Film Categories: Portraits

  • Hitori

    The film is based on an early childhood memory of my natural mother. It is about the separation of a child from its roots – a child’s search for understanding of these roots. The roots beginning with the mother and the father. I am not sure if what I am remembering is a dream or a true memory. However, if it is memory, then it is my most greatest and most cherished memory. If it is a dream then – how great it is to dream. (EM)

  • Uncle Bardo

    Through an innovative blend of documentary, archival film manipulation, and experimental stop-motion animation, Uncle Bardo delves into the memories of an estranged family member who has undergone a near-death experience and awakens lost between two worlds. Rooted in the industrial landscape of Hamilton Ontario, we get lost in Uncle Bardo’s memories of a coma as he strives to find his sense of reality and recover his health.

  • Don’t Take My Joy Away

    In the Shatila Palestinian camp in Lebanon, two friends, Omar and Omar, find moments of joy amid hardship until sudden violence forces them to confront loss and survival.

  • Husbandry

    Mary Imrie (1918 – 1988) and Jean Wallbridge (1912 – 1979) operated their architecture firm—the first run by women in Canada—at Six Acres, the home they built for their work and life together overlooking the North Saskatchewan River in west Edmonton. When Mary Imrie passed away, she bequeathed the records of their remarkable architectural practice and adventurous life, along with their home, to the province of Alberta. With a title borrowed from a telegram in the collection, GLAD YOU CLOSER HOME / NEW WHITE WHISKER MARY is Cait McKinney and Hazel Meyer’s immersive exhibition that playfully imagines and speculates in…

  • Adieu Ugarit

    In 2012, Mohamad had witnessed his best friend gunned down by an armed militia on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria; the blood spilled into the lake contaminated his memory. Ten years later, the reflections on the Laurentian waters bring back Mohamad’s trauma. I asked him if he’d like to dig out the memories, to repair the pain by retreating for a few days into the most distressing calm possible for him. He tells us about death, immigration and anger. We wonder how and why we should tell this story.

  • People On Sunday

    People on Sunday is filmed using the technology of hand-crancked cinematograph camera invented by the Lumière brothers’. The instability and volatility of the image produced by the filming technique characterizes Viita´s film which title refers to the German classic Menchen am Sonntag (1930) – a well-known example of how history and the passage of time affect the interpretation of film. The inexorable passage of time and the beautiful fragility of life are central themes in both films. Does man learn anything from history, or are we doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again? People on Sunday presents…

  • Trajectories of Now

    Over an 18-month period, 18 racialized and gender diverse artists took part in creative research to develop artworks and activations responding to the guiding question “What change do you want to make with your art?”. Their work culminated in their group exhibit Trajectories of Now: An Anthology. Through visual, audio, and tactile works, Trajectories of Now documented critical narratives of relationships to identities; both personal and collective. In this short film, eight Trajectories artists discuss their artworks and processes for voicing, surfacing and amplifying creative advocacies and resistances for social change.

  • Home for Christmas

    “Here is the quintessential Hancox ‘personal documentary,’ a film in which both the production and role of traditional documentary and autobiographical filmmaking are thrown into question. Using his camera to record a visit out east by train to spend Christmas with the family, Hancox …. used his familiarisation with the annual rtitual as a form of a script… Although we see the journey through the subjective judgement of Hancox’s eyes, it is his intent to transfer the material from original event to camera, to editing, and finally to the audience, so that the personal content of the film… becomes universal.”…

  • Resting Place

    For those living with invisible illness we often find ourselves repetitively returning to rest. Resting Place captures the filmmaker returning to bed, reflecting on their experience living with chronic illness. The work utilizes multiple exposures to illustrate the ritual of rest.

  • Home Movie

    Mostly close-up views of my house and family. (PL)