Language: English

  • Outside The Ring

    Through the lens of a unique violence recovery program in Toronto, this documentary provides a glimpse into the lives of women and transgendered survivors of violence and the impact Boxing has had in their healing. The film follows the ways in which participants challenge social constructs that dictate that women must not experience their own feelings of aggression. The Toronto Newsgirls Boxing Club is the first all-women’s boxing club in North America. In 2007, a small group of women boxers active in social justice created Shape Your Life, a project designed for women and trans survivors of violence. The goal…

  • The Diver

    The video captures the powerful moment before we take action, when mystery, fear, and impending commitment tug on our consciousness. A young woman is alone at an idyllic spot, bowed over and poised to dive into the calm turquoise water below. She is stuck when deciding whether she should leap into the pool or just walk away. The familiar feminine dance unfurls as she counts, staying at the edge of a decision. As she counts, her body and voice are overcome by waves of physical and psychological trembles. Time and space are revealed as narrow constructions of the mind, ruling…

  • Persistence of Vision

    Persistence of Vision is the story of a man who, against his doctor’s advice, was determined to make short films while he still could. From age 16 to age 30, Lorne Marin embarked on a burgeoning career as an experimental filmmaker. Now, thirty years later, his body dictates most of his life choices, yet his artistic urges remain. Lorne has lived the past fifty odd years with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease often described as “tunnel vision.” Today, his vision is limited to a circle about one inch in diameter. Persistence of Vision showcases the films Lorne made thirty…

  • Oya: Something Happened On The Way to West Africa!

    I wanted to tell a tale not often heard about gender and Indigenous Yorùbá Spirituality. Ọya: Something Happened On The Way To West Africa! follows my journey as a Queer gender-non-conforming Nigerian returning home to connect with Òrìṣà (African God/dess) tradition, and follow a trail back to the powerful legacy of my great grandmother, Chief Moloran Ìyá Ọlọ́ya.  This personal and political story vibrantly investigates the heritage of command, mythology, gender fluidity, womyn’s power and the hidden truth behind the power of indigenous Yorùbá spirituality.  As I encounter obstacles of a national strike and anti-gay marriage legislation to find the roots of the practice, will I be able to find affirmation…

  • Weaving with Spanish Threads: an Immigrant’s Tale

    In the early 20th century, tens of thousands of Spaniards were driven from their homeland by poverty. Several thousand went to Hawaii to work under contract in the pineapple and sugar cane plantations, and most of these settled permanently in California after their contract were up. Our documentary tells their story, a story reminiscent of that of many other immigrant groups from Europe. We focus on one specific immigrant, Francisco Pérez, 98 years old when we interviewed him. His interview is supplemented by interviews with descendants of other of the immigrants and by on-location footage from Spain, Gibraltar, Hawaii and…

  • Doom

    Doom is a slapstick caper of a kidnapping turned on its head; a farcical take on Stockholm Syndrome. A group of businessmen and bankers are corralled from the streets of their work for the purpose of detention, observation and ultimate indoctrination by a group of unlikely bandits. Their captivity initially frightens them but through the treatment by their strange yet benevolent captors, the men quickly view their corporate transgressions with disdain as they reject the freedom they are eventually offered.

  • CHRISTEENE “FUK V29”

    Welcome to “FUK V29”, the 8th installment of the CHRISTEENE Video Collection. Sit back. Open your mouths. Spread your legs. Don’t hide nuthin’.

  • Josh

    After learning about the LGBT community, Joshua decides to leave home on his Rumspringa. He arrives in the city and sets out to find the boy that told him about the community, Austin. He starts his search in a gay bar. But instead of finding Austin, he makes a new friend in Marrick who decides to help Joshua with his transition to city life. He starts Joshua off with the most basic of Internet practices: pornography. The next day he uses Marrick’s idea of texting Austin with the number he provided. He gets a hold of him and they decide…

  • Kino Crvena zvijezda (The Red Star Cinema)

    “During the Homeland War I worked as a war reporter in Vinkovci, the town I grew up in. One of the air raids destroyed the Red Star Cinema, the cinema of my childhood. There, as a kid, I dreamt of a great film career. Among the debris I found pieces of damaged filmstrip with clips from different film titles produced in the former state. A Filmstrip’s function is cinema screening. Splicing the pieces together could not restore the strip’s initial purpose. Destruction and damage changed the strip’s content and gave it a new quality. Even the Old Bridge in Mostar,…

  • STILLE STADT

    STILLE STADT (trans. Silent City) depicts the state of contemporary urbanity through an Everyman on the verge of a mid-life crisis, who goes through his life of routine both stricken and sustained by opera arias, that stand in for his thoughts and emotions that only he (and the audience) can hear. STILLE STADT in an allegory of modern existence that blends the real with surreal to explore how urban dwellers lose their connection with the environment, people, and praxis; and the suppression and containment of those lost connections by consumerism, distraction, and interiorization. STILLE STADT is an update and inversion…