While walking on the street one night in a small town in Canada, Scott Jones, a gay musician, is attacked and paralyzed from the waist down; what follows is a brave and fragile journey of healing and the transformation of a young man’s life. From the first raw moments in the hospital to a disquieting trip back to the place he was attacked, Scott is constantly faced with the choice of losing himself in waves of grief or embracing love over fear. Filmed over three years by Scott’s close friend, Love, Scott is an intimate and visually evocative window into queer experience, set against a stunning score by Sigur Rós.
When death haunts a high school in a small town in the late 1990s, everyone is forever transformed. In this gentle, prismatic film, Samara returns to the town she fled as a teen to re-immerse herself in the memories still lurking there, in its spaces and within the dusty boxes of diaries, photos and VHS tapes. 1999 is not a ghost story, but the ghosts are palpable at every turn. The snow-covered streets, the school’s hallways and lockers are preserved as in a dream. The absences left by the relentless teenage suicides still shimmer with questions, trauma and regret. Samara encounters people who are as breathtaking as they are heartbroken, and, finally, 16 years later, the community strengthens itself by sharing the long-silenced memories. Ultimately the film weaves together multiple voices in a collective essay on how grief is internalized—and how, as children, we so painfully learn to articulate our desire to stay alive.
The phenomenon of young Westerners who join ISIS as jihadis has been a regular news item ever since the armed group first appeared. The media regularly ponder why someone would volunteer (and risk being convicted as a terrorist, which comes with a heavy sentence); but there is little mention and even less censure of the recruitment of Western fighters by the other side. Which, while it operates through social media just like ISIS, is perfectly legal.
Recent years have seen some 100 volunteers from North America, Europe and Australia unexpectedly swelling the ranks of Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria. Unpaid and with few prospects for glory, they decided to risk their lives to battle ISIS. Who are they: selfless heroes, or just adrenaline junkies? Or are they on a quest for recognition or identity? An intimate portrait of four Western volunteers, Julien Fréchette’s My War traces their journeys as it sets out to uncover their motives, which are often quite complex. Filming them in action as close as possible to the front, steadfastly refusing to judge or champion, Fréchette brings their troubling stories to life. A compelling inquiry into what causes individuals of differing ages and backgrounds to forsake their comfortable existence and take up arms in someone else’s war.
Hidden away in his workshop, an animator leans over what appears to be a human body and begins to perform an autopsy. Who is this lifeless being stretched out before him? As he dissects the plasteline figure, the spirit of scientific inquiry gives way to the madness of artistic inspiration, and the animator’s tools go to work. Slicing into the skin, separating the tissues, probing the entrails, the artist lets loose his creative imagination as entire worlds take shape before his eyes, sweeping him into the enormity of the inner spaces to be explored. What will he find there? What does an animator stand to discover through an autopsy of a body he himself created? In this story-within-a-story about the art of creation, director Patrick Bouchard pays homage to the animator’s vocation—namely, breathing life into the inanimate. The Subject takes us to the conceptual limits of animation, examining the connections between life and death, body and psyche, individual and community, real and imaginary, as it delves into the invisible worlds within.
In a world of fixed positions and prescribed roles, expanding the definition of gender requires the courage to dive deep into understanding and acceptance. Christina Willings’ documentary Beauty explores the lives of five gender-creative kids, each uniquely engaged in shaping their ideas of what it means to be fully human. Claiming your own sense of gender when everything around you insists that you comply and conform can be challenging, and sometimes scary. But luckily, family and friends are there to help.
Free-flowing animated elements, ranging from images of octopuses to astronauts, draw together the kids’ shared experiences in beautifully rendered fantasias that celebrate the power of imagination and the flourishing force of self-determination. Playful, goofy, loving and brave—each of these remarkable kids has found their own way to break free and show the world what it really means to be your true self.