Film Categories: Canada

  • Experiments In Light

    This short explores light as a meditative state while encouraging the viewer to take a moment to be present within themselves. Taking footage from my narrative self portrait A Celebration of Darkness (2015) and recutting it to refocus on the various macro shots of crystals as an expansion on the theme of light and darkness. The images in this short was made possible by the LIFT/ImagineNATIVE 16 mm Film Mentorship in 2015, it’s post production was funded by the Ontario Arts Council Access and Development grant in 2016 and completed as part of my Media Artist in Residence with Workman…

  • The World in Ten Blocks

    Welcome to Bloorcourt, one of Toronto’s most diverse neighbourhoods. Small business owners from all over the world have made this one of the most vibrant parts of Toronto. Meet some of these immigrant entrepreneurs and hear about their dreams, struggles, victories, and the unexpected ways in which they’ve changed. An intimate journey into the kitchens and behind the counters of small businesses where cultures and traditions are preserved, shared, and evolve.

  • Folded River

    An empty canoe floats down a river. A landscape turns inward: time and place are enfolded. Two images converge producing a third, unseen image; a vanishing memory.

  • The Canoe

    A woman finds refuge in an empty summer home when her camping trip is interrupted by a storm.

  • Mino-bimaadiziwin (The Good Life)

    Mino-bimaadiziwin (The Good Life) came out of the Artist for Film residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point. I was excited about First Story’s walking tour with Elder Carolyn King. I was only able to participate with the aid of a wheelchair and allow others to push me around, it was my first time in a wheelchair. I documented this walk from that perspective with this manual timelapse on Super 8. Reconciling myself as a mixed-race indigenous Colombian settler “walking the red road” while being a person who lives with physical disabilities. Learning to live mino-bimaadiziwin as a settler to Turtle Island…

  • Sum (Heart)

    Based on ideas of Zen Buddhism and rooted in the 7 Grandfather teachings, Sum (Heart) is a rumination on death, grief and letting go. Starting out as a visual mourning song to Wendy Babcock, Mr Toqui Wong and Jack, empty landscapes represent the yearning for the company of dead friends. Water becomes a metaphor for grief and mourning, the ebbs and flows of nature reminds us of the cycle of life which transforms into a stark ode to a new day and new beginnings. I put all my sadness, prayers and hope into this trilogy while still aching for their…

  • Farewell Transmission

    The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation opened the doors of the CBK Transmitter Station in 1939 to serve the prairie region of Canada. “Farewell Transmission” is equal parts an indexical record of the demolition of CBK in 2015 and a subjective response to the residual media documenting the event. The building is framed with tension preceding its destruction: emulsion pulsated as if with decades of radio transmission, creating an unsettled eulogy for a cultural institution. Selected screenings: Dobra Festival Internacional de Cinema Experimental (Brazil, 2017); Festival du nouveau cinéma (Montréal, QC, 2017); Antimatter Media Art (Victoria, BC, 2017) Best Short Film, Saskatchewan…

  • Exilic Trilogy

    “Exilic Trilogy” consists of three arthouse docudrama films from Arsalan Baraheni, the exiled Iranian-Canadian filmmaker based in Toronto. The films present a well known musician, a painter and a poet. The films are biographical, poetic and musical, colliding with social, political and philosophical manifestations. The first film is called “Light and Sound”, starring Soleyman Vaseghi, a well known Iranian musician who was forced to leave Iran after the 1979 revolution when music got banned by the regime. The film is about the light within the mind of the artist and the sound which he produces through his music in exile.…

  • Brunch Queen

    “Brunch Queen” is a hybrid film that follows a hilarious gay couple (who can’t stand each other’s company but are still very much in love) as they prepare for the opening night of a musical based on their infamous insult diner. This 11-min short doc is shot like an episode of a mockumentary television sitcom, like The Office or Modern Family. It’s a humorous and poignant exploration of love and aging in the LGBTQ community.

  • Kaleidoscope

    Kaleidoscope explores depression in an otherwise vibrant life. It is an original film poem edited to 16mm hand-processed B&W film that has been manipulated through tinting, toning and other cameraless techniques to reflect the fluctuations of living with a mood disorder. Footage collected during the Film for Artists and Film Farm residencies in 2016.