Something in us lives beyond language. Before we reach for words, we dream — in images, in bodies, in feelings that refuse to be named. Cinema knows this. It has always spoken in the same tongue as the unconscious: symbolic, nonlinear, alive with meaning we sense before we understand.
This evening brings those two worlds together. You are invited to watch a film as a dreamer — and then to think and speak about what moved through you.
THURSDAY, JUNE 4 | 6:30PM-9PM
(Creative Legion), 7 Fairview Ave, Hudson, NY 12534
FREE for Members | $15 for Non Members
ABOUT THE FILM
Leland has been dreaming about whales, while she and her husband Jaan try to get pregnant.
A film built from the inside out — shot seasonally through improvisation, dream work, and a trust in the actor's instinctive, unconscious knowing. Director Ryan Balas went looking for the deepest whales, and found them.
THE EVENING
6:30 PM: Arrivals, Beverages, Introduction — a short lecture by Jonathan Hyland on the relationship between the dream image and the cinematic image
6:45 PM: Film screening — 75 minutes
8:00 PM: Brief bio from Jonathan Hyland & Ryan Balas
8:15 PM: Open Q&A — share your experience of the film, ask questions, follow where the images lead
YOUR HOSTS
Ryan Balas — filmmaker
Ryan is a filmmaker and co-founder of The Balas Brothers, a boutique production company working across documentary storytelling and brand-driven media. His practice is rooted in intimate, observational filmmaking — long-form work that earns its audience through patience, specificity, and trust.
Alongside his brother Alec, he created Whiskeyland, a creator-led documentary series exploring whiskey through people, place, and history. This film was made in a different register — slower, stranger, closer to the interior life — dedicated to the process of following the unconscious wherever it leads.
Jonathan Hyland — psychologist
Jonathan Hyland is a psychologist specializing in Archetypal Dreamwork — a practice in which dreams serve as a lens for identifying the invisible processes shaping our lives.
His work begins with a simple observation: some of what we carry cannot be put into words. And because it escapes language, it escapes understanding — yet we still feel it, physically and emotionally. The archetypes Carl Jung described are these processes made visible. Dreams are where they speak. Jonathan's role is to help you hear them.
Attendance at the Q&A is optional — you are welcome to leave after the film. But if you have ever woken from a dream with the feeling that something in it mattered, and wanted a space to explore what, this conversation is for you.