Genres: documentary

  • Untitled

    A performance film consisting of a string of five slow motion portraits of a young woman. Each portrait varies in length and gesture as her myriad expressions invite our gaze. With each action performed in dead silence, stretched to the limits of voyeuristic levels of comfort, the simple act of looking is made fragile. A curious exchange is established between spectator, creator, and subject through a careful appropriation and reframing of social media conventions and advertising iconography transposed into a cinematic space—pointing to a cycle of regressive media consumption.

  • Flamingo’s Bigi Wonderland

    A portrait of “Flamingo”, an elderly Flemish emigré who has constructed an elaborate wonder-world of painted and recontextualized junk-objects on the grounds of his apartment building in Toronto. In taking a contemplative “tour”, the film emphasizes the continual process of metamorphosis and revision that animates the garden under the care of its energetic founder.

  • BLU In YOU

    Walter Benjamin suggests that film is comparable to surgery, the instrument allowing the operator to penetrate the body of the subject while, paradoxically, maintaining his or her distance. This statement self-reflexively sets up the female spectator at the helm of the art-installation opening of Blu in You—an eloquent essayist film with visual conversations that dissects historical and contemporary representations of the black female body, sexuality and subjectivity. The female spectator (Melanie Smith), views the staged art installation conversations between visual arts curator (Andrea Fatona) and writer (Nalo Hopkinson). The conversations begin with a cultural history of violence, ethnographic display and…

  • Flâneurs – Street Rambles

    Between film projects and following the birth of his daughter, a Canadian in Paris (Matthew Lancit) must confront his slacker lifestyle and decide if there is something in it worth passing on to the next generation, or if he is better off getting a job. In search of the remaining traces of flâneurs (19th Century wanderers of Paris), he takes his daughter on a series of poetic strolls in which he assumes the role of a contemporary flâneur and crosses the path of people who help reveal the relevance of such a figure today. In the movement back and forth…

  • SENSORS

    In the summers of 2017 and 2018 record breaking forest fires dominated British Columbia with the number of forest fires in 2018 exceeding the 2017 record. One key difference between the two years was the timing of the widespread outbreaks. In 2017 the BC interior was inundated by haze and smoke as of early June while in 2018 the haze and smoke didn’t engulf the landscape until late July. Up until then the temperatures were relatively mild with enough moisture to create light conditions that were some of the most interesting I’ve seen in years. As satisfying as the early…

  • Protector

    “Protector” is the first in a series of short documentaries that explores Osborne’s relationship with their uncle/godfather and his experiences with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), institutionalization, and working in Mental Health.”Protector” attempts to portray a person living with DID in an authentic and multi-faceted way. This documentary was funded by the Ontario Arts Council.

  • Flying to Nowhere

    A flock of seagulls persist in the senseless attempt to move forward against heavy winds coming off the ocean.

  • Framing Agnes (short)

    In the late 1950s, a woman named Agnes approached the UCLA Medical Center seeking sex reassignment surgery. Her story was long considered to be exceptional and singular until never-before-seen case files of other patients were found in 2017. Watch as preeminent trans culture-makers of our time breathe new life into those who redefined gender in the midcentury. Starring Zackary Drucker (Transparent), Angelica Ross (Pose), Silas Howard (By Hook or By Crook), and Max Wolf Valerio (The Testosterone Files). “An incredible film that transforms the most difficult of archives and shows us critical trans study in action, on screen—I will be…

  • At Midnight Plays a Dance Tune

    During his mother’s illness and after her death, Roy went through an intense period in his life, in which he felt attracted to the fringes of society. He raced in his car, roamed the streets at night and indulged in sex and drugs. He always had music playing in his appartment, no matter what time it was. During this period of extremities, the memory of his former neighbour Antoine suddenly came back. As a child Roy had been fascinated by the man and looking back now it seemed like Roy’s current life mirrored that of his former neighbour. Even though…