Film Categories: Identity

  • P is for Palestine

    Language is political in this subtle short film that shows an unnamed man in Amman, Jordan repeating decontextualized political English words all include the letter P – a letter that doesn’t exist in the Arabic language and pronouncing it is coded socially and economically.

  • Tether

    An unfulfilled family man is transported back to a time where he felt most alive, on the stage as a drag performer.

  • KNOTS

    Repetitive conversations about connection

  • Don’t Take My Joy Away

    In the Shatila Palestinian camp in Lebanon, two friends, Omar and Omar, find moments of joy amid hardship until sudden violence forces them to confront loss and survival.

  • A Flame the Colour of Air

    Medieval Catholic mystic Hildegard von Bingen reconciles the virgin/whore dichotomy in a psychedelic, erotic vision. Hildegard was known for her waking visions of the divine, her musical compositions, and her extensive medical encyclopedias. The animated imagery in this film is inspired by her surviving transcriptions, which suggest a departure from the mainstream views of her culture. In this speculative fictional tale, Hildegard has a vision in which erotic dancers appear to her as embodiments of the divine. The narration is strategically selected and collaged from Hildegard’s texts.

  • Hedge-Rider

    The Hedge-Rider sits at the boundary between the garden and the wild. She uses flying ointments to transcend her body and take flight during the night. The film attempts to capture themes around European witchcraft and altered states of consciousness.

  • Adieu Ugarit

    In 2012, Mohamad had witnessed his best friend gunned down by an armed militia on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria; the blood spilled into the lake contaminated his memory. Ten years later, the reflections on the Laurentian waters bring back Mohamad’s trauma. I asked him if he’d like to dig out the memories, to repair the pain by retreating for a few days into the most distressing calm possible for him. He tells us about death, immigration and anger. We wonder how and why we should tell this story.

  • Avant Seriana

    Mom, you brought me back to our homeland. All I know about these harsh landscapes I learned from books written by the hand that burned these mountains. I try to undo the colonial myths engraved into my memory, but the hills escape my gaze. Do you think I, too, have become the white djinn spoken of by the legends surrounding our martyrs? Avant Seriana is an essay film shot in Super 8 in the Aurès region of Algeria. Observing the landscapes of my native land, I realize that they are divided into several images and times. Two different countries are…

  • Baba Bahram, Look at the Flowers

    Baba Bahram, Look at the Flowers is an experimental short film built from archival footage recorded in Tehran by the artist’s younger brother, Reza, at the age of seven. Holding the camera with playful authority, he roams through their family home, garden, and streets, capturing everyday moments with a sense of wonder and instinct. The footage is addressed directly to their grandfather, Baba Bahram, creating an improvised cinematic letter between generations. The film reflects on intergenerational bonds, memory, and the aesthetics of untrained seeing. Meaning emerges through gesture, movement, and relation. Weaving together personal history with a meditative observational form,…

  • MixedUP

    Part testimonial/part confessional. What are the lines between the facts of who I am and the fiction of what I can become? Mixed↑ is a reclaimed book of genesis: a manifesto that collides the wildly diverse elements of being queer, mixed and different in a world socialized around the construction of race, gender and orientation. Mixed↑ follows Howard J Davis aka Haui in his feature film directing debut, as he combats the isolation of being BIPOC and LGTBQ+ and helps to normalize the existence of being “other”. Featuring Haui’s biological and found family including: actress/activist Tantoo Cardinal; stage and screen…