Film Categories: Culture

  • You’ve Got Tail

    A mail carrier is in for a salty surprise! The pups at this house are a little friendlier than he was expecting…

  • 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.

  • The Queen of Material

    A short procession of colorful material and a mysterious woman lit by the sun. A paean to Kenneth Anger.

  • If I Were Any Further Away I’d Be Closer to Home

    A silent poem reflecting on the place of my mother’s birth and her first traces on earth. A generational portrait of South Asian “makers” becomes a perceptual voyage into memory, experience, and touch.

  • The Spectre Watches Over Her

    A reaction to the seminal text by Swiss anthropologist Paul Wirz entitled Exorcism and the Art of Healing in Ceylon, this high contrast hand processed film considers a history of colonialism and ethnographic practices in South Asia. At my mother’s village, I re-staged an exorcism once performed on her in the early 1960s when she was a little girl. Possessed by the lecherous entity known as the Kalu Kumara, the Sanni Yakuma healing ritual was performed over a 12-hour period.

  • Ayesha

    An imaginary biography of my mother who, in her youth, dreamed of being a Bollywood dancer. In a lush fantasy through the heart of India, I reclaim her destiny and desires lost in another age.

  • 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.

  • Crossing Bridges

    A gay Asian man reflects on his experience coming to Canada from Indonesia and learning to embrace his sexuality identity, and culture. In this reflective documentary, Rama provides a window into his journey as he revisits places communities and LGBTQ organizations that have helped him to build bridges to overcome the challenges that he faced as an ethnic gay man and immigrant to Canada.

  • David In Brief

    The story of David and Goliath is one of the oldest narratives of all time. The legend continues to resonate with individuals and cultures from around the world and offers a perspective that everyone has the power to overcome impossible situations, even when the odds of failure are high. For years, I hid from my own Goliath: personal struggles with sexual identity and, questioning who I was as an individual. Like so many others, I had to risk relationships and acceptance to be the man I wanted to be. I wanted to hear how others, with larger-than-life obstacles, faced their…