Film Categories: Culture

  • JUNK

    It’s a musical! Two gay men, one younger, one considerably older, are offered the contents of a recently deceased man’s dilapidated house in exchange for cleaning it out…items they hope to sell at a Raleigh, NC flea market…only to find nothing there but a mountain of ghostly vintage pornography…and personal memorabilia. As they sort through this debris, discoveries are made…not only of this man but of themselves, their unusual relationship, a generational divide…and loss. “The most offbeat buddy film of 2019 and beyond (as well as a future classic of LGBTQ independent cinema)” – Jed Ryan – Lavender After DarkHi…

  • A Scene

    A man drives up to his ex-lover’s house demanding that she express her feelings toward him in person. But even still, he won’t leave without making a point.

  • Slumberparty 2018

    Slumberparty 2018 is a remake of a 1984 Super 8 film called Slumberparty made by the Positive Pornographers, a mostly queer collective of Toronto-based artists, activists and sex-workers. Commissioned by A-Space Gallery’s “Developing a Women’s Erotic Language on Film” workshop, Slumberparty was made as a direct intervention in Toronto’s feminist porn debates. They wrote, “we didn’t set out to make a work of art. We set out to make something that might turn us on. Join us for what one previewer called “Mary Poppins’ first lesbian orgy. Slumberparty screened twice in public in 1984 then disappeared until 2016, when the…

  • Cherry Cola

    After Ryan receives an abrupt message ending his two year relationship, he and his fellow drag sister, Nick, partake on a drunken adventure for resolution. Moving through the city with night as their fuel, both queens are forced to reflect on the life they live, and the people who can’t seem to keep up.

  • Video Home System

    ‘Video Home System’ traces the convergence of popular culture and politics in Pakistan during the 1980s and 1990s. This video showcases the connections between pop culture and nationalism, and how bootleg economies kept the cinema industry alive during periods of censorship. Image description: A young man sits at a desk behind a pile of VHS tapes, illuminated by a desk lamp. The wall behind him is vivid green.

  • Stripped

    Forget everything you heard and enter the world that many know of but know very little about. STRIPPED is the personal, untold story of Phylicia Carty, also known as Mz Lady Ice, whose life took her in the direction of becoming one of the most revolutionary urban exotic dancers in the Toronto adult entertainment industry. The enticing documentary showcases the struggles and triumphs that come with being a female stripper in a contemporary world that is now gaining mainstream acceptance. A multi-award winning short film, STRIPPED has received a total of 4 awards, 8 nominations and 3 official selections in…

  • This Is A Safe Space

    It’s 2017 and the world is young, hip, and blindly woke. The tech world is teeming with ground-breaking ideas, the office kitchens are stocked with world class snacks, the offices industrial and modern, and the employees are liberal. This office is not exempt and in this world, socially correct buzzwords carry more weight than actions. Taraja, a cool and collected executive and Ashlynn, an upbeat, outspoken receptionist have decided that they have had enough. Enough of the comments, enough of the questions, and most of all enough of people touching their hair. As their day progresses, CEO and self-aligned ally…

  • Untitled

    A performance film consisting of a string of five slow motion portraits of a young woman. Each portrait varies in length and gesture as her myriad expressions invite our gaze. With each action performed in dead silence, stretched to the limits of voyeuristic levels of comfort, the simple act of looking is made fragile. A curious exchange is established between spectator, creator, and subject through a careful appropriation and reframing of social media conventions and advertising iconography transposed into a cinematic space—pointing to a cycle of regressive media consumption.

  • BLU In YOU

    Walter Benjamin suggests that film is comparable to surgery, the instrument allowing the operator to penetrate the body of the subject while, paradoxically, maintaining his or her distance. This statement self-reflexively sets up the female spectator at the helm of the art-installation opening of Blu in You—an eloquent essayist film with visual conversations that dissects historical and contemporary representations of the black female body, sexuality and subjectivity. The female spectator (Melanie Smith), views the staged art installation conversations between visual arts curator (Andrea Fatona) and writer (Nalo Hopkinson). The conversations begin with a cultural history of violence, ethnographic display and…

  • Framing Agnes (short)

    In the late 1950s, a woman named Agnes approached the UCLA Medical Center seeking sex reassignment surgery. Her story was long considered to be exceptional and singular until never-before-seen case files of other patients were found in 2017. Watch as preeminent trans culture-makers of our time breathe new life into those who redefined gender in the midcentury. Starring Zackary Drucker (Transparent), Angelica Ross (Pose), Silas Howard (By Hook or By Crook), and Max Wolf Valerio (The Testosterone Files). “An incredible film that transforms the most difficult of archives and shows us critical trans study in action, on screen—I will be…