Kaija Siirala | picture and sound editor
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Kaija Siirala | picture and sound editor
picture and sound editor

Picture Editing | Selected Works

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twenty-five years swayed between our teeth

twenty-five years swayed between our teeth

2 channel video installation, 5.1 sound | 20 min. loop | dir. Sharlene Bamboat | 2025 | Editor, Sound Design

twenty-five years swayed between our teeth is a sound and moving-image installation that extends the themes and aesthetic strategies first explored in Sharlene Bamboat’s single-channel film Both, Instrument & Sound (2024). The installation delves into the complexities of solidarity, friendship, and sonic tension, offering a polyphonic encounter that asks how people are coping today under the weight of genocide, fascism and accelerating climate catastrophe. Premiere: Gallery TPW April/May 2025 as part of Images Festival.

a stone's throw

a stone's throw

Experimental mid-length documentary | 40 mins. | dir. Razan Al Salah | 2024 | Editor, Sound Design

Amine, a Palestinian elder, is exiled twice from both land and labor, from Haifa to Beirut to a Gulf offshore oil platform. A Stone’s Throw rehearses a history of the Palestinian resistance when in 1936 the oil laborers of Haifa blew up a BP pipeline. Screenings: FID Marseille, Doc Lisboa, Prismatic Ground, RIDM, Singapore International Film Festival, Olhar de Cinema, Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, Punto de Vista, BlackStar Film Festival, Dokufest, Open City.

BOTH, INSTRUMENT & SOUND

BOTH, INSTRUMENT & SOUND

Medium Length experimental documentary | 38 min. | dir. Sharlene Bamboat | 16mm, 8mm 5.1 sound | 2024 | Editor, Sound Design

Both, Instrument & Sound employs tension as an aesthetic strategy, to explore solidarity, collective struggle, and the transformation of these values under neoliberalism. The film follows the life of Tony over 3 years as he describes his process of political activism from the 1970s onwards, which cannot be disentangled from his friendships and his lovers. Premiere: Prismatic Ground. Screened: MOCA Toronto: Greater Toronto Art 2024, Mix NYC, RIDM, Rewire Festival.

FEET IN WATER, HEAD ON FIRE

FEET IN WATER, HEAD ON FIRE

Feature Documentrary | 90 Min | 16mm - DCP dir. Terra Long | 2023 | Co-Editor

Along the San Andreas fault line in Southern California, Indigenous palm trees and date palms imported from the Middle East flourish. The people who tend to them reflect a landscape of frictions and affections shaped over generations by agriculture, luxury real estate, and border politics. Like the infinity storytelling of The 1001 Nights, stories fold into dreams and back into stories, a constellation of voices settle over mountains and into the earth. Intertwining color 16mm with textural black and white film hand processed with the dates leftover from harvest and plants native to the valley Feet in Water, Head on Fire is a sensory, polyvocal evocation of place. Premiere: True/False Film Festival. Screenings: MoMI First Look, Hot Docs, DOXA, DokuFest, Black Canvas Film Festival, Dok Leipzig, Unorthodocs Wexner Center, IDFA.

CELESTIAL QUEER: THE LIFE, WORK AND WONDER OF JAMES MACSWAIN

CELESTIAL QUEER: THE LIFE, WORK AND WONDER OF JAMES MACSWAIN

Feature Documentary | 72 mins | dir. Sue Johnson, Eryn Foster | 2023 | Editor

Celestial Queer documents the life and work of animator, activist and artist Jim MacSwain. For over 40 years, MacSwain has been making otherworldly imagery full of whimsy, humour, politics and beauty. Through observational adventures, archival footage and rarely seen works, Celestial Queer illustrates the impact and contributions of this singular artist.​Premiere: Atlantic International Film Festival.

THE WORK

THE WORK

Feature Documentary | 92 mins | 2022 | dir. Daniel MacIvor | Picture Editor, Producer

Part theatrical adaptation, part road trip The Work elasticizes time and truth to delve into the nature of storytelling, depression and grief, finally emerging as a tender portrait of a unique friendship. Premiere: FIN Atlantic International Film Festival, September 2022.

SIGNAL AND NOISE

SIGNAL AND NOISE

Documentary Short | 13 mins | 2022 | dir. Katie Mathews and Jess Shane | Produced in collaboration with Mansoor Adayfi | Picture Editor

What are the sounds of Guantánamo Bay Detention Center? In 2015, poet Jordan Scott set out to record the ambient sounds of the prison as a means of bypassing its strict media censorship rules. Today, former detainee, Mansoor Adayfi, recalls how sound shaped his experiences there— both of torture and of hope. The year of the 20th anniversary of the prison, Scott’s field recordings and Adayfi’s memories come together to create a visceral new landscape of this notoriously secret place. Premiere: Prismatic Ground Film Festival. Screenings: Mimesis Film Festival, Third Horizon Film Festival, Nashville Film Festival, Hot Springs Film Festival, Antimatter Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival

OPEN WATER

OPEN WATER

Documentary Short | 19 mins | 2020 | Picture and Sound Editor | dir. Kalli Anderson

Open Water is a film about what it feels like to swim across the largest freshwater lake in the world. It follows Marilyn Korzekwa, a 61-year-old open-water swimmer, as she attempts to be the first person ever to complete a crossing of the eastern end of Lake Superior, from Michigan, USA to Ontario, Canada.

DAVID HARVEY AND THE CITY

DAVID HARVEY AND THE CITY

Documentary Short | 2019 | 12:36 | dir. Brett Story

An Antipode Foundation film | Cinematography by Martin DiCicco and Derek Howard | Edited by Kaija Siirala and Brett Story |Sound by Jeff Burke and Pacho Velez |Additional interviews Samuel Stein and Sarah Friedland | Music by Sauna Music

WE BECAME FRAGMENTS

WE BECAME FRAGMENTS

Documentary Short | 2018 | 12:37 | dir. Luisa Conlon, Lacy Jane Roberts, Hanna Miller

A New York Times Op-Doc about a young Syrian refugee coming of age in Winnipeg. Official Selection: Camden International Film Festival, DOC NYC, SFFilm Doc Stories. 2018 IDA Awards nominee. Winner Best Documentary - LA Shorts International Film Festival.

BIRD CITY LIGHTS

BIRD CITY LIGHTS

Documentary Short | 2017 | 16:57 | dir. Zachary Finkelstein and Kalli Anderson

An estimated one million migratory birds slam into Toronto’s glass buildings every year. Bird City Lights follows a day in the life of a bird rescuer as she scours the sidewalks, nooks and crannies of the financial district for fallen birds in the early hours of the morning.

THE JAZZ LOFT ACCORDING TO W. EUGENE SMITH

THE JAZZ LOFT ACCORDING TO W. EUGENE SMITH

Documentary Feature | 2017 | 87 mins | dir. Sarah Fishko | Assistant Editor

Art, obsession and anxiety permeate a dilapidated Manhattan loft building in Mid-century: The first movie to use photographer W. Eugene Smith's massive, fly-on-the-wall archive of photos and audio tapes documenting the likes of jazz greats Thelonious Monk, Zoot Sims, Jimmy Giuffre, Hall Overton and others at work and play in the Sixth Avenue wreck that was Smith's home and studio from 1957 through the '60s.

NO EASY WALK TO FREEDOM

NO EASY WALK TO FREEDOM

Documentary Feature | 2014 | 92 mins | dir. Nancy Nicol

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Previous Next
twenty-five years swayed between our teeth
a stone's throw
BOTH, INSTRUMENT & SOUND
FEET IN WATER, HEAD ON FIRE
CELESTIAL QUEER: THE LIFE, WORK AND WONDER OF JAMES MACSWAIN
THE WORK
SIGNAL AND NOISE
OPEN WATER
DAVID HARVEY AND THE CITY
WE BECAME FRAGMENTS
BIRD CITY LIGHTS
THE JAZZ LOFT ACCORDING TO W. EUGENE SMITH
NO EASY WALK TO FREEDOM
 

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