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Love-Grief (Jasmine Noseworthy Persaud, 4:51 min, Canada)
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The Time Being (Jasmine Noseworthy Persaud, 1:02 min, Canada)
“Love-Grief ” is a short, personal film-poem about touch relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic. The hyphen between love and grief represents how these two emotions are intimately connected and make room for each other even when in tension throughout life’s ebbs and flows. The film aims to reflects the synchronicities and incongruences between the sensory experience of the artist’s bodymind and the altered temporality of this period in time – quarantimes. The film explores disabled body wisdom, nonbinary femme adornment, and survivor’s intuition. Jasmine Noseworthy Persaud is a chronically ill, nonbinary digital media artist of Guyanese and English descent living in Tkaronto. They create work around embodiment — part of an intentional practice to honour the magic and wisdom we hold in our bodies. They are particularly interested in drawing connections between micro and macro levels of intimacy, interdependence, and care.
SEPTEMBER 23 AND 24, ONLY!!
De Gris a POSITHIVO (Juan De La Mar, Colombia,18 min)
A visually and poetically stunning documentary sharing the Colombian filmmaker’s journey of being diagnosed with HIV. He writes “everything turned grey and I felt that I should say goodbye to the people I love.” He continues “this is an act of healing” that shows “the strength that love has when you live an experience synonymous with a death sentence.” Juan De La Mar is a lawyer, LGBT and HIV + activist. Director and Screenwriter “De Gris a POSITHIVO”, selected in 40 International Film Festivals and winner of 11 international awards. Documentary Director’s Assistant “Después de Leonor” by Lissette Orozco and Maria Fernanda Escobar; “Bogotá Queens” by Sarah Sánchez. Producer “INCONCEBIBLE” by Talena Pérez. Winner at the BAM 2019 of a quota to be the Jury of the 2019 BIFF Youth Award. Currently Coordinator of Political Advocacy of the Latin American Network of HIV positive Youth and Adolescents J + LAC. (with English subtitles).
ice on the window like a thousand small bees (Catherine Jones, 3:01 min, Canada)
In ice on the window like a thousand small bees, Catherine Jones uses collage and found footage to explore the remoteness of the bisexual body in the context of biphobic stigma and disease-shaming. The tension between competing needs forms the backbone of this extraordinary work. Catherine Jones is a Toronto-based collage artist whose work explores life as a bisexual femme, madness & chronic pain. She is the founder of the Bi+ Arts Festival.
Hamlet Moment (Hanlon McGregor, 3:18 min, Canada)
Two dissonant voices. One trans man. The inner struggle to find hope in a world that feels hateful. Hanlon McGregor is a trans and queer/pansexual writer/performer/film maker with a BA in Acting from Dalhousie University, performed professionally, and co-wrote fringe theatre in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and taught dance and movement to acting students at Memorial University. Hanlon founded and ran an independent dance company in Toronto from 1998-2006. In 2012 Hanlon began writing and performing monologues based on his personal exploration of gender and coming out to himself as trans. He is the author of the play Unexpectedly Trans, with co-writer Mihaly Szabados, which premiered as a workshop at the Halifax Fringe in 2017, the short film Holding Hands with the Awkward (2018), and ‘Bubble Trans Pride’ which premiered as a workshop production at Halifax Fringe in 2018. Hanlon’s films have appeared at the 2018 and 2019 Bi+ Arts Festival.
Gidinawendimin (Jaene F. Castrillon, 7:07 min, Canada)
Jaene F. Castrillon offers a short film that is part prayer, and part reverence for the creatures we share this world with. She writes “I hope this piece reminds us of the natural beauty that surrounds us and the teachings/medicine that is in all things within creation.” JAENE F. CASTRILLON is a film-based interdisciplinary (literary, media, visual, performance) artist who explores her relationship to the world through various spiritual teachings and the wisdom of the land. As a 1st generation settler to Turtle Island and Tkaronto, she is a mixed race (indigenous Colombian/Hong Kong Chinese) queer woman of colour living with disabilities (psychiatric/ physical/ cognitive), her arts practice combines art, activism and spirituality to open a dialogue on preconceived notions of wellness and illness. Jaene believes in sharing the brilliance and the heartbreak of living a life less ordinary.
Water,logged (Sandra Alland, 8:07 min, Scotland)
Who gets access to water? Who gets to make ‘political’ art? The aural/textual story follows two fictional members of the band Pussy Riot as they visit an art exhibition in Edinburgh. While studying the neatly-displayed jars of water, the women consider the implications of the art in front of them, and of their own creations. Sandra Alland is a Glasgow-based writer, filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist who experiments with form and integrated access. Their work explores feminist, queer, classed and disabled poetics/politics. San has recently been commissioned by Disability Arts Online, British Council, BFI Flare, Oska Bright Film Festival/GSFF, and The Bi-ble V. II (Monstrous Regiment). Screenings include Queer City Cinema (Regina), TransLations Seattle Transgender Film Festival, Entr’2 Marches (Cannes), and San’s live short story with film, “Equivalence”, for Anatomy (Summerhall), Edinburgh Filmhouse and Transpose (Barbican). San is co-editor of Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back, and has published three poetry collections. Their new short story chapbook/audiobook is Anything Not Measurable Is Not Real (Proper Tales Press). San is interested in slowness, and in their communities thriving beyond ‘diversity’ crumbs from arts institutions. http://www.blissfultimes.ca
Les Rongeurs Fugitif (E.C. Marcon, 2:00 min, Canada)
Storyteller Shrill Kessel is back, with a short tale of capybaras in love – and on the run. Shrill is a Toronto raccoon who transformed into a beautiful lady after being sprinkled with magic hot dog water. She enjoys eating garbage and making a mess. Local residents have remarked that she bears more than a passing resemblance to Corktown writer E.C. Marcon, but this is mere speculation.