Film Categories: Work by Women

  • Do I Have Boobs Now?

    In 2015, Victoria-based trans activist Courtney Demone launched the viral online campaign #DoIHaveBoobsNow, in which she posted topless photos of her transition on social media while undergoing hormone replacement therapy. One year later, Demone revisits the global conversation she catalyzed on social media censorship policies and the sexualization of feminine bodies, and reflects on the impacts of being thrust into the critical spotlight as a visible trans activist and queer feminist. OutTV People’s Choice Award, Vancouver Queer Film Festival 2017

  • Double 8

    “Double 8” shows the encounter with Linda Christanell, artist of the feminist avant-garde of the 1970s and opens a projection space. In a decade of departure artists like her are questioning the social power and gender relations and claiming their place in the art business and the history of art. In Double 8 the need for interchange with the history of film and its makers becomes tangible: as mutual viewing and being viewed. Two handheld cameras, two spools of double-8 film, four frames. The film format and the cinematic gaze define this encounter by making the protagonists appear on the…

  • Noema

    Audio-visual notes on the encounter with 93-year-old painter Tatjana, who is losing her eyesight. Gestures gently observed through the tips of her hair interfere with thoughts about the sense of time and a dreamlike reality. Moving images follow the painter’s alignment relying more than ever on her experienced hand and imagination and exploring sensory perception beyond seeing.

  • Older Than What?

    Aging has a tendency to fade people out of the picture. Older Than What? brings LGBTQ elders sharply back into focus with humor, frankness, wit and charm. 12 seniors answer 10 questions about aging and share stories about how they made history. International Short Film Competition, Asterisco Festival Internationciale de Cine LGBTIQ, Buenos Aires, 2017 (Juried) Gold Award, Documentary Category, South Georgian Bay Film Festival, Collingwood, Canada, 2018 (Jury & Audience votes) Audience Award, Best Documentary Short, Cineffable, Paris, France, 2018 Audience Award, Best Short, USNExpo, Sardinia Queer Short Film Fest, Sardinia, Italy, 2018 2nd Place, Audience Award, Best Short,…

  • The Third Movement

    World-renowned transgender classical pianist, Sara Davis Buechner, lost a flourishing New York career after transitioning from male to female. The Third Movement is an intimate portrait that explores Sara’s battle to earn back her spot on the world stage, while also facing trans-targeted stigma and bias. As Sara dreams about a comeback, she helps guide the next generation of piano greats on their rise to the top. Ultimately, the film is a creative and nuanced depiction of an artist with unrelenting determination in the face of discrimination.

  • Looking for Jiro

    “Looking for Jiro” explores the hidden dimensions of same sex intimacy for Japanese Americans incarcerated by the US government during World War II. This experimental performance video is inspired by Jiro Onuma, a gay Issei (immigrant) who was imprisoned at Topaz concentration camp in central Utah. He worked in the prison mess hall and was also an avid fan of homoerotic male physique magazines. How did this dandy gay bachelor from San Francisco survive the isolation, humiliation, and homophobia of imprisonment? This queer musical mash-up video features drag king performance, US propaganda footage, muscle building, and homoerotic bread making. This…

  • Sex, Politics & Sticky Rice

    Protests, potlucks, and three-ways are just the “tip of the rice bowl” for five Asian American lesbians recounting their adventures in sex, love, and queer activism. They were among the first generation of out Asian Pacific Islander queer activists in the San Francisco Bay Area. While Crystal Jang falls hard for her PE teacher, Gisele Pohan’s immigrant father dares her to join the 1979 Gay & Lesbian March on Washington. Helen Zia and Lia Shigemura keep a “chart” of the various hook ups and break ups. Zee Wong discovers the joys of lesbian sex in her first girl-on-girl menage a…

  • Warning Shot

    One death. Three versions of the crime. James H. Wakasa, a 63-year-old Japanese American bachelor, was shot to death by military police at Topaz concentration camp during World War II. Was it justifiable homicide, an accidental fatality, or second-degree murder? The press said he was trying to escape, the shooter claimed it was a warning shot, the case file suggests he was killed while walking a dog. This experimental film essay uses the “Rashomon effect” to juxtapose the conflicting accounts detailing the circumstances and cause of Wakasa’s untimely death. Part of the Queer Camp Trilogy.

  • Semiotics of Sab

    This experimental film essay explores the poetics of identity through an oblique portrait of gay Japanese American actor Sab Shimono. For more than five decades, Shimono has performed on stage and screen in over 150 roles as warlords, bus boys, and businessmen. Shimono asks, “How is it that we know who we are?” Recalling early structuralist works by Hollis Frampton and Martha Rosler, Semiotics of Sab displays the grammatology of queer Asian American masculinity through conflicting lexicons of race, representation, and selfhood.

  • Primary Colours

    A cine-poem by Sudanese-Canadian artist Roua Aljied, aka Philosi-fire, about the realities of domestic violence and how each step a woman takes is a new colour to paint on the canvass of her life. Created in partnership with Women in International Security Canada and the 16 Days of Activism Campaign in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and performed live for the 2016 International Women’s Day ceremonies in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.