Film Categories: Work by Women

  • Exercises for Being Close to You: A Story for the Arctic Refuge

    Exercises for Being Close to You is an experimental documentary that follows a group of hikers through Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The team is in search of the Porcupine Caribou herd in hopes of collecting stories that could help push back on oil exploration and drilling on the caribou’s birthing grounds. The narrator, admitting to a perverse desire to be close to everything, wants nothing more than to spoon a caribou. As the film culminates in anticipation of the “money shot”, the audience is pushed to evaluate its expectations of nature films. Meanwhile, the expedition team is left to…

  • Avanti!

    “Avanti!” is inspired by Antonio Gramsci’s writings: as an idealistic young man, a romantic, a father, and a revolutionary. Throughout the work I explore themes of translation and research. What happens in the shift from detached researcher to impassioned participant? “Avanti!” considers what we lose when we reduce a person to only their thinking, when we abstract them from their lives. Image description: Blurry black-and-white close-up of a person’s face, yelling or laughing (?), with eyes closed and open mouth.

  • Girl from Moush

    “Girl from Moush” is a poetic montage of the artist’s journey through her subconscious Armenia. It is not an Armenia based in a reality, but one which appears, like the mythical city of Shangri La, when one closes one’s eyes. Rooted in what Jung may call a “communal consciousness,” her Armenia appears on film as a collage of myth, legend, experience and immigration. In her memoir, Gariné reveals a longing which is visualized but yet never solidly based in our reality. Icons of Armenia appear on the screen for only a second, and then disappear from both the viewer’s and…

  • Even the Sun Practices Time

    A bedtime story for the chronically aging. — In “Even the Sun Practices Time” I am exploring the creative possibilities and limitations of misunderstanding, as well as ways of communicating with the empirically absent, divine or earthly. I bring together multiple found footage sources to listen across purposes, forming a kind of speculative listening. My hope is that the film becomes a kind of third space that allows me to access a place outside of forgiveness and condemnation. Found footage gives me a collaborator. I am working with this footage not to decontextualize it, or detourn it, but to have…

  • Abandon!Abandon!

    A brief, silent investigation into ways of writing time. What do technologies ask of me?

  • Goldstar

    An intimate look at the difference between love and relationships.

  • Under Pressure

    When gunshots ring out at school, library geek Alex finds herself hiding with popular girl Ruby, Alex’s secret crush. Will Alex find the courage to reveal her true desire amid the overwhelming fear and confusion?

  • The Shadow of My Life

    Hanna, a recent immigrant to Canada from Iran, struggles with depression as she tries to process memories of Iran and find her place in a new country. As she rediscovers her passion for painting she finds inspiration from other artists. Told in graphic monochrome animation with occasional striking splashes of red. Image description: A graphic drawing in stark black-and-white depicts a woman and her shadow considering themselves in a mirror.

  • Grandmothers

    A lyrical documentary that lends deep listening to, and seeks universal wisdom from, three formidable older women from diverse communities living on Prince Edward Island. “Grandmothers” explores the worlds of three women who have reached a formidable age. It gently seeks universal wisdom through their specific tales of hardship and humour. In response to these stories, three young artists (a dancer, a musician and an animator) weave their work throughout the film. “Grandmothers” demonstrates the richness that can be derived from intergenerational relationships and subtly attempts to address the lack of intergenerational spaces in popular North American culture.

  • sway / pull

    Created during the COVID-19 pandemic when queer spaces were disappearing across Toronto, sway / pull is a meditation on the erosion of Hanlan’s point beach in both literal and figurative senses. Hanlan’s Point Beach, located on the Toronto Islands, was the site of Toronto first gay pride celebrations in 1970s and remains a queer haven today. Additionally, the Toronto Islands have faced poor city planning that has led to a significant amount of erosion on the beach. This film plays with the concept of erosion by the physical pushing of sand to speak back to the literal erosion of the…