Film Categories: Canada

  • Reinventing the Unconventional: The Hearn Generating Station

    Nestled next to downtown Toronto looms the abandoned Hearn Generating Station. Thirty years after it was decommissioned, art director Jorn Weisbrodt envisioned an entire arts festival, Luminato, taking place in the Hearn. We hear about the challenges of reinventing such an unconventional space, from politics to the will of the Toronto people.

  • Sira

    ‘Sira’, in Arabic, literally translated, means biography. Arabs are a people known for their oral tradition. Through excavated footage and narration, Sira examines the displacement of a family, beginning with the event that catapulted their exodus from Kuwait as a result of the Iraqi invasion.

  • Beat

    Caleb is a dancer. He’s also deaf. Caleb experiences music through feeling—and when he meets Thaddeus, a local musician, he begins to feel a lot. A mutual interest in music (and one another) brings the two young men together. Sometimes, love doesn’t have to be complicated.

  • View

    Nameer must take action, as he is being watched as a ‘thief’ by numerous viewers.

  • A Scene

    A man drives up to his ex-lover’s house demanding that she express her feelings toward him in person. But even still, he won’t leave without making a point.

  • Slumberparty 2018

    Slumberparty 2018 is a remake of a 1984 Super 8 film called Slumberparty made by the Positive Pornographers, a mostly queer collective of Toronto-based artists, activists and sex-workers. Commissioned by A-Space Gallery’s “Developing a Women’s Erotic Language on Film” workshop, Slumberparty was made as a direct intervention in Toronto’s feminist porn debates. They wrote, “we didn’t set out to make a work of art. We set out to make something that might turn us on. Join us for what one previewer called “Mary Poppins’ first lesbian orgy. Slumberparty screened twice in public in 1984 then disappeared until 2016, when the…

  • Cherry Cola

    After Ryan receives an abrupt message ending his two year relationship, he and his fellow drag sister, Nick, partake on a drunken adventure for resolution. Moving through the city with night as their fuel, both queens are forced to reflect on the life they live, and the people who can’t seem to keep up.

  • Welcome to the World

    A daring film starring Albert M. Chan (GOTHAM, GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST, 30 ROCK) as a troubled man who records a video message for his pregnant sister. Taking place on the brink of a new life, this compelling film explores what it means to be human and the courage it takes to be fully alive. Drawing its power and immediacy from its first-person confessional style, the film presents, in one continuous take, the journey of one man’s awakening from isolation back to humanity. Welcome to the World won the award for Best Performance (actor Albert M. Chan) at the 2019…

  • Twilight

    Exploring the relationship between sound and picture, this film is inspired by the two lights (twi-light) found inside of film projectors. The animation was created by applying both sound and picture directly onto 35mm film. After the soundtrack was created, each individual sound was assigned a specific shape and colour that repeats throughout the composition. Visual shapes were airbrushed and hand-painted onto orange mask (negative film), then printed positive for further manipulation by bleaching or scratching into the film’s emulsion before the final print copy was made. Sounds were made by drawing Spirograph moire patterns onto clear mylar sheets. The…

  • TV

    Transformational Vibrations (TV). Sound vibrations are interpreted as images in this abstract film. Resonating cycles of rhythm build until every frame contains a sound. This is an experimental animation created by applying both sound and picture directly onto the 35mm film. Once the soundtrack was created, each individual sound was assigned a specific shape and colour that repeats through out the entire composition. Visual shapes were airbrushed and hand-painted onto orange mask (negative film), then printed positive for further rendering by bleaching or scratching into the films emulsion before the final print copy was made. Sounds are made by hand…