Film Categories: Mental Health

  • You Be Mother

    “You Be Mother” uses stop-frame animation to disrupt the traditional orders of animate and inanimate, the fluid and the solid. An hallucinatory space is set up when a frozen image of the artist’s face is projected onto weighty pieces of crockery atop a table. Ears, eyes, nose and mouth, all become spatially dislocated as a determined hand begins to reposition, decant and mix. Events unfold to the amplified sounds of grinding, pouring and stirring.

  • Fine and Dandy

    A woman whose thoughts and actions are controlled by 1885 social etiquette is struggling to find happiness through self help books and videos. Through this she hopes to attract the attention of a potential female suitor.

  • My Father’s Idea of Heaven

    Using found and manipulated Super 8 footage from his family archives, RM Vaughan explores his late father’s bizarre HAM radio hobby.

  • Dear Guy

    “Dear Guy” dramatizes an inward and sometime romantically sentimental meditation on the relevance, remembrance and acculturation of Guy Debord’s life and works. The layered histrionics of the film engender reconsiderations of identification, moral responsibility, nostalgia and the potential of art in contemporary society. Excerpts from Debord’s memoir and fictional epistolary monologues are combined with an eclectic assortment of appropriated materials, invented leitmotifs, lecture performances, hybrid forms of the essay film, documentary and edutainment formats. “Dear Guy” drifts through a labyrinth-like montage structure that frustrates passive viewing while inviting contemplation. “DEAR GUY is an energetic response and thoughtful companion piece to…

  • States

    The deepest recesses of the human psyche. An interpretation of Freud’s theory of transference.

  • Parting Words (Derniers mots)

    In this short bittersweet drama, a young man is accompanied by his friends in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. The good looks of the paramedic distract them from the tension and awkwardness of not knowing what to say. As they arrive at the hospital, everyone is reminded that this may be their last goodbye.

  • Kolam (Pool)

    “‘Pool’ is a touching portrait of a community attempting to rebuild and heal itself following the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that shocked the world. The titular swimming pool is a temporary makeshift basin created to help the children of Aceh, Indonesia, face their fear of water and learn to swim again, despite the losses their community suffered when the sea came crashing in. Chong Chan Fui observes their progress with affection and a poet’s eye.” – Andrea Picard, Toronto International Film Festival In Indonesian, Acehnese and English with English subtitles. Awards: Winner of the Award for Best Canadian Short,…

  • Shadow Tracing

    A young Chinese woman challenged by identity and history, but enchanted with retro filmmaking in a digital world, makes a life decision – to purchase a vintage, hand-crank movie camera. The camera recalls images of wacky “Hollywood Chinatowns” from Hollywood films made in Colonialist times. While examining it, and dreaming of becoming a cameraman herself, she discovers the marks of former Chinese owners, and she envisions historical scenes that the camera may have seen in China. Her wishes are fulfilled as she films the streets of her own hood, in Toronto’s Asian community.

  • Portrait of a Couple

    A few days before moving to Spain, Ryan learns that he might be HIV positive. This situation will force him to deal with his boyfriend and his worse fear: loneliness. “Portrait of a couple” talks about the lack of trust between two lovers in a difficult moment. The dilemma is approached through the fear we all share of being sick and dying alone. The movie addresses the topic of a gay couple learning about their HIV status, from a particularly different perspective, not in a condescending or victimizing way, but allowing human nature to surface with all its flaws and…

  • Congratulations Daisy Graham

    Seventy-year-old Daisy Graham is having a hard day. No one in her small town wants to let her forget about the big ceremony tomorrow, a ceremony at the local high school in her honour. But Daisy has more important things to think about than some ceremony – she’s dug out her old rifle, now all she needs is a box of bullets. Jury Prize, Best Female Short, Philadelphia Int’l Gay & Lesbian Film Festival World Premiere at 2007 Toronto International Film Festival Special Jury Mention at Image+Nation, Montreal “A subtle and touching portrait” – Barrett Hooper, NOW Magazine