Film Categories: Identity

  • 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.…

  • Fluids

    6 years ago two artists attempted to make a queer, sci-fi porno: it failed. What emerged 6 years later out of its campy/tragic/melodramatic ashes is this erotic experimental documentary; a meditation on the intersections of failure and fetish as well the meticulous, accidental processes of constructing of cinema and identity

  • The Fruit of our Womb

    One night, Andrea, a young woman, comes back home from a party, a bit drunk. Her loving girlfriend Marie advices her to drink some water before going to sleep, so as to avoid an hangover. Andrea goes to their messy kitchen where she can’t find any proper water… until she sees a bottle of Holy Water, shaped in Holy Mary. She drinks it all. Some time after that night, Andrea finds herself vomiting a lot and getting bigger and bigger. Marie starts to worry that Andrea could be pregnant, but it’s impossible, Andrea never had sex with a man! They…

  • 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.

  • Heartbreak

    “Heartbreak” is a tribute to black mothers. It was written and produced in response to the constant threat of brutality they and their children (particularly boys) live under. Through poetry and the voice of a 5-year-old boy it relates the very real physical and psychological toll that violence has on black bodies and black souls.

  • Ripples/Derive

    On a summer day, 9 year-old Aissa accompanies her mother Yasmina to one of the houses where she works as a cleaning lady. When Aissa is bullied by Sarah, the daughter of Yasmina’s employer, there are tragic consequences for the victim.

  • In Between/Entre Deux

    On a cold fall evening, Leila is left alone to tend the family convenience store. A series of strange clients keep her in a constant state of apprehension. Language and cultural barriers also contribute to the making of a nerve-racking evening.

  • 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…