Hiccups

Reza Basirzadeh is a Toronto-based visual artist, scenographer, theatre-maker, and production designer whose practice moves across theatre, film, digital media, and installation. He holds an MFA in Theatre Design from the University of Alberta and a BFA in Drama. His work explores memory, grief, embodiment, and the ways images and spaces can perform beyond language. Rooted in collaborative creation, he approaches design as an active storytelling partner rather than a backdrop. His projects include theatre productions, independent films, interactive artworks, photography, and poetry. Hiccups continues his interest in combining visual composition, sound, movement, and poetic thought into intimate cinematic experiences.

I made Hiccups in response to a grief I could not express through conventional narrative. The film emerged from fragmented thoughts, recurring images, and emotions that arrived like hiccups: sudden, involuntary, and impossible to suppress.

Rather than explain loss, I wanted to give it a physical and visual form. Bread, milk, ink, water, fire, and fragile living creatures become carriers of memory, fear, love, and transformation. I think of the film as a visual poem, or a “Poemage”, created where language begins to fail.

I hope audiences do not simply understand Hiccups, but feel it, leaving with an image that lingers like a half-remembered line from a poem.