Film Categories: Race + Ethnicity

  • Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf

    An Arab-American girl tries to come to terms with her sexuality while balancing the mores of two different cultures. As she faces a series of trials on confrontations, will she shed her passivity, or will her spirit be broken? Arabic/Hebrew with English sub-titles. Selected Screenings: 2006 Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah

  • Placebo

    An “undeveloped faggot” has just turned 30 and been left by his boyfriend. Finally, he can remember his dreams. In Spanish with English sub-titles. Selected screenings: Toronto Inside Out Lesbian & Gay Film & Video Festival, 2004; Chicago Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, 2004; Best Student Narrative, Wisconsin International Film Festival, 2004; Sao Paulo Shorts Film Festival, 2004; Mix NYC, 2003.

  • Pangaea

    “Diego Costa’s ‘Pangaea’ delicately employs overlapping images to ruminate on the male body, locating complex, mythical metaphors for human connection in everything from bodily fluids to land masses to text messaging.” – Eric Beltmann, Flipsidemovies.com “‘Pangaea’ is a cerebral trip through the thoughts and torments of a young man who has been used and abused by a lover he thought he could trust.” – Seten Snyder, movies.zertnet.com

  • Coconut/Cane & Cutlass

    The title of “Coconut/Cane & Cutlass” represents the psyche behind the collective memory, history and imagination of Indo-Caribbean people. The film is a mythic/poetic rumination on exile, displacement, and nationhood from the perspective of an Indo-Caribbean lesbian who migrated to Canada twenty years ago. Intersections of the autobiographical voice (in the realm of mythic/memory and the personal) co-mingle with the historical, to produce a film that is neither an “official historical document” nor a “personal history.” Instead, “Coconut/Cane & Cutlass” is a hybrid fusion of the autobiographical, historical and experiential, in an episodic structure that is richly textured and layered…

  • Made in Japan

    Made in Japan (2.5 min.,1985): North American portrayals of Japan perpetuate the myths of Americanized culture, distorting and misrepresenting traditional values. Part of the triptych “Three Short Films.”

  • Liselda’s Birthday

    The death of her friend Corin spurs Liselda, a trans MTF, to recall her existence in Mexico. Her quest is to gain legal refugee status in order to obtain a sex change operation, acceptance and happiness in her adopted home of Toronto. In Spanish and English with English subtitles. Selected screenings: Inside Out Lesbian & Gay Film & Video Festival, Toronto, 2005; AluCine Latino Film & Video Festival, Toronto, 2005

  • Swing

    “Swing” was rotoscoped from a 16mm print of the filmmaker’s son on a swing. The drawings were then scanned and assembled digitally.

  • Boy

    The visual poetics of Vancouver are brought to light as the filmmaker reflects on the cities she has lived in, motherhood and the birth of her first son. Image description: A blurry and rain-soaked streetscape as viewed through a car windshield.

  • Maricones

    Set in the marginal neigbourhood of Corongo and the cobblestone streets of Lima, Peru, “Maricones” unveils the many paradoxes and advances of a sexual revolution that is sweeping the world at the dawn of the 21st century. The documentary was inspired by the contradictions and preconceived assumptions of a machista society. Director/producer Marcos Arriaga challenges local beliefs by asking whether another world is possible. “Maricones” introduces us to Eusebio, 58, a gay man from the popular neighbourhood of Corongo where Marcos grew up. A former male prostitute and cabaret dancer, Eusebio is a neighbourhood personality who supports his deceased brother’s…

  • Birdlings Two

    In this experimental documentary, an animation the filmmaker’s father made with Norman McLaren decades ago becomes a meditation on art, invention, fathers and daughters. “A delightfully personal short documentary.” – Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun “Sweet and observant, with a lovely conclusion.” – Eye Weekly, Toronto Selected screenings & awards: CBC Zed (broadcast); Toronto International Film Festival; Honorable Mention, Best Short Doc, Slamdance; Silverdocs Documentary Festival; Moving Pictures: MadCat Women’s International Film Festival. For more information: www.birdlings.com