Film Categories: Portraits

  • Seasons Fall

    Fragments of a forest trail – a path traveled many times, never the same way twice.

  • (I Know Your) Face

    Exploration of memory and diversity across gender, ethnic, sexuality and socio-economic boundaries as the hero Rose reflects on the many faces she has encountered, seducing, influencing, informing and challenging her perspective, now faded and blended over time, distance, and recreational drug usage.

  • Gabey and Mike: A Jewish Summer Camp Love Story

    Gabey and Mike: A Jewish Summer Camp Love Story takes its name from a song by Mermaid Café – a folk band comprised of Andi D., Joe A. Rider and Merrill Nisker (now known as ‘Peaches’) that gained popularity at Canadian Jewish summer camps in the early 90s. The video juxtaposes the tale of the band with playful re-creations of the story of Gabey and Mike, in a queer re-staging of the classic summer camp movie. Gabey and Mike uses the tropes of this genre alongside references from iconic queer films in order to grasp the significance of this band…

  • Tear Jerker

    Elliot can’t cry and he needs to. He’s recently been dumped by his ex- girlfriend, who has decided she wants to exclusively date “real” men. His mother is descending deeper and deeper into the progression of her Alzheimer’s disease. And the testosterone he takes regularly seems to have made his body forget how to grieve. “Tear Jerker” is a portrait of a transgender guy faced with difficult life circumstances trying to find new ways to express old and familiar feelings.

  • A Doll’s Eyes

    In his personal essay film, filmmaker Jonathan Wysocki searches for the meaning behind his lifelong obsession with the movie ‘Jaws.’ Wysocki recounts the terror that kept him out of the ocean during his childhood and the dark desire that drew him back as an adult. He returns to the ocean to discover a fear deeper than the shark stalking his imagination.

  • Mezzo

    When Breanna was 12 years old, she discovered opera and began exploring and acknowledging her gender identity. At age 25, she is the first transgender woman to complete a Masters in Opera at a major conservatory. The film traces the days leading up to her graduation recital while harkening back to the defining moments of her girlhood.

  • When The Bullying Ends (Being Enza Anderson)

    Enza Anderson continues to make international news for her work as an anti-bullying and queer rights activist yet behind the headlines is a trans woman who is being bullied out of living a normal life. Honourable mentions at the 2016 Kolkata film festival, India.

  • Woman Waiting

    A middle aged woman is faced with poverty. As she struggles to find help within the system, her only option is to wait. Part of “East Hastings Trilogy”.

  • William in White Shirt

    A young man contends with life in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside. As he agrees to visit his young son, the film observes his struggle with this new reality. Part of “East Hastings Trilogy”.

  • Luna e Santur

    “Originally commissioned as a short for Ben Coonley’s My First 3D Part 2 at Microscope Gallery, I expanded this project into what it currently is: hooded figures, violent passion, and stroboscopic tenderness brought on by a paranormal encounter I had in the summer of 2015.” –JGS ‘‘A visually assaultive threnody for losses never fully revealed and composed for monstrous times, LUNA E SANTUR mingles sex and death with the supernatural and subnaturalistic.’-Colin Beckett “Moon and sun are elliptically and stroboscopically conjured in Joshua Gen Solondz’s cloistered yet operatic Luna e Santur. In milky, hand-processed images, hooded figures recalling Magritte’s The Lovers enact a…