“In my twenties, love was the only word I knew”, confesses filmmaker Brandon Wint in his documentary, Moving For Love (2024). The heartbeat of his work; Vancouver-based filmmaker and poet navigates the complexity of Black identity, the intersections of disability & race, and community-making in Vancouver through the lens of love.
Read MoreThea and cinematographer Jeremiah Reyes—a Filipino husband-and-wife team—turn the camera on themselves in Inay (Tagalog for “Mama”) to explore the cultural and psychological impacts on children whose mothers left the Philippines out of economic necessity. Thea begins a thoughtful inquiry into the experiences of family separation by interviewing her husband, Jeremiah, and her best friend, Shirley. Through her explorations, Inay intertwines personal narratives with historical context to shed light on the impact of migration policies created by the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP). As a viewer, I stumbled with Thea as she navigates the pain and trauma her partner and friend have experienced through migration and mental illness and challenges the notion of normalcy within Filipino immigrant experiences.
Read MoreNovelette is Trying is a heartwarming five-part series about a Black, disabled, bisexual woman falling into a sudden transitional journey in her late twenties. The catalyst of this new era is, unfortunately, a result of her being subjected to the ableism of her ex-boyfriend amidst being broken up with, and being painfully unequipped to articulate the emotional harm that he is causing her through his insensitive justifications for ending their long term relationship of six years.
Read MoreThere’s something quite eerie about the image of seagrass floating in the darkness of the deep ocean. Imagine yourself drifting in the middle of open water as it moves beneath you, unbeknownst to when it will reach out to graze your bare skin. It’s a haunting image, and it’s one that lingers.
Read MoreDirected by Vancouver-based Anthony Shim, Riceboy Sleeps tells the story of single mother So-Young (Choi Seung-yoon) and her son Dong-hyun (Dohyun Noel Hwang, Ethan Hwang). Their immigrant narrative begins after So-Young’s partner, Han Won-Shick, struggles with schizophrenia and commits suicide in Seoul, leaving Dong-hyun to be born out of wedlock and therefore delegitimized for South Korean citizenship.
Read MoreSet in the Okanagan, Until Branches Bend introduces the fictional peach-harvesting town of Montague. Robin, a worker of the town’s packing house, discovers a bug that threatens the community’s semblance of calm. With elements of environmental and psychological drama, the film crafts an enveloping examination of the dangers that lurk beneath the surface, depicting more than one type of invasion.
Read MoreNobody tells you explicitly how intimate oppression is; it is not only in the streets or institutionally. It is also while you brush your teeth and right before you go to bed, and when you say a prayer to the deity you question exists. You are not man enough, says the patriarchy as you wash your face. You are nowhere near rich enough for your dreams, says capitalism as you floss. You are not beautiful enough, says white supremacy as you bring yourself into meditation to attempt to chase out the world you will one day transcend.
Read MoreWhen you think of Surrealism, what do you picture? Dali’s melting clocks? A pipe that claims it isn’t a pipe? Maybe even a Neo-Dadaist-turned-Millennial-Meme video proclaiming “I’m still a piece of garbage,” as if it were a local television jingle. What you probably aren’t imagining is a middle-aged woman dressed in 19th-century mourning attire. In fact, it’s likely that you’ve never even heard of the acclaimed Canadian photographer Hannah Maynard.
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