Film Format: DCP

May 35

A haunting commemoration of the Tiananmen Square uprisings made from fragments of censored archival imagery transferred onto film using razor blades and scotch tape. “May 35” speaks to the difficulty of remembering in the absence of memory, especially when June 4 histories have been censored and obscured. It is a tribute to the thousands of lives devastated by this upheaval. Sound Design: Kadet Kuhne
Badassery

This compelling exposé takes a look at three female DJs who are unapologetically disrupting the Toronto hip-hop scene. The film chronicles the journey of women who are pursuing their passions and crafting their careers in a male-dominated industry. From the up-and-coming independent curator to the global powerhouse, these creatives have crafted a brand for themselves as industry leaders, without compromising who they are. They are paving the way for a generation of women and LGBTQ people, previously excluded from the social and cultural norms of the hip-hop world. It is the weirdos and nonconformists who are now redefining what it…
Leagan (Peppermint Ashes)

It has been a many years since Irina and her mother left Romania to live in Montreal. Away from their family, Irina becomes disconnected and absorbed in virtual worlds which separate her from her mother. When she is faced with the passing of a grandparent, she turns to her closest ally in an attempt to understand the meaning of loss and family through distance and time.
THE GENDER LADY: THE FABULOUS DR. MAY COHEN

Roe v Wade and women’s abortion rights are under concerted attack in a number of American states. In Canada abortion has been legal for more than 30 years, but access to abortion services varies considerably across the country and conservative MPs and MLAs are increasingly participating in anti-choice strategy gatherings. Into this retrogressive context arrives a timely documentary: the compelling story of a courageous, pro-choice feminist campaigning Canadian family physician, “The Gender Lady – The Fabulous Dr May Cohen”. Dr. May Cohen has advocated for women’s health, women’s rights, abortion rights, LGBT rights and human sexuality for more than fifty…
Closer Outside

“CLOSER OUTSIDE, the highlight of the program is an amazing film. Grenier, whose background includes painting, has a powerful command over color as an emotional hook, giving the film an anticipation and suspensefulness not generally associated with minimalist films. Just as the viewer is drawn into the sensuous presence of a setting, suddenly colors shift, objects seem dislocated in space, identities change, all creating an almost visceral shock of surprise to the viewer…” -George Howell, Buffalo EveningNews.
Catch

“Catch is a fragmented observation on hidden reflective surfaces, the corner of a dormant television screen, a window…” -Mike Reynolds, Berkeley Barb
Mend

Is it happening in the screening room or on the screen; in a snowstorm or inside; what isn’t surrounding and what is? From filming Ann sewing, on a grey winter day.
Rettet das Feuer (Rescue The Fire)

Berlin, 1993. Photographer and artist, Jürgen Baldiga, battles HIV. In the 1990s, the AIDS epidemic reached its climax, to which no one was prepared. Infected bodies and their stories diminish, erasing their existence. Through the death of his friends and subsequently his own, Baldiga becomes the chronicler of his time: “I am taking a picture. I photograph the world. I exist.” Identity and history disappear without the persistence of memory. Until the final days of his life, Jürgen documents the exodus that seizes him. Rettet das Feuer (Rescue the Fire) directs the gaze to a piece of West Berlin history…
Through Foreign Eyes

The filmmaker thought of making this poetic, mosaic documentary in a bookshop, when she came across the words of poet Manoel de Barros about “the accent of the place of our origin we carry in our eyes”. She never found the quote again, but in the course of the next few years, she carried out the project with the help of other contributors, mainly the film editor. She created a film essay combining reflections on the identity and ethnic roots of several natives of the Brazilian city of Recife, who live abroad, and the images of the places where they…
Commute

Distinct fields on the same screen, foreground each other, invite comparisons, between different times and spaces, and the constructed and natural processes that inescapably defines us thru textures and emotional spaces. Commute does refer to regular travels between one place and an other, but also to substitutions, and exchanges.