Opening night - Community Stories: Youth Media Arts Program

In Between Stories is a short documentary that features four young artists from the African diaspora communities in Toronto, Canada. This film touches on issues including media representations of Africa, experiences of second-generation immigrant youth and the role of storytelling.

Life After High School is a short comedic film about guidance counsellors being so out of tune with the students of today. Mostly improvised, the film draws attention to issues in our school system today.

Commenting on their personal values, first-generation Canadian girls attempt to define what it means to be a hyphenated Canadian. An exploration of identity in a multicultural land, where the pull of family values and the push of societal mores sparks as many questions as answers.

A young Congolese immigrant is murdered outside his workplace in Toronto. What will be the effects on his sister, his employer and the attending police officer? Who Killed Me elicits thought-provoking questions about survival and life as an immigrant in our society.

Using whiteboard animation, this short movie scribes an easy-to-follow and critical look at Canada’s controversial Bill C-31, breaking down its effect on refugee populations.

This elliptical experimental film follows a gang of disenfranchised youth in Winnipeg’s West End as they dream of being gangstas and rappers. Rhythmically entrancing and dreamily poetic.

Young girls present an ode to a unique country, imperfect in its past faults yet great in its present openness to diversity, multiculturalism and equal opportunity. A collage of thoughts and pictures in action describe the love for what Canada was and is in its ever-changing social and cultural landscape.

A thoughtful and poetic expression of the sudden disappearance of Sakay’s brother Pinaskin, set against a beautifully desolate landscape in Manawan, Quebec.

Jamal has a dream. He is ambitious. And he has talent. He is giving his everything to try and find his big break as a hip-hop artist, but how much does he have to give?

A creative, short musical film featuring themes of anti-violence and anti-racism. Mi Na Wanna is Abstract Random’s rhythmic progressive diatribe renouncing the violent and homophobic tendencies of dance hall music. A well-timed message about love and freedom.

Abstract Random is an electro dub hop music group out of Parkdale Toronto bringing back “cool feminist political”