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Film And Video

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  • ItemOpen Access
    Nine Easy Dances
    (2023-12-08) Rosenthal, Nora Overhill; Veninger, Ingrid
    “Nine Easy Dances” is a 19-minute docufictional film about a filmmaker’s attempt to stage an elaborate dance film with her parents. However, when her parents fail to live up to unrealistic expectations, she hires professional dancers to play them. A collaborative dance unfolds within her family home, as captured through behind-the-scenes and 16mm footage, all of which becomes gradually overshadowed by her mother’s metastasizing cancer. The hybrid film that emerges is a loving tribute to one family’s way of facing mortality and a darkly funny meditation on that impossible urge to hold onto the past; on what family archives can come to mean on the eve of loss.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Puer Fungus
    (2023-12-08) Miroshnik, Michail; Barta, Tereza
    “Puer Fungus” is a character study of Eyal Glass, Once a tech marketer at Fiverr Inc, Eyal now embarks on running his own ambitious start-up, blending psychedelics and animal recovery into an experimental venture. Eyal's inspiration stems from his own transformative psychedelic experiences, which he believes hold the answer to society's deepest struggles. As the documentary unfolds, Eyal's life unravels in the face of rejections and his own feral ambition. The film candidly explores the complexities and blindsides of entrepreneurship, the toll it takes on mental well-being, and the consequences of chasing visionary dreams.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Place d'Armes
    (2023-12-08) Lint, Drew; Greyson, John
    "Place d’Armes” is a 19-minute short film that explores the subject of chronic pain management within the structure of a narrative. The film follows Jean-Paul, a former longshoreman who has been injured at work and can no longer work at the docks. He now spends his days praying at various Catholic churches in Montreal. To make money, he works as a dancer at a strip club in the gay village. One night, a student named Scott watches him perform and pays for a private dance. This experience yields an emotional connection between Scott and Jean-Paul, which surprises them both, leading them to explore their inner lives and question the choices they have made. The film depicts a slice of Jean-Paul’s life, showing his resilience in coping with pain, and his renewed faith in the beauty of life.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Nocturnal Tree
    (2023-12-08) Mendoza Duran, Jharol Duglas; Kazimi, Ali
    “Nocturnal Tree” is a 10-minute hybrid-fiction film that delves into a revolutionary fertility treatment developed by Manuel Mendoza Alguero, otherwise known as Mane, who is a local healer based in Los Remedios, Colombia. The film entices the viewer to consider both the truth and validity behind this mythical treatment. Through the eyes of two contrasting individuals, scientist Lily Noches and Mane, the film follows a non-linear narrative that juxtaposes rationality and mysticism, while exploring topics such as motherhood, love, and conception. The film's structure blends documentary and fiction elements, resulting in a plot that is shaped by both reality and imagination. This interplay between factual and fictional story creates a ghostly narrative that offers a fresh and thought-provoking interpretation of the narrator’s imagination.
  • ItemOpen Access
    She Sings for the World
    (2023-12-08) Bridge, Boyuan Han; Becker, Manfred
    She Sings for The World is a 19-minute hybrid fiction film about a son that sets out to make a film about his mother, who was formerly known as the first Chinese Opera singer to have sung and translated Pingju Opera into English in late 1980’s China. Through an integrated examination of Pingju Opera mythology and auto-ethnography, She Sings for the World explores cultural identity translation between a mother and son through an intersectional application of hybrid realism, fossil archives, and ambivalence aesthetics. Combining the mother’s actual presence and story to the son’s virtual process of making a film about a son making a film about a mother, the thesis serves as an endpoint in the son’s attempt to find an authentic third space within cross-cultural translation, and a starting point in embracing interdisciplinary collaboration, cultural pluralism, and intercultural ambivalence as methods for examining cultural identity through film.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Eden Ridge
    (2023-10-04) Fryers, Caitlin Dawn; Buchbinder, Amnon
    In 1876, Charlene “Charlie” Willows commits a crime that forces her to flee for her life. She disguises herself as a man and rides for the sanctuary of Canada. Before she can cross the border, she stumbles upon the scene of a serial killer - before he has left. She narrowly escapes with her life, merely knocked unconscious. Waking, Charlie finds herself in the custody of the men who hunt this killer: a doctor in the Canadian Northwest Mountain Police, a French scout, and two U.S. Marshals, who enlist her help to track down the murderer. But can she stop a killer while keeping her own crimes from coming to light?
  • ItemOpen Access
    Listed
    (2023-08-04) Almawy, Leila; Greyson, John
    “Listed” is a 13-minute documentary film that shares the story of Faizal Karim, a Canadian man falsely flagged on the Canadian No Fly List, a terrorist watch list under the Passenger Protect Program. Through Faizal’s personal account of racial profiling and detainment due to being falsely flagged, the film exposes the systemic issues underlying the No Fly List and its impact on marginalized communities. By examining the potential and historical consequences of relying on a flawed listing regime like the No Fly List to identify potential threats to national security, the film highlights the dangerous erosion of rights Canadians face at the expense of their civil liberties and freedoms.
  • ItemOpen Access
    OTTU
    (2023-08-04) Ignagni, Sandra Angela; Ng-Chan, Tiaien
    A filmmaker searches for the eight winds of the Mediterranean on the island of Corsica. Using found footage and employing 16mm hand-processing experiments that attempt to expose its ethereal subject, the film brings audiences to abandoned churches, cemeteries, and ravaged beaches in its quest to find meaning in that which is invisible and has neither source nor end.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Parade Protest
    (2023-08-04) Chong, Christopher Chan Fui; Marchessault, Janine Michele
    In 1896, the arrival of the motion picture invention to the Asian continent and Japan’s colonization of Formosa occurred simultaneously. The moving image innovation had been used in the natural sciences, animation, and entrepreneurial ventures, but they were also often used for political activities. PARADE PROTEST utilizes a 1930 parade outtake from the island of Formosa and juxtaposes it to the 2014 Sunflower Movement as a way to reflect upon varying truths in audio-visual documentation between the past and the present while offering a nuanced reflection of power and self-determination.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Doppelganger
    (2023-08-04) Bapst, Donald Joseph; Greyson, John
    Doppelgänger is a short film set in the mid-1980s about a young gay man’s visit to an alternative nightclub with a new wave/punk flair where he has an intimate conversation with a mysterious man several decades older than him. Returning to the revamped club decades later, the protagonist finds that his role has shifted when he meets a young man who reminds him of his former self. The film’s story, while fictional, draws on my Master’s thesis research and is inspired by my own experiences as a gay man who came out over forty years ago. In developing and finishing the film, I have fulfilled my personal goals over the course of my Master’s studies by learning how to manage a production on a much larger scale than I previously attempted. Intended primarily as a “proof of concept” for the longer feature script I am developing, the short version of Doppelgänger is meant to provoke conversations about how the transference of queer experience and wisdom across generations continues to evolve.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Butch
    (2023-03-28) Lam, Loritta Lokchi; Longfellow, Brenda
    “Butch” is a 7-minute romantic comedy following the trials of Butch, a large left boob who struggles with his masculinity, as he works to impress his new crush in unfortunately toxic ways. Butch may or may not end up getting the girl, but in trying he goes through anxiety, humiliation, and a transcendental experience. Shot entirely on green screen with an iPhone and animated to within an inch of its life using scraps from the internet, this film examines the tensions of normative transmasculinity from the perspective of one of its exiled subjects, the breast.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Each Brain
    (2023-03-28) Hodgson, Elizabeth Alexandra; Evans, Barbara
    Each Brain is a 21-minute alternative documentary featuring an interabled and collaborative approach to filmmaking with subjects, Hana Kujawa and Melanie Taddeo-Nxumalo, both experienced profound acquired disability in early adulthood. The film’s central themes are creative collaboration and reframing the experience of disability. Departing from a classic talking head style documentary, Each Brain explores Hana and Melanie’s experience through original abstract visuals, curated stock footage and archival pieces provided by the collaborators themselves. Woven throughout the film is captured audio of an epileptic seizure, soundscapes, recorded letters and poetry as its soundtrack. The result is an immersive film which further explores the lived experience of two women navigating a diagnosis of epilepsy and the perseverance that guides their journeys.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Based on a True Story
    (2023-03-28) Badkoobeh, Pooya; Becker, Manfred
    "Based on a True Story" is a 20-minute minimalist short film set in Tehran, Iran. It is based on the real-life story of an old couple who planned to commit suicide together on March 19, 2007: the woman went through with it, but the man did not. The film’s central theme is life and death. Employing minimalist storytelling and a hybrid of fiction and documentary style, which brings it closer to cinematic realism, the film uses long takes and distant camera placements for a distinctive effect. The film places professional actors in real locations; the script features very little dialogue and long silences, illustrating the characters’ inner lives and allowing the viewer to fill in their background. These devices help the audience to reflect on the story and connect with the characters.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Mela Jaloos,(Festival Procession)
    (2023-03-28) Qureshi, Muhammad Abdullah; Greyson, John
    Mela Jaloos (Translation: Festival Procession, in Urdu) is a 13-minute film that embarks upon a speculative queer Muslim journey of celebration, resistance and protest. Taking a performance-based approach, the film uses poetic, hybrid and dramatic means to present a kaleidoscope of influences that are rooted in Sufi histories, queerness, and life in Lahore, Pakistan. The narrative of the film is centred around a conversation between Mela, Jaloos, and the river Ravi. The three characters come together to discuss and respond to the end of the world, collapsed timelines, and its subsequent impact on the present. What unfolds is a journey and dance of spiritual transgression, opening a cosmos of queer Muslim potentialities and sexuality.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Kite
    (2023-03-28) Raghupathy, Leena Manimekalai; Longfellow, Brenda
    Kite/காத்தாடி is a hybrid film in which Leena turns the lens on herself, become the text, and decodes her search for radical love that can unchain her from the bondage of the past. She improvises to hear the sound of her own voice clearer, to get out of the binary logic of phallocentrism, to wage a solitary struggle against the silencing of her desires, to explore her sexuality and to decolonize her existence. The film weaves episodes from her life where she turn to poetry, dance, movement theater, painting and documentary, battling various emotions from rage to violent delights in order to attempt a poetic approach to gendered trauma, bringing with her both her excitement and trepidation.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Slowpokes
    (2023-03-28) Laura Grace Gladwell; Ingrid Veninger
    “Slowpokes” is a half-hour dramedy series that follows Lane (33), a discouraged comedian-turned-caregiver, and Doug (38), an unfit legal consultant, as they unwittingly bond in the aftermath of heartbreak and death. While Doug grapples with a looming divorce and an overlooked talent, Lane wrestles with her abandoned ambitions and her late mother’s estate—including a coveted home on the Toronto Islands. This show straddles the fuzzy lines between endings and beginnings, tragedy and comedy, and friendship and romance. It’s about dumb luck, weird timing, loss, and grief. And it’s about love—but, like all classic rom-com couples, it takes Lane and Doug a while to realize that.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Upstream
    (2022-12-14) Liu, Xin; Barta, Tereza
    "Upstream" is a 71-minute experimental hybrid fiction film that reflects on a fragmented journey home that blossoms in different spaces and times. "Xin" is the main character of the film, and “Xin” is a wildlife photographer who takes his camera and subjective point of view on a journey from Canada back to his hometown in China. Concurrently, a school of salmon makes the long journey from the Pacific Ocean, thousands of kilometers away, back to the freshwater river where they were born.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Rachael & Tom
    (2022-12-14) Vukov, Maya Sofia; Barta, Tereza
    Rachael & Tom is a narrative short film about Rachael, a teenage girl with a crush on her church youth pastor, who leaves her small town to encounter hook-up culture at university in the big city. Rachael’s experiences come to define her relationships in unintended ways based on her newfound understanding of intimacy. The film explores some of the growing pains and loss of innocence that occur in the transition to adulthood, and the character-defining moments of a young woman’s life.
  • ItemOpen Access
    A Sad, Sad Ghost Picking at the Hairs of Their Knuckles
    (2022-12-14) Goldkind, Zachary Nathan; Hoffman, Philip J.
    A Sad, Sad Ghost Picking at the Hairs of Their Knuckles is a durational fiction film, a three-hour work of self-positioning, a film about an abstract me. However, I do not find it of substance to discuss the faculties of the film itself, but rather the context through which the film was made. Outlining a thesis for which the film can speak — this is of importance. I will not speak for the subjectivity of others, and the film, itself, speaks for my own. Therefore, I ask questions: Can we study formalism through a historical materialist analysis? Can this study open up manners of seeing a dialectical materialist survey of image-linguistics through our era of the cinema? When we speak of affect in the cinema, are we speaking of the narratological relations between diegesis and spectator; or are we speaking of the psychoanalytical evocations that the form of an image holds, as, then, extrapolated by the spectator? What is narrative in the cinema What can it be? What is performance in the cinema? How has the apparatus of a camera shaped its form? What is time in the cinema? Is it not the foundation upon which all else comes? I, here, have a matrix of thoughts and theories and observations that embolden the filmmaker to scrutinize their positionality as an artist and as a labour organizer. A filmmaker’s imagination is more closely tied to the ethics of production than ever before. The responsibility of an artist is that of history, of people, and of temperateness: a respect for oneself, the filmworkers here to help create the work, and the audiences it will be exhibited to. The film, A Sad, Sad Ghost Picking at the Hairs of Their Knuckles cannot be the endpoint of the politic and philosophy present here, but merely a gesture towards a people, the beginning of a process that will unfurl over a lifetime.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Unfinished
    (2022-12-14) Sukhdev, Shabnam; Becker, Manfred
    Unfinished is a 40-minute personal documentary that encapsulates the struggle of a daughter's mental illness as seen through the lens of her mother. Over a series of hospitalizations through involvement of the ‘invisible’ medics treating her daughter, the mother’s frustrating enquiry to understand and untangle the conundrum of her daughter’s mental health condition unfold. The filmmaker-mother critically examines home videos filmed by her during her daughter’s first episode that unravels the family’s genetic archive. She fears that her past films may be a foreshadow of their lived experience.