CANADA | 90 min | Partial Subtitles
Tickets: $15/PWYW
Co-presented by Silence
Co-Presented by Ed Video
Canadian showcase - What is home? How do we remain rooted in a changing world? How do we connect to our community and our environment?
A Place Called Home
Suzanne Crocker | CANADA | 25 min
*Ontario Premiere*
A remote Northern community captured a woman’s heart and never let her go. 97 y.o. Betty left Dawson City, Yukon in 1944, yet she still calls Dawson home. Her memories are as alive as if lived yesterday - of colourful characters and a unique lifestyle for a special breed of individuals.
DIRECTOR BIO:
Suzanne Crocker
Suzanne Crocker is a nationally and internationally acclaimed filmmaker living in Dawson City, Yukon. Her work includes two feature length documentaries and 12 shorts. Her first feature, All The Time In The World, won 22 festival awards around the world. Her second, First We Eat, qualified for Best Documentary at the 2021 Academy Awards.
Out on the Water
Anushay Sheikh & Cathy van Ingen | CANADA | 8 min
Two Black queer entrepreneurs, fly rods on the water, and a sport that has rarely pictured them in it. Demiesha Dennis and Ren Navarro are reshaping who belongs outdoors. An eight-minute conversation about what it costs to keep showing up, and the care it takes to hold the door open.
DIRECTOR BIO:
Anushay Sheikh
Anushay Sheikh is a multidisciplinary artist working across film, photography, and installation. Rooted in process-based and anti-oppressive practices, their work explores vulnerability as a form of resistance, centering the intersections of queerness, faith, and race. Their narrative short Same Time Next Year premiered at the Reel Asian International Film Festival, receiving the DGC Ontario Award and the WIFT+ Toronto Award, tracing the tenderness and fracture of a relationship over time.
Cathy van Ingen
Cathy van Ingen is a documentary filmmaker and professor of Kinesiology at Brock University, where she directs the Centre for Women's and Gender Studies. Through her production company, Catchweight Films, she has made Gone for a Run, What Ales Us?, and most recently Out on the Water. Her scholarly and creative work shares a single throughline: embodied resistance and the politics of who belongs where.
Anushay Sheikh
Cathy van Ingen
Own Kind of Beautiful
Sarah Jones | CANADA | 28 min
*Ontario Premiere*
OWN KIND OF BEAUTIFUL is a documentary film that centres the artistry and point of view of Frank Hull, a dance artist who proudly lives with cerebral palsy and madness, embraces his Mi'kmaq heritage, and celebrates his gay identity.
DIRECTOR BIO:
Sarah Jones
I am an award-winning filmmaker who specializes in documentaries that use contemporary dance to illustrate stories of connection and belonging; to ourselves, to others and to our environment. I work with and am a member of disabled, neurodiverse, 2SLGBTQ+ and contemporary dance communities in Toronto.
My first film ‘Contested Landscapes’ was a commentary on urban development within the protected land of the Oak Ridges Moraine and won an Audience Choice Award. ‘bacK’ is a personal story of power imbalances on-and-off of the dance floor, ‘Parcon Resilience’ an exploration of a somatic movement experience that is BIPOC centered and ‘Climate Strike Contact’ illustrates a variety of ways to protest climate injustice including the embodied dance practice of Contact Improvisation.
My film ‘Dovercourt House: a Home for Dance’ contains nearly 30 interviews from the contemporary and social dance communities in Toronto that consider this building to be their second home. My most recent film ‘The Toronto Contact Improvisation Community’ which features interviews from 8 members while they are seen dancing won both the Gold Award and the Audience Choice Award at CDIFF film festival in 2023.
An Uncertain Eternity
Ella Morton | CANADA | 29 min
An Uncertain Eternity (2025) follows the journey of icebergs that travel from Ilulissat Icefjord in Greenland to the East coast of Newfoundland. Narrated by Greenlanders and Newfoundlanders, this film explores the political, social and spiritual implications of the icebergs and how they are changing as the planet warms. Altered 16mm film footage adds dimension to their stories, evoking our collective hopes and fears for the ice.
DIRECTOR BIO:
Ella Morton
Ella Morton is a filmmaker and visual artist living between Toronto, Canada and Marseille, France. Her expedition-based practice has brought her to residencies and projects across Canada, Scandinavia, Greenland, Latin America, Australia and Antarctica. She uses experimental analogue processes to capture the sublime and fragile qualities of remote landscapes. Her films have screened internationally, including the Vancouver International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, RIDM Montréal, Planet in Focus Film Festival, Future of Film Showcase, Antimatter Media Art, Dawson City International Short Film Festival and the Alchemy Film & Media Arts Festival. Ella’s projects have received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the National Film Board of Canada and the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto.
Lemonade Stand
Paul O’Bomsawin | CANADA | 5 min
The Lemonade Stand is a project about the relationship between Paul and his daughter Lyric in the context of their learning about plants and remedies. Through this project, Paul aims to provide a strong foundation for his daughter so that she can integrate and grow within her community. In this film, Paul and Lyric aspire to share the lessons they have learned along their journey with other children.
DIRECTOR BIO:
Paul O’Bomsawin
Paul O’Bomsawin is an Abenaki from Odanak. Having moved around a lot, he developed a taste for hip-hop culture, dance music, and graffiti arts. He recently returned to his community after living in Kahnawake for 12 years to bring Lyric, his second child, closer to her Abenaki culture and family. He describes himself as a Native traditionalist, very family-oriented, and deeply inspired by the history of his community
