Genres: documentary

  • Omar, What’s Good? (شو، يا عمر؟)

    Sho Ya Omar? (Omar, what’s good?) is a found footage experimental documentary that deconstructs the public persona of Egyptian actor Omar Sharif, to retell the story of his rise to fame and subsequent fall. This visual archaeological project re-appropriates a series of fiction films that star Sharif and intercuts them with news footage, archival materials, interviews and television programs to reflect on particular moments in Sharif’s career. The film reveals, using a process of deconstructing the found footage, the colonial context and mindset that shaped Sharif’s life between the Middle East and America..

  • Uncle Bardo

    Through an innovative blend of documentary, archival film manipulation, and experimental stop-motion animation, Uncle Bardo delves into the memories of an estranged family member who has undergone a near-death experience and awakens lost between two worlds. Rooted in the industrial landscape of Hamilton Ontario, we get lost in Uncle Bardo’s memories of a coma as he strives to find his sense of reality and recover his health.

  • S Division

    Toronto 2012. Sotheby’s International Realty, a division of Sotheby’s Art Auction House, promotes a lakeside condo development using Impressionist-and-Surrealist-derived imagery. The ads on hoarding, billboards, and other media are often sexist and delve into the absurd: for instance, a ballet dancer doing a tour jeté underwater amongst a school of fish. And it becomes apparent the developers considered only young white childless couples as potential clients—no humans of any other type. “An unwelcome side effect of the Avant-garde’s success was its appropriation by the “art of advertising .” For the Avant-garde could no longer be distinguished from the Avant-garde of…

  • 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.

  • SIX

    My daughter, Emma, dances on the beach and talks about wanting to be six years old… forever. A short film about never wanting to grow up.

  • Husbandry

    Mary Imrie (1918 – 1988) and Jean Wallbridge (1912 – 1979) operated their architecture firm—the first run by women in Canada—at Six Acres, the home they built for their work and life together overlooking the North Saskatchewan River in west Edmonton. When Mary Imrie passed away, she bequeathed the records of their remarkable architectural practice and adventurous life, along with their home, to the province of Alberta. With a title borrowed from a telegram in the collection, GLAD YOU CLOSER HOME / NEW WHITE WHISKER MARY is Cait McKinney and Hazel Meyer’s immersive exhibition that playfully imagines and speculates in…

  • 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…

  • Aunt Harriet

    Aunt Harriet is a meditative moving portrait exploring introspection, healing, and aging. Set against the backdrop of rural Ontario it deepens the memory of Black lives, bridging past and present – history and myth.

  • 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…