Film Categories: Community

  • 1000 Brazils of Truth

    Filmmakers Sheena Rossiter and Sandro Silva perform a spoken word song that’s dedicated to São Paulo, a megacity full of paradoxes. Through archive footage they filmed between 2011 and 2017, Sheena and Sandro show the highs and lows of a country that goes from being an emerging market, economic powerhouse, to one on the brink of collapse. By the time the filmmakers decide to leave Brazil in 2017, it is a country in the midst of a seemingly never-ending political corruption scandal and the worst economic recession in over eight decades. But, despite the shortcomings, Sheena and Sandro still miss…

  • Water Over Glass

    * Official Selection Antimatter Film Fetsival 2020 * Official Selection Vancouver International Film Festival 2019 (nominated Best of BC Film Award) In Water Over Glass, the tension of a mind adrift and in conflict with itself is captured and bookended visually by the vast mutability of sea and sky, where water and air surfaces suggest both static and the dissolution of the individual. A doppelganger, a crime scene and the tidal erasure of what might have taken place: discomfiting moments in a bright, almost psychedelic, arc. Assembled from 16mm, super 8, and digital video, stop-motion collage and digital compositing animation,…

  • Salt River Water Walk

    In February 2020, Sharon Day (Ojibwe) led a group of Water Walkers through the Arizona desert to walk for the Salt River. Through animation and live footage, this documentary travels with the Salt River Water Walkers, describing this Indigenous-led ceremony as it creates community and builds relationships with the earth through the shared goal to care for the water. The project was organized by the Museum of Walking. The film was made possible through the Museum of Walking, the Institute for Desert Humanities at Arizona State University, and Indigenous People’s Task Force.

  • Pinhole Park

    “Pinhole Park” was created using a 35mm film tin modified into an outward-looking 59-pinhole camera that registers images on a single film loop mounted in the tin. Each loop is exposed in one moment with 59 pinhole “lenses” to create as many distinct images that, when presented in series, create a panning of the landscape in various directions. The work was exposed on outdated black-and-white 35mm print stock acquired from Archives Canada discards, and processed by hand in Caffenol chemistry, a less environmentally impactful developer made with coffee, vitamin C, and washing soda. The film and photographs document a city…

  • sway / pull

    Created during the COVID-19 pandemic when queer spaces were disappearing across Toronto, sway / pull is a meditation on the erosion of Hanlan’s point beach in both literal and figurative senses. Hanlan’s Point Beach, located on the Toronto Islands, was the site of Toronto first gay pride celebrations in 1970s and remains a queer haven today. Additionally, the Toronto Islands have faced poor city planning that has led to a significant amount of erosion on the beach. This film plays with the concept of erosion by the physical pushing of sand to speak back to the literal erosion of the…

  • HK Uprising

    A tribute to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong that are taking place three decades after the Tiananmen Square uprising. Note: This film can be displayed as a multi-channel installation with May 35.

  • Sab Shimono: Acting “As If”

    On the eve of his eightieth birthday, acclaimed Japanese American actor Sab Shimono reflects on his lifelong commitment to the craft of acting, his struggles against racism and homophobia, and how his life was transformed by gay bars and marriage equality.

  • Another Europe

    An essay film rooted in experimental cinema and queer storytelling. A female narrator (fellow artist Kathi Hofer) provides the voice over for this film, making it a reflection on my life and my journey through Europe from 2019-2020. Associative spaces unfold. A train of thoughts. The boundaries between factual and memories become a blur. How much of my personal story can be read more globally? Visual portraits of Europe’s faraway places away from typical tourist hot spots provide the mise en scène for this film. Landscapes in transition, pictures of movement, visually resembling the long journeys I have undertaken using…

  • Little Sky

    Little Sky follows the journey of Sky, a Chinese American pop star who returns to the city they were raised in to find their estranged immigrant father. Haunted by their childhood memories, Sky risks their non-binary identity to end the cycle of violence in their family. In the confrontation, Sky discovers something that changes how they feel about the people they love. Packed with original songs, Little Sky is a film about finding the chosen family who sees us when our blood family cannot.

  • Lavender: A Lesbian Love Story

    By accepting a lavender marriage proposal, Joy risks her secret relationship, forcing her to choose between appeasing her family and true love.