Film Categories: Work by Women

  • Overpass

    Beginning with an afternoon drive down a Los Angeles highway, Overpass weaves together intimate stories of histories of racial and domestic violence against the backdrop of the infamous OJ Simpson car chase in 1994. In this lyrical, experimental short, filmmaker Kami Chisholm draws from television news reports, archival footage, and her own family history to explore the gaps between celebrity spectacle and the mundane realities of interpersonal violence endemic to US society.

  • Excess Is What I Came For

    A beat-driven, flesh-filled document of the nocturnal paradise that was “Dyke Night” at the Boom Boom Room in Toronto.

  • Femme Haiku

    A young femme contemplates love and loss in the heart of winter in “Femme Haiku.” The film explores the mystical ways in which memory, imagination, and desire haunt our lived realities, as well as specific sites in the world through which we move.

  • In the Hollow

    In May 1988, girlfriends Claudia Brenner and Rebecca Wight were attacked while hiking the Appalachian Trail by a ‘mountain man’ named Stephen Roy Carr. IN THE HOLLOW tells the story of the shooting, Wight’s death, and Brenner’s desperate survival (and later transformation into an advocate for hate crime legislation in the U.S.) as she returns to the trail for the first time since the shooting.  The film combines documentary and narrative film elements, using the actual locations on the trail and dramatizations written by Claudia Brenner and director/screenwriter Austin Bunn based on her testimony. The film follows Brenner as she…

  • The Blacksmith

    Shot in a traditional blacksmith shop, where the blacksmith uses coal for his fire, we hear as much as we see how this art is executed. There are bumps and grating sounds, sounds of a very hot fire, hammer sounds…and the vivid reds, yellows, blues and white of a very hot fire, along with the earth colors of most of the tools and machines. Finally, from time to time, we hear the blacksmith himself explain the essentials of the process and near the end, we even catch a brief glimpse of his face.

  • Two Streets & Adela (Dos Calles y una Chica)

    In this experimental narrative, we are in a world that moves more slowly, allowing us to savour the sights and sounds. The pace reminds us that in the location where the story unfolds, the south of Spain, things move at a more deliberate pace. We watch flamenco costume designer, Adela, on a very special day. Adela’s life has a rhythm to it, filled with the beautiful colours of the cloth that she uses to create her costumes with. The daily life outside her front window also has a rhythm to it: two streets that intersect in the charming city of…

  • Exposure

    “Exposure” is an experimental documentary that explores issues of race, sexuality and cultural identity. A dialogue between two lesbians of colour (Japanese-Canadian and Afro-Caribbean women) is intercut with photographs, texts, paintings and voice-over. Available on DVD on the compilation “Artist Spotlight Series: Michelle Mohabeer.”

  • Tone Poem with Hang Drum

    In this experimental narrative, we are in a world that moves more slowly than the one we are used to, allowing us to savour the sights and sounds. The pace also reminds us that in the place where the story unfolds (southern Spain), things move more at a more deliberate pace than, for example, in the United States. As the short progresses, we see that we are watching lamenco costume designer Adela on a very special day in her life. Adela’s life has a rhythm to it, and is filled with the beautiful colours of the cloth out of which…

  • Mathematics of a Lesbian Kiss

    Shot entirely on iPhones 5S and 5C, in this non-linear narrative two women contemplate the similarities between a lesbian bar in San Jose, Costa Rica and their experiences of the dyke bar scene in Toronto decades earlier.

  • The Grand Design

    Filmed in scrumptious outdated super 8, The Grand Design is a glimpse into the reflections of a dying burlesque performer. Vintage black and white clips from stag films of the 1950s are juxtaposed against a muted Tuscan landscape, the home and final resting place of the unnamed woman. The Grand Design is an unapologetic look back at an unconventional life, lived to its fullest, in an almost forgotten moment of pop culture.