Film Categories: Class-struggle

  • Luna e Santur

    “Originally commissioned as a short for Ben Coonley’s My First 3D Part 2 at Microscope Gallery, I expanded this project into what it currently is: hooded figures, violent passion, and stroboscopic tenderness brought on by a paranormal encounter I had in the summer of 2015.” –JGS ‘‘A visually assaultive threnody for losses never fully revealed and composed for monstrous times, LUNA E SANTUR mingles sex and death with the supernatural and subnaturalistic.’-Colin Beckett “Moon and sun are elliptically and stroboscopically conjured in Joshua Gen Solondz’s cloistered yet operatic Luna e Santur. In milky, hand-processed images, hooded figures recalling Magritte’s The Lovers enact a…

  • Midnight at the Continental

    Toronto, 1955. In the heart of Chinatown, a new bar opens: The Continental. It’s dark, grimy, and attracts an unusual clientele. Local tabloids scream in 20-point font: “Sapphos overflow Chinatown!” The bar becomes the meeting place for two of Toronto’s marginalized communities: Chinese-Canadian men and lesbians living “the life” full time. Recounting this forgotten piece of Toronto queer history, artists Hortie and Reynolds tell the story of Toronto’s first long-standing lesbian bar using original shadow puppets, overhead projector animation and archival images. Pull a stool up to the bar and watch lesbians and Chinese men stand side by side, battling…

  • Looking For Carmen

    “In his most ravishing and heartbreaking work, Arriaga ventures again to his native Peru in search of a lost friend. Along the way he encounters the faces of those who speak about wounds that cannot heal—survivors recounting the deaths and disappearances of their beloveds during Peru’s civil war that pitted the communists of The Shining Path against the government, with both sides aligned against the people. “The dead have called us to find them,” remarks Lida Flores de Huaman, and Marcos follows her evocation, cutting memory trails into Peru that bring back the names of the disappeared. Using frames that…

  • Tale Of Winter

    Tale of Winter focuses on the societal indifference towards homeless people. One the of the biggest challenges of ours times is the lack of empathy towards the underprivileged, the poor, the deranged: the people who live on the margins of the society but who are often treated as if they are invisible, ignorable or as if they are nuisances. With Tale of Winter, I would like to draw attention to how much and how easily we disregard that which is right in front of us, that which call for our sensitivity and understanding.

  • Trans Lives Matter! Justice for Islan Nettles

    A powerful and intensely moving document of a community vigil for Islan Nettles, a transgender Womyn of Colour, concerning her spirit and life. Because the personal is political. Because the brutal and increasing attacks on Trans Womyn of Color are outrageous and their victimization causes outrage. Because healing and action tighten our fists and boom our voices. Islan’s murder was a hate crime, she was only 21. Her vigil was held at Jackie Robinson Park in Harlem, steps away from where she was murdered. This endeavour captured the love and support that the community brought to sustain each other and…

  • Tide Marks

    Ten years after the triumph over Apartheid in South Africa, four former activists deal with the consequences of their dedication to human dignity with humour, frustration and hope. In this poignant and educational documentary, filmmaker Sarah Abbott presents issues that have been largely ignored by mainstream media, as its focus on the brutalities of apartheid shifted to the successes of transforming a nation. “Tide Marks” is an evocative collection of interviews, memories, observational footage, found photographs and South African music that re-visits apartheid history and looks at aspects of its present-day aftermath. Abbott’s intimate engagement with Cape Town residents reveals…

  • Saigon Apartments

    “The artist watching the weak doing the poor. The film-maker’s eye as voyeur’s lens. The camera as gun. If violence is the new sex, then TV news is the new pornography. Romance language yoked to the class struggle. Bulls eye. “This one’s about one-way interfaces in reference to class and power dynamics. It’s common in our culture for artists to live in low rent neighbourhoods, and therefore to witness the daily misery of the poor, which often informs their art. But this witnessing is generally done from an outsider’s perspective. At times this complex of watching, hearing, and recording can…

  • Slide

    Through a simple act of child’s play, a young boy confronts both his parents’ overwhelming protection and his own very real fears. “Slide” is an animated short film whose narrative centres around the metaphor of being handicapped. Even loving parents hand us crutches; what we do with them is up to us.

  • Made By Hand: Experimental Works for Educational Environments

    Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. In response to an increasingly technological world, there has been an explosion in the number of “handmade” films – those created by working directly with the material of the film. This compilation showcases recent works that use a range of handmade and artisanal techniques, including photograms, hand-processing, cameraless animation and collage. “Well-crafted and entertaining, this collection is an excellent presentation of short abstract films. Repeated imagery, animation, home movies, playful use of color, photograms, dance, and different light effects provide both fanciful and introspective moments of sheer film appreciation. These films would…

  • City of Dreams

    “City of Dreams” is the story of Marcel “Bambi” Commanda, an Ojibway man from Rama First Nation. Marcel sits in a prison cell, reciting a passage from his life. The film touches on his marginalization and displacement in the urban environment, the loss of culture, language and traditions, and his attempt to regain what he has lost. A poet, performer, drummer and emerging film and video maker, Marcel passed away in 1994 just after filming was finished. Selected screenings: Sundance Film Festival, USA, 1999; International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Cuba, 1996; Figueira da Foz International Film Festival, Portugal,…