Using analogue, animation and digital filmmaking techniques, this collection of films explores memory, grief and personal transformation. This program is rated 18A. (77 min)
avant seriana (before seriana), Dir. Samy Benammar, 2024, Canada, 20 min
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?
Salut Bébé (Hey Little One), Dir. Sarah L’Hérault, 2024, Canada, 6 min
Combining drawing and collage, this animated film captures the deep attachment bond between Edna, a hospitalized baby, and friends of her parents who regularly visit to comfort her, exploring themes of connection, life, grief, and vulnerability with poetic grace.
Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying, Dir. Natalie Baird and Toby Gillies, 2024, Canada, 7 min
In Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying, Edith Almadi’s imagination transcends grief, revealing a vibrant world of art where love endures.
Better Late Than Never, Dir. Ande Brown, 2024, Canada, 1 min
From his first dose of testosterone, we witness the evolution of Ande’s physical challenges, changes and triumphs from a late transitioner’s perspective, revealing that age is irrelevant to becoming who we were always meant to be.
In My Head, Dir. Irina Tempea, 2024, Canada, 7 min
In My Head is an experimental first-person short film. It deals with the multiple sclerosis that has affected the filmmaker for over eight years: “Through my magnetic resonance images, my cervical slices and jerky sounds, everyday life unfolds. Life goes on. I’m fine, I’m not so fine.” Today, this sprawling disease is the subject of a film that aims to get closer to the people who suffer from it. It aims to portray them through a lens that is close to their reality. This film-diary is part mourning, part sweetness.
No Moon Tonight, Dir. Laura Ohio, 2023, USA, 16 min
No Moon Tonight is an essay film that journeys through a personal archive of erotic thresholds and institutional borders. Ohio examines the possibility of personal transformation within both the dark, unsettling spaces of intimacy and the systems of hyper-visibility constructed by histories of enclosure and white supremacy.
The Reluctant Icon, Dir. Kier-La Janisse, 2024, Canada, 20 min
A poignant ode to the star of the Black Emanuelle series and the real-life love story at its core, written, directed and narrated by Kier-La Janisse based on an interview with longtime Italian journalist Manlio Gomarasca. Editor Stephen Broomer’s layered visuals are punctuated by rotoscope animation by Ashley Thorpe (Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched) and handmade stop-motion sequences by Leslie Supnet, all rendered into a moody paean to one of exploitation cinema’s most beloved and bewitching stars.