Screening Information

Date: Saturday, March 28, 2026
Start Time: 4:15 PM
Runtime: 10 minutes
Location: MIX Center — Theater 2
50 N Centennial Way, Mesa, AZ 85201

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Film Description

Voices of the Mountains is an animated documentary created with young authors from Tajikistan that reflects on life in a mountain town shaped by recurring mudslides. Through hand-drawn animation and personal narration, the film explores how natural disasters become part of everyday memory and lived experience.

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Rather than portraying catastrophe alone, the film captures the voices, resilience, and perspectives of young people who live alongside a changing landscape. Nature becomes not just a backdrop, but a fragile archive where memory, loss, and community coexist.

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Director:

Dante Rustav is a documentary filmmaker and curator who works with animated documentary forms. His projects explore themes of memory, landscape, and collective experience, often developed through collaborative creative processes. As mentor and curator for Voices of the Mountains, he guided the young filmmakers in using animation as a documentary language to express stories that are deeply personal and difficult to capture through traditional filmmaking.