Film Categories: Work about Women

  • Life and the Art of Lying

    Charlie, a bubbly queer artist, heads into a new year surrounded by her closest friends. But her plans for carefree fun are dashed when she is suddenly confronted with a health crisis. Not wanting to burden those she loves with her news, Charlie lies repeatedly to cover up the severity of her situation. With no easy cures at hand, Charlie turns to her medical doctor, Dr. Simone, and chooses to secretly pursue a renegade solution for her illness. As Charlie’s feelings for her best friend Mara grow stronger, the two women are both forced to confront the painful truths they…

  • When I See You

    Tired of putting her girlfriend ahead of her stifled dance career, Kira accepts an opportunity to be a featured dancer in New York City. But when her zealous girlfriend, Bea, unexpectedly opposes the change, Kira must hastily choose between her relationship or her career. Resentment and loyalty collide as Kira and Bea discover what they’re willing to sacrifice for their careers and not for each other.

  • Birthday Suit

    A remake of the seminal Canadian feminist art tape by Lisa Steele. Featuring Lexi Tronic.

  • Cross Examination

    A short film by Lori Hiris about the Clarence A. Thomas-Anita F. Hill hearings. The camera remains fixed on the eyes of a black woman who occasionally sheds tears while portions of testimony from the hearings are heard. A statement about feminism and race accompanies the closing titles.

  • Fly My Spirits

    Elaine Pain has been drawing stylized birds for many years. To her, they are a universal “bird of hope.” Bright and colourful birds, with a life of their own, move to percussion music by Gordon Parsons, giving them a primitive power.

  • For a Woman in El Salvador, Speaking

    Claudina Calderon, pregnant, with a small son, disappeared in San Salvador, abducted by government security forces. Her plight generates this filmic meditation, creating the voice of her mother through poetry, music, and murals to dramatize the story of one woman who stands for many. This film was made for the Women’s Association of El Salvador (AMES). With Susan Freundlich, sign artist, and the voices of Carolyn Forche and Yanira Chacon.

  • Queer Camp Trilogy

    The Queer Camp Trilogy is a series of experimental films exploring the hidden dimensions of queer Japanese American wartime history. This trilogy, made up of Looking For Jiro (2011), Warning Shot (2016), and On the Line (2018), was inspired by first-generation Japanese Americans who were incarcerated by the US government during World War II. These subjects left subtle yet discernible traces of same-sex intimacy or gender nonconformity in the archive, despite the enormous pressure put upon Japanese Americans to accept their imprisonment quietly, prove their patriotic loyalty, and smile for Ansel Adams during their unlawful imprisonment. I approached their enigmatic…

  • How Long?

    A strange series of events have propelled the world into an uncertain, looming future. A young woman wakes to find her partner pacing in the rain, wracked with anxiety over an unidentified yet seemingly inevitable disaster. She tries to comfort her partner amid her own escalating fear — and a cataclysmic change may be closer than either of them had imagined.

  • Button OUT!

    Button OUT! is a lively animated personal homage to the filmmakers own history of protest and the wider story of LGBTQ2S+ experiences contained in the collection of over 1200 buttons housed at The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives in Toronto. Originally part of commissioning program: “Now and Then” — a video-art exhibition developed by the RT Collective in collaboration with the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (CLGA), Myseum of Toronto and the Gladstone Hotel. **Programmer’s Choice Best Short Film, Fairy Tales Queer Film Festival, 2020**

  • Forgotten Mother

    “Forgotten Mother” is a personal and sensitive exploration of the relationship between Alice, a black domestic worker, and Adrienne, the white child she raised. This half -hour documentary follows Adrienne’s return to her birthplace, now Zimbabwe, where she is reunited with Alice. In what was formerly white-ruled Rhodesia, it was common for black women to leave their families in rural areas to seek jobs as domestic workers in the city. These women would live on the premises of their white employers and take care of the children. Although they worked for the same family for long periods of time they…