Film Categories: Education

  • Christine

    With the help of her best friend, Christine redefines her perception of strength and what it means to be herself.

  • I AM! We Are Here!

    “I AM! We Are Here!” multimedia project documenting the vitality and spirit of Queer, Trans* and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color in the Bronx. Vision of I AM! Is a documentation concerning the lives of Queer, Trans* and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color in the Bronx. Document activist, students, educators, mothers, faith based practitioners, and various types of community members who are making a difference in their communities, their and other peoples lives. In response to unprecedented murders of Trans* individuals across the United States and in solidarity with Trans Lives Matter!, “I AM! We Are Here!” invites the viewer…

  • The Uphill Battle: The Cost of Raising a Champion

    Karate and the Olympics: Who Will Represent Canada in 2020? This documentary highlights the difficulties experienced in creating champions in Ontario. For the past 20 years athletes have been faced with hardships created by stringent rules, underfunding, and a complete lack of understanding from “higher-ups.” Today karate faces a real challenge: How do we make the transition from an amateur sport to a professionally organized industry with an environment for raising true champions? We attempt to cover this issue in depth with interviews with people who are directly involved. “The Uphill Battle” is required viewing for anyone who believes karate…

  • 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.

  • BLU In YOU

    Walter Benjamin suggests that film is comparable to surgery, the instrument allowing the operator to penetrate the body of the subject while, paradoxically, maintaining his or her distance. This statement self-reflexively sets up the female spectator at the helm of the art-installation opening of Blu in You—an eloquent essayist film with visual conversations that dissects historical and contemporary representations of the black female body, sexuality and subjectivity. The female spectator (Melanie Smith), views the staged art installation conversations between visual arts curator (Andrea Fatona) and writer (Nalo Hopkinson). The conversations begin with a cultural history of violence, ethnographic display and…

  • Protector

    “Protector” is the first in a series of short documentaries that explores Osborne’s relationship with their uncle/godfather and his experiences with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), institutionalization, and working in Mental Health.”Protector” attempts to portray a person living with DID in an authentic and multi-faceted way. This documentary was funded by the Ontario Arts Council.

  • In Crystal Skin (Feature)

    In Crystal Skin provides a glimpse into the lives of four individuals living with the same rare disease in Bogotá, Colombia. Largely avoiding the broader context of disease science, the film instead delves into quiet, intimate moments between characters and the families that help care for them. Maria Alejandra, a charismatic 11-year-old, struggles to attend school despite her mother’s determined prodding. When Maria refuses to wake up for school one morning, the ensuing drama shows the difficult conflicts that arise between parents and children with rare diseases. The film moves across the city to three other characters: Miguel, a middle-aged…

  • Between Two Cinemas Part 2

    For the past thirty years filmmaker/archivist Ross Lipman has cut a winding path between classic international cinema and the American avant-garde. In this riveting but completely unclassifiable work, he looks back at a life in the cinema and an indescribable divide at the heart of it. Part biography, part clip essay, part abstract painting, “Between Two Cinemas” integrates 4K restorations of his old films inside a new documentary/essay linking them. It uncovers previously unseen archival material on Stan Brakhage and Andrei Tarkovsky, and adds new collaborations with artists including visionary experimentalist Bruce Baillie, Jeanne Dielman cinematographer Babette Mangolte, Bela Tarr…

  • The Day Don Died

    Tucked away in the heart of downtown Vancouver, there’s a condo tower that’s home to long-time members of Canada’s performing arts professions: singers, actors, costume designers, dancers, filmmakers, playwrights, jazz musicians, and more. Now picture this: on Easter Saturday, the residents of Vancouver’s Performing Arts Lodge wake up to discover jazz singer and beloved tenant Don Stewart has unexpectedly died after a Good Friday performance at a neighbourhood bar. But as news travels between his creative and colourful neighbours, the story of Don’s pass takes on a life of its own. Every resident has their own version of what really…

  • Drag Race

    A public three-event race in high heels and improvised monologue about all things political from pro-choice philosophies, the glass ceiling, the history of high heels, vandalism and gentrification, buying locally and seasonally, going vegan, sexual health and gender diversity. Participation was highly encouraged and pre-race makeovers were often held at my apartment. This is a document of the 10th annual drag race.