Film Categories: Portraits

  • All Fall Down

    “All Fall Down” is an experimental documentary that takes as its starting point a nineteenth century farmhouse in Southern Ontario, Canada, and asks the question “what has been here before?” The film weaves together a complex temporal structure that juxtaposes the lives of two figures, one historical (Nahneebahweequa: a nineteenth century aboriginal woman and land rights activist) and the other contemporary (an ex-pat drifter and father of the filmmaker’s step-daughter) across two hundred years. “All Fall Down” explores these characters through a variety of archival materials: diaries, landscape paintings, photographs, heritage films, poems, phone messages, maps, historical reenactments, songs) that…

  • Lucky Girl

    Four minutes in the day that I went to meet a man at sunset in the park. “Lucky Girl” recalls a seemingly insignificant moment that could have turned out very differently. – AG CALQ Award for Best Film in Art & Experimentation, Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois (2009); Spirit Award, Brooklyn International Film Festival (2010)

  • Oh My God

    Staring out the window, looking out at winter, and thinking of you.

  • Belonging

    Toronto’s diverse culture and heritage are explored through a couple’s belongings, juxtaposed with the neighborhood in which they live.

  • I’m Sorry, Sterling

    Poet RM Vaughan muses on his relationship to 50s film noir tough guy hunk Sterling Hayden, and why he cannot make his life more like a 50s film noir masterpiece. Created by video/internet artist Jared Mitchell, the film inserts Vaughan into the rain-dappled, shadowed and dreamy world of film noir – turning the poet into Hayden’s moll, lover, and dumb broad. A film about living your life “in the right movie,” queer projection onto mainstream cinema, and the collision of fantasy and reality.

  • Becoming Susan

    BECOMING SUSAN is a portrait documentary about Toronto activist Susan Gapka. The film enters Susan’s world through an exploration of the spaces around her, with Susan’s story filling these personal spaces before her visual representation does. BECOMING SUSAN presents a way of sharing the world of a trans-woman without focusing on the physical. Instead, visual fragments of Susan and her world serve as powerful metaphor for Susan’s journey from pieces to a whole. As we explore each new piece presented by the documentary we begin to understand that each is as important as the last to understanding her. Multi-faceted and…

  • Island, The

    The filmmaker considers, with the help of animation, a piece of fan mail he received. Jury Award for Best Short Film, Pink Apple Film Festival, Zurich, Switzerland (2009) Selected Screenings: Berlinale, 2009 (Germany); Toronto International Film Festival, 2009; International Short Film Festival Winterthur, 2009 (Switzerland); Frameline LGBT Film Festival, 2009 (San Francisco, USA); image + nation Film Festival, 2009 (Montreal, Canada)

  • Carpet Diem

    A two-minute creative documentary made of two unaltered still photos: one taken by a cell phone, the other by a professional Hollywood paparazzo. Selected Screenings: Inside Out Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, 2009 (Toronto, ON); CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival, 2009 (Toronto, ON)

  • Oh Me 2

    An animated essay which is a joint effort by both the artist and his son – a psychology prof. – to “describe” what it’s like to be living with manic depression and creating under its influence.

  • Seeing Through the Spider’s Web

    “SEEING THROUGH THE SPIDER’S WEB” weaves diverse interviews, documentary sequences, archival images, and utilizes a range of film stocks and experimental techniques in order to explore the effect of migration on family relations, faulty memories and failing eyesight.