Film Categories: Diaspora

  • Trajectories of Now

    Over an 18-month period, 18 racialized and gender diverse artists took part in creative research to develop artworks and activations responding to the guiding question “What change do you want to make with your art?”. Their work culminated in their group exhibit Trajectories of Now: An Anthology. Through visual, audio, and tactile works, Trajectories of Now documented critical narratives of relationships to identities; both personal and collective. In this short film, eight Trajectories artists discuss their artworks and processes for voicing, surfacing and amplifying creative advocacies and resistances for social change.

  • 敬祖 ·PAYING RESPECTS

    ‘敬祖 ·PAYING RESPECTS’ is a short film using the Chinese ritual of burning joss paper to reflect on questions of death & diaspora. Yiqing explores her grief by offering her ancestors everything they couldn’t afford. Everything she burns gets sent to the afterlife. The film plays with themes of memory, distance and dreams.

  • Never Sleep

    Muna is a timid nonbinary teenager with the ability to communicate with the spirit world through her dreams. Following the sudden death of their father Ibrahim, they chooses to stop sleeping to avoid having to confront his restless spirit. When Muna’s estranged aunt Naja re-enters their life, their collective grief meets the turbulent spirits of their ancestors, and the two family members must decide whether to remain comforted by avoidance or face their fear of emotional vulnerability head on. With Naja’s guidance, Muna manages to forge a path towards rewriting her understanding of memory, loss, legacy and familial responsibility

  • Private Flowers

    In 1832, a Canadian Infantryman was hanged for making love with another man. The victim’s rank was Private, and his name was Flowers. Commissioned by Toronto History Museums’ Artist Mentorship Showcase: Pride with Mentor Ashley Mckenzie-Barnes with additional support from the open space residency programme at the National Ballet, TD Bank, Pride Toronto and the Ontario Arts Council. Created as part of Awakening with Toronto History Museums Private Flowers is part of a series of art projects by Black, Indigenous and artists of colour, operating under the principles of anti-oppression, anti-colonialism and anti-racism and is part of the City’s efforts…

  • diario de verano

    diario de verano is an exploration of neighborhood flora in Tkaronto, focusing on Kensington Market, Parkdale and Wallace – Emmerson, areas we live and move through. Experimentation with abstract movement and the physical, compositional properties of foraged materials, strengthened our community/kinship to the land and each other. Artistic practices were explored and shared through gathering rituals, stop motion animation and phytograms, creating complex layers of ourselves intertwined through our latinx identities in this short film. Language: plants

  • Salma!

    As Hadi is swept into a flood of childhood memories from Lebanon, he steps into the dreamlike whimsical world of Salma Zahore. A creature that encapsulates both the conflicts of his life and his declaration of love to the world. Neither male nor female, neither devout nor an atheist, neither dutiful nor deviant, both sexual yet celibate. Faceless, yet the face of hope for so many around them.

  • The Sky After Rain (Payam Feili)

    Based on a poem by exiled gay Iranian poet, Payam Feili, written after the arrest of his boyfriend during Iran’s 2009 Green Movement protests.

  • The Sky After Rain (Shaya Goldoust)

    Based on Shaya Goldoust’s audio journals narrating her attempts at testing rigid gender boundaries, and the transphobic incidents which led to her leaving her family and motherland, Iran.

  • The Sky After Rain (Shyla Hope)

    Based on recorded audio interviews with Shyla Hope discussing her inner self journey to understanding and accepting her identity as a lesbian trans woman growing up in Iran.

  • To Make Ends Meat 心頭肉

    As a Chinese-style sausage factory in Vancouver’s Chinatown closes down, the legacy and community it has fostered for over a century is celebrated and remembered through the eyes of one of its workers. Embracing subjectivity, intergenerational relationships and cultural revitalization, To Make Ends Meat 心頭肉 is a call to commemorate the old, in a city fixated with newness.