How to Build a Time Machine

How to Build A Time Machine

How to Build a Time Machine is a fascinating and deeply human documentary that explores our universal desire to revisit the past—whether to correct a mistake, relive a memory, or simply understand the passage of time itself.

Blending science, nostalgia, and emotion, filmmaker Jay Cheel follows two men united by the same obsession: the idea of time travel. One is an animator driven to reconstruct the time machine from the 1960 film The Time Machine, while the other is a physicist haunted by a moment he wishes he could change. Through their stories, the film becomes less about technology and more about longing—the ache for what has been lost and the hope that memory can somehow be rebuilt.

Visually striking and gently philosophical, Cheel’s film uses the language of documentary to explore what time really means to us. It reflects on grief, creativity, and the limits of human understanding, while celebrating the curiosity that drives us to imagine the impossible. Rather than offering answers, How to Build a Time Machine invites viewers to consider why we’re so drawn to the idea of bending time at all—and what that reveals about our relationship to life, loss, and the moments that define us.

Screening With:

We March to Remember

Canadian Shorts Showcase

During the Second World War, Canada played a critical role in the liberation of the Netherlands from the Third Reich. Today, we march to remember. The story of the Canadian Military Contingent Participating in the largest march in the world.

21 mins 31s
Canada, 2014
Dir. Kevin Hoffman
Language: English