Film Categories: Childhood

  • Changing Evan

    Is my daughter Evan like a puzzle? Just when I think everything is going well, either a germ will attack or a new emotion will surface. I hear that children change every week. When I was making this film, my daughter was invaded by the chicken pox virus. I was convinced that I must finish this film as quickly as possible because her health was directly linked to its completion. Honourable mention by the Canadian Film Centre at the 2006 Ottawa International Animation Festival.

  • Boy in the Plastic Bubble, The

    “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble” is a remake of a 1977 TV movie-of-the-week starring John Travolta. Shot on super8 with Ken and Barbie dolls, this animated film explores the themes of adolescent love, isolation, plastic bubbles, beach parties and the boy next door.

  • Hopscotch

    A child’s walk home brings a pleasant, unexpected discovery.

  • Crickets

    Sue, a 10-year-old Korean-Canadian, playfully pushes the limits until she finds herself in unexpected territory. “A bittersweet interracial romance between two prepubescent insect-lovers.” – Gemma Files, EYE Weekly Selected screenings & awards: Special Jury Prize, Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival. Screenings in over a dozen festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival (1998); SXSW; and the New York, SF, Toronto, and LA Asian film festivals.

  • Wide-Eyed

    In an awkward attempt to meet the ideal western standards of beauty, Julie, a 16-year-old Korean-Canadian, obsesses about double eyelid surgery. Her tomboy sister Jean is fascinated yet repulsed by her older sister’s serious body-image issues. Neither of them can come to any entirely comfortable sort of compromise on the right way to love each other, or themselves. Selected screenings: International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Germany; Visual Communications, LA, California; Giffoni Film Festival, Salerno, Italy.

  • In a Present Distance…

    “In a Present Distance…” explores the complex terrain of motherhood, through an experimental narrative about a woman who travels to Quebec City to do research for a film she is making. While on the train, fragments of her life emerge and speak subtly to the journey of life: of grieving and loss, of happiness and sadness, as well as the joyful and reverent gestures of living. At the heart of this film is her child, shown at various times and spaces in his development as he explores the world around him. It is through him and his growth and discovery…

  • Scheme

    “‘Scheme’ is composed of photographs, text and drawings from my son’s creative play and school work. Many of the images are photographs he shot with a child’s Crayola 110 camera, which I feel capture some of the essence of movement and the transcience of childhood. The video is framed by ideas of how we are socialized to make patterns and connections to the world through the use of language. It explores this patterning through the relationship between the photographic image and a dialogue between my son & I.” – Tracy German

  • Butch or Consequences

    Louise, an old-school butch, falls in love with a pretend TV lesbian and in her desperate need to be with her she participates in a fictional make-over show, Inside Out: Deviant Dyke to Diva. Louise, reveals her new marriage approved look to her local dyke march when suddenly it all starts to go wrong, or, some would say, it all gets right.

  • Begging for Change

    Two universes unfold from a coin toss in award-winning writer-director J.T. Tepnapa’s dramatic short about redemption and desperation. In the first scenario, a homeless teen (Brandon Michael) rejects the aid of a handsome jogger (Damon Preston) only to continue to live another day on the streets. In the second, the flip of a coin leads him into the arms of that same jogger. Will either path lead him home?

  • Cuentos de Mi Ninez (Tales from My Childhood)

    “In 1973, General Augusto Pinochet launched a violent coup in Chile that overthrew the Marxist elected president Salvador Allende. Thousands were killed, tortured, imprisoned, and exiled as a result. My family was among the many that were exiled in Canada.” – Francisca Duran In this experimental, autobiographical film, a young woman remembers and recounts difficult childhood memories of the 1973 coup in Chile when her family was forced into exile.