernandez Velasco ⋅ Mexico ⋅ 83 min ⋅ CAPTIONS
Semillites and Tania, two queer siblings bound by a powerful friendship, journey through the brown terrain of their own bodies - lands they once rejected. They traverse landscapes of skin, dreams and viscera, crossing into places that pulse with their ancestors’ memory and, along the way, encounter a constellation of flowers, grasshoppers and fossils. Through collage, animation, manifesto, dance and intimacy, the film moves across scales of body and territory, reimagining identity beyond Mexico’s colonial narratives.
Pre Film: A 5-minute breathwork session centering our bodies from the outside world and into our own world.Post Film Experience: Stars, gardens, expansion, and us - an anchored meditation and group reading.
***PARKING: Please note parking is available in LOT P44 (off of College).
ImprovLab is a 35 minutes walk or bicycle ride (10 minutes) from downtown Guelph. There are also several bus routes (through Guelph Transit, GO, and Megabus) that can help get you to ImprovLab. If you are planning to drive, you can find additional information about visitor parking at the University of Guelph on the University’s Parking Website.

Director Bios:
SEMILLITES HERNÁNDEZ VELASCO - DIRECTOR/ANIMATION & ILLUSTRATIONS
He/him/his. Semillites is a Brown and Trans multidisciplinary artist and community arts worker based in Vancouver, Canada, on the Unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam Nations. He was born in Mexico City and migrated north at the age of nineteen. Working across film-making, drawing, DJing and animation. His practice is rooted in celebrating imperfection that is expressed through self-portraiture. Semillites’ work is grounded in in-depth research into the cultural and social associations of color and guided by a commitment to collaborative practices. As an artist and cultural worker, he is dedicated to collaborating with and supporting migrant, BIPOC, and queer communities.
Semillites work has been featured in Canadian magazines and publications, like Room Magazine (2022) and he has collaborated with several non-profit organizations as well as art festivals both locally and nationally across Canada.

TANIA HERNÁNDEZ VELASCO - DIRECTOR/PRODUCER
They/them/their - she/her/hers. Filmmaker and film educator based in Ciudad de México. Through intimate, collaborative, sensory, and speculative gestures, their films entangle and reimagine body, territory and identity in the center of so-called México. Through cinema, they seek to nurture expanded bonds of kinship between land, human and more-than-human beings.
Director of “Titixe” (2018), “Eclipsis” (2022) and co-director of “Our Body Is An Expanding Star” (with Semillites Hernández Velasco, 2025) and the film installation “All that Has A Name Exists” (with Marina Lameiro, 2025). Their films have been screened in more than 60 international film festivals, including IDFA, Full Frame, BlackStar, Ann Arbor, Ambulante, FICUNAM, Biarritz, Festa del Cinema di Roma, Trieste, Black Canvas, etc.