Film Categories: Culture

  • 2076 (Elegy)

    In the year 2076, a cyborg finds moving images made by their great-grandmother in the last years of celluloid. Looking at the images, they are struck by the past, causing them to dig into their own memories, history, and identity.  Gleaned from images from the filmmaker’s life, 2076 looks at the ways in which familial history and queer identity are communicated through the archive/photographic image. Topically situated as the analog image is quickly disappearing, this film explores its virtues, illustrating the ways in which the past imbues small moments with power and glimpses of our past can speak and serve…

  • Take a Walk on the Wildside

    Wigs: shoulder length or long, naturally curled or straight. Shoes: pink glittery six-inch heels or black shiny two-inch heels. Nipples: stick on dime or dollar sized. A vibrant mesh of items line the shelves of one of Toronto’s oldest cross-dressing stores. Opened in 1987, Wildside was one of the only places to offer a full male-to-female transformation through makeup, clothing and hair. Still open today, Take a Walk on the Wildside provides viewers with a glimpse into a day in the life of the store. As five customers pass through, we peek into their colorful lives and reasons for visiting.…

  • The Royal Women Association

    THE ROYAL WOMEN ASSOCIATION tells the story of a group of South Asian women in Calgary who have banded together to overcome the isolation and loneliness so common among older members of their community. The women break out of their shells and overcome their demons by sharing songs, poetry, food, and laughter at the group’s monthly meetings. As they plan an event that calls attention to domestic violence in the community, one member, Sarbjit, tries to come to terms with the trauma of her own past.

  • The World in Ten Blocks

    Welcome to Bloorcourt, one of Toronto’s most diverse neighbourhoods. Small business owners from all over the world have made this one of the most vibrant parts of Toronto. Meet some of these immigrant entrepreneurs and hear about their dreams, struggles, victories, and the unexpected ways in which they’ve changed. An intimate journey into the kitchens and behind the counters of small businesses where cultures and traditions are preserved, shared, and evolve.

  • Boardwalk Músico

    A young trombone player from eastern Cuba, Liuber Martínez, came to Havana to make it as a musician. With Havana’s iconic seaside boardwalk as his practice studio, Liuber plays his heart out every day and dreams of touring the world.

  • Mino-bimaadiziwin (The Good Life)

    Mino-bimaadiziwin (The Good Life) came out of the Artist for Film residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point. I was excited about First Story’s walking tour with Elder Carolyn King. I was only able to participate with the aid of a wheelchair and allow others to push me around, it was my first time in a wheelchair. I documented this walk from that perspective with this manual timelapse on Super 8. Reconciling myself as a mixed-race indigenous Colombian settler “walking the red road” while being a person who lives with physical disabilities. Learning to live mino-bimaadiziwin as a settler to Turtle Island…

  • Sum (Heart)

    Based on ideas of Zen Buddhism and rooted in the 7 Grandfather teachings, Sum (Heart) is a rumination on death, grief and letting go. Starting out as a visual mourning song to Wendy Babcock, Mr Toqui Wong and Jack, empty landscapes represent the yearning for the company of dead friends. Water becomes a metaphor for grief and mourning, the ebbs and flows of nature reminds us of the cycle of life which transforms into a stark ode to a new day and new beginnings. I put all my sadness, prayers and hope into this trilogy while still aching for their…

  • V

    Iceland, 2016. Mythical landscapes and moment capture. Nature as mirror of, or backdrop for the self.

  • The Burning Desire in a Dollar Bill

    The Burning Desire in a Dollar Bill shows how the special interests of media conglomerates and their parent companies mould our latent desires at a young age, later leaving us confused as to whether we are lusting after the sexually charged imagery or the products being advertised. The film argues that the act of purchasing is the strongest aphrodisiac in a capitalist society, leaving open the possibility that a solution to toppling capitalism is to shift our sexual desires from consumerism to personal freedom from the state. The film was created during a residency at Signal Culture using a modified…

  • FOREIGN QUARTERS

    My mother’s lost Chinese heritage was a point of departure in this film which investigates the process by which an image is constructed in places foreign from that of my own. The condition of distance genetic to the ethnographic image traces the elusive qualities of her past and persona.