One morning, in a Manitoban city, the sun fails to rise. People huddle around the warm glow of their television sets eagerly awaiting a new sun to rise, yet in the Red River Valley, life carries on as usual. Revealing the mystery and wonder in every facet of the mundane, the narrative unfolds like a dream, where strange events intertwine with the paths of three characters. Shot on 16mm film and using multiple in-camera effects, the film weaves a visually resplendent language with entrancing layers of sound. Echoing the cinema of Lynch and Parajanov, blending experimentation and fiction, occultism and Indigenous symbols, Levers unfolds as a sensory journey, mesmerizing and enigmatic, like a dream.

Rhayne Vermette is a self-taught artist and filmmaker from Manitoba. Her work, exploring place, time, and rhythm, uses collage, photography, and analog film through layered strategies of fiction and reenactment. It has been presented internationally at venues including the Berlinale, TIFF, the New York Film Festival, and the Walker Art Center. Her acclaimed debut feature, Ste. Anne (2021), won the TIFF Amplify Voices Award for Best Canadian Feature Film. In 2024, she was shortlisted for the prestigious Sobey Art Award. Vermette lives and works in Winnipeg.