The title of “Coconut/Cane & Cutlass” represents the psyche behind the collective memory, history and imagination of Indo-Caribbean people. The film is a mythic/poetic rumination on exile, displacement, and nationhood from the perspective of an Indo-Caribbean lesbian who migrated to Canada twenty years ago. Intersections of the autobiographical voice (in the realm of mythic/memory and the personal) co-mingle with the historical, to produce a film that is neither an “official historical document” nor a “personal history.” Instead, “Coconut/Cane & Cutlass” is a hybrid fusion of the autobiographical, historical and experiential, in an episodic structure that is richly textured and layered with optically printed imagery, front-screen projection, re-created archival images, oral narratives/histories, a spirit dance, and theatrically stylized dramatic scenes. The poetic, fragmented style and structure of the film represent the exile’s internal struggle to “reconstitute” her own sense of self in relation to her history and ancestry. Available on DVD on the compilation “Artist Spotlight Series: Michelle Mohabeer.”
Filter Films
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Sex, birth, fire and fingerprints. A passion play and the events of conception that result in mayhem. A rock’n’roll theme, in Cinemascope! Nominated for Best Animation at the 2006 Jutra Awards.
Curse of the Voodoo Child, The
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“Diego Costa’s ‘Pangaea’ delicately employs overlapping images to ruminate on the male body, locating complex, mythical metaphors for human connection in everything from bodily fluids to land masses to text messaging.” – Eric Beltmann, Flipsidemovies.com “‘Pangaea’ is a cerebral trip through the thoughts and torments of a young man who has been used and abused by a lover he thought he could trust.” – Seten Snyder, movies.zertnet.com
Pangaea
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An “undeveloped faggot” has just turned 30 and been left by his boyfriend. Finally, he can remember his dreams. In Spanish with English sub-titles. Selected screenings: Toronto Inside Out Lesbian & Gay Film & Video Festival, 2004; Chicago Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, 2004; Best Student Narrative, Wisconsin International Film Festival, 2004; Sao Paulo Shorts Film Festival, 2004; Mix NYC, 2003.
Placebo
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“Brian and Lazzio” playfully explores the awkward and funny development of a college romance between two young men.
Brian and Lazzio
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In the second instalment of the “Doppelganger” series, the dance hustler duo make their way, unfettered, through the subways stations of midday Toronto.
Doppelganger II: Wheels of Steel
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The risks and complications of postponing pregnancy are the starting point for this 36-year-old’s anxious journey down the long road to reproduction. In seven jam-packed minutes, our intrepid filmmaker falls in love, struggles with infertility, gets pregnant, worries about miscarriage, takes a holiday, tries to be a good pregnant person and inevitably goes into labour. Be prepared for an emotional rollercoaster ride in the lo-fi, heartfelt, high stakes tale of the miracle of life.
Miracle
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“Living Space” is a film about the relationship between architecture and illness which follows the construction of a new cancer care centre designed by architect Frank Gehry. It traces the process of creating a space specially designed for people affected by cancer, a patient-centred approach which attempts to counter the alienating atmosphere of the hospital. This was Gehry’s first commission since the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and his first building in the U.K.
Living Space
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Fieldstone Secondary School has a junior boys’ basketball team unlike any other. The trials and tribulations of high school life are revealed through the team, known as the Sultans. “Every game has its memories, you decide whether they’re good or bad. I’ve seen players grow into and out of sports and they all seem to forget about one thing: loyalty” (Coach Fernando Neves).
Players
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Using the Hollywood Forever cemetary as a backdrop (the cemetary that figures prominently in Kenneth Anger’s “Hollywood Babylon”), the filmmaker recounts his visit to Outfest, LA’s big queer film fest. Pigeons sit on grandiose monuments, flying down to snack, as Hollings talks about the perks of visiting an LA film festival as an experimental filmmaker – especially the free drinks and all-you-can-eat buffets.
Hollywood Forever
