Stream our 2025 Rendezvous with Madness Festival paired shorts! Curated by the festival programming team, each short film was screened as part of our 33rd Annual Rendezvous with Madness Festival.
PAIRED SHORTS
The Fourth World Problems Collective
The Fourth World Problems Collective | Kira Doxator | 2024 | Canada | Fiction | 7 minutes | English
Ghost
Ghost | Stephanie Quilliams | 2025 | Canada | Animated short | 3 minutes | English
Semillas (Seeds)
Semillas (Seeds) | Esteban Powell, Francisca Rojas, Ruben Dario Chavez-Munoz | 2024 | Canada | Documentary | 11 minutes | English, Spanish
Hatch
Hatch | Panta Mosleh, Alireza Kazemipour | 10 minutes
Adieu Ugarit
Adieu Ugarit | Samy Benammar | 2025 | Quebec/Canada | Documentary | 15 minutes
The Last Day
The Last Day | Mahmoud Ibrahim | 2024 | Egypt | Documentary | 5 minutes | Arabic
Truth Matters
A Critical Dialogues Series in a Post-Truth Era
This panel discussion will address rising political polarization, the emotional toll of documenting contentious issues, and open discussions about the mental health challenges filmmakers face, promoting conversations about self-care and emotional well-being in the context of social justice filmmaking.
This session will feature:
Allison Duke
Allison Duke, (aka “Golde”) is an award-winning documentary writer and director celebrated for fearless, socially resonant storytelling. Her upcoming works include TV doc, ‘Michelle Ross: Unknown Icon’ and Season 2 of Amanda Parris’ acclaimed series ‘For the Culture.’ Beyond her films, Duke co-founded the OYA Black Arts Coalition, where she mentors the next generation of Black filmmakers. She is the recipient of the 2024 Hot Docs Don Haig Award and the 2019 WIFT-Toronto Crystal Award for Mentorship.
Justine Pimlott
Justine Pimlott is a multiple award-winning Producer – most recently honoured with a prestigious Peabody Award for Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story. Justine has a long track record of amplifying marginalized stories and bringing them to the screen. In 2003 Justine co-founded Red Queen Productions to challenge gender norms and explore LGBTQ+ lives. At Red Queen, Justine directed and produced numerous feature documentaries.
Cristian Gomes
Cristian Gomes, the director of Queen of Canada, a film that follows the rise of conspiracy theorist and cult leader Romana Didulo through the eyes of her former followers, shedding light on the intersection of conspiracy theories and political extremism.
Cristian is also in development on a documentary with the NFB about a high-control religious cult in Canada, and is utilizing a framework for production that is trauma-informed and prioritizes mental health for participants
Moderated by Julian Carrington, Executive Director, Documentary Organization of Canada.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
SUPPORTED BY
Public Funder Panel
with Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Toronto Arts Council
On Monday October 27, from 2-5 PM please join us for a free professional development session at Workman Arts’ adjacent CAMH Arrell Family Foundation Auditorium in downtown Toronto. Everyone is welcome. Please RSVP (link at the right) so we can ensure there’s enough snacks and coffee/tea.
We will be joined by guests from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council who will be explaining their programs and how they support artists in Deaf & Disability Arts in addition to information about Media Arts funding given the panel is being hosted as part of Rendezvous With Madness.
This event is geared toward individual creators (as opposed to organizations / collectives). Live captioning will be provided as well as a chill / decompression space.
Learn about funding priorities as well as grant processes with federal, provincial and municipal funding staff including:
Renata Soutter
Program Officer, Explore and Create (creation and dissemination of art), Canada Council for the Arts
Marc Fournel
Program Officer, Engage & Sustain and Supporting Artistic Practice, Canada Council for the Arts
Barbara Gilbert
Media Arts Officer, Ontario Arts Council
Sarah Miller-Garvin
Senior Coordinator, Grants Support, including Accessibility Grant, Toronto Arts Council
Dwayne Dixon
Associate Officer, Deaf & Disability Arts, Ontario Arts Council
MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2025
Workman Arts / Arrell Family Foundation Auditorium
1025 Queen Street West, 2nd floor, Toronto
2-5 PM
Snacks and refreshments provided.
SUPPORTED BY
MORE EVENTS
Ask Me Anything
with representatives from the Canada Council for the Arts
Rendezvous With Madness is thrilled to host two program officers from the Canada Council for the Arts who are offering 20-minute one-on-one consultation meetings with artists. Save your spot to learn more about Canada Council’s funding opportunities and application process, discuss your artistic projects, and more.
Learn more about funding opportunities for artists through the Canada Council, discuss your artistic projects, and more.
To book a 20-minute consultation, please choose a timeslot here:
JOINING US
Renata Soutter
Program Officer, Explore and Create (creation and dissemination of art), Canada Council for the Arts
Marc Fournel
Program Officer, Engage & Sustain and Supporting Artistic Practice, Canada Council for the Arts
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2025
Workman Arts Office | 1025 Queen St W, #2400, Toronto
10AM – 5PM
If you have any questions or have access requests, please email:
Jenna Reid
jenna_reid@workmanarts.com
Image: Return, Aliyah Aziz (2025)
Steel, Bronze Casted Keys, Fabric, with sound composition.
RENDEZVOUS WITH MADNESS EXHIBITION 2025
Lingering Echoes, October 23 – November 30, 2025. Co-curated by Nicole Marchesseau & Fatma Hendawy.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Lingering Echoes brings into conversation personal sound-centered artworks by artists Aliyah Aziz, Ghislan Sutherland-Timm, Middle, Tanya Louise Workman, and Winta Hagos. Collectively and individually, the artworks take up themes of resistance, collectivity, embodiment, silence, and resilience. Lingering Echoes ask where the individual ends and the collective begins within the porosity of space and temporalities.
This exhibition is the result of “Sounding Spaces” course, part of the Train to Present program led by instructor/artist Nicole Marchesseau.
Exhibition co-curated by Nicole Marchesseau.
FEATURED ARTISTS
Aliyah Aziz
Aliyah Aziz is a multidisciplinary storyteller, poet and musician who uses light to talk about shadows, and sound to physically move them through us. She uses disruption as a tool of resistance, embracing glitch and static to channel the friction that exists between the surface and the depth of the technology that we engage with. Aliyah’s expressions take many forms, from multimedia moving collages of archived material, experimental sound and poetry compositions, interactive media installations, to performance art. She considers her practice to be an exploration of identity and the power that stories hold, from the history of our shadows to the projection of our futures.
Aliyah works with experimental sound techniques and audio archives such as voice loop samples on magnetic tape, as well as electromagnetic frequency statics made audible in combination with spoken word recitations. She is currently exploring live performance in 5.1 using different instruments she has built to direct the power of the “auditory glitch” as a liberating disruption in confronting naturalized instances of dehumanization of the “Other”. Aliyah finds that cultural resilience is only possible through resistance, and her work is how she does this, using sound as a material force.
Ghislan Sutherland-Timm
Ghislan Sutherland-Timm (they/she) is a multidisciplinary craftsman, media-based researcher, and cultural worker based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Their practice braids archival materials with collage-based techniques across a diverse range of mediums, including analog, to shape autobiographical-fictional narratives centred on ambiguous beings and land formations. Sutherland-Timm volunteers at the8fest Small Gauge Film Festival and The ArQuives. They hold a BFA in Integrated Media from OCAD University and are an alum of the Independent Imaging Retreat: Film Farm (2024) and Black Women Film! Canada (2019).
Previous works of Sutherland-Timm’s has been featured at Sankofa Square (Yonge & Dundas Square) (2025), Artist Project (2024), InterAccess (2024), Xpace Cultural Centre (2024), ArtSpace Gallery (2023), Images Festival (2023), PITCH Magazine Issue 4 (2023) & Issue 2 (2021), RBC Commission Career Launcher OCAD U x RBC (2022), InsideOut 2SLGBTQ+ Toronto Film Festival (2022), Toronto Queer Film Festival (TQFF) (2022), and Nia Centre for the Arts in collaboration with McMaster Museum of Art (2021).
Middle
Middle is a multidisciplinary musician, producer, and sound artist whose practice bridges identity, mental health, and social justice. As a queer, Black artist, she expands her musical world into the realm of installation, using sound as an aura, designed to surround, hold and tell stories.
Her sonic practice blends genres, while also exploring the use of optimal tunings, meditative frequencies, and resonant textures that move beyond entertainment into embodied listening. Through field recordings, synthesized instrumentation, and live soundscapes, she builds immersive sonic environments where audiences don’t just hear, but feel and inhabit sound as space.
Her music has been featured on Prime Video’s Dating Unlocked and TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin, while her remix series #MiddleMix and original works have drawn recognition from artists such as Sampa the Great and Jessie Reyez.
Beyond her own artistry, Middle is an arts educator and mentor committed to fostering spaces where BIPOC and LGBTQ+ creatives can thrive. With over a decade in community-based work, she bridges creative expression and industry knowledge, equipping emerging artists with the tools to navigate their careers with intention. Her dedication was recognized with the 2024 Community Recognition Award from MPP Chris Glover as a Youth Leader.
Tanya Workman
Tanya Louise Workman is a multidisciplinary artist and writer who works with spoken word, text, images and vibration to create tactile installations that oscillate in the space between what is heard, seen and felt. Listening in to make audible what the body holds, she arrives at her practice through a trauma-informed lens, and is most interested in holding spaces that invite intimacy, connection and embodied, felt experiences.
Tanya received her MFA from Maine Media College + Workshops in 2022. She also holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton University, a post-graduate certificate in creative writing from the Humber School for Writers and a photojournalism diploma from Loyalist College.
Her work has been exhibited and screened in spaces in Toronto and internationally, including at Gallery 44, MOCA Toronto, CONTACT Gallery and the Gladstone Hotel, and with PhotoSensitive, Project Re•Vision, Magnum in Motion and Workman Arts.
As a journalist, Tanya’s writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, TV Guide Canada and Canadian Living. Her radio doc, “What Happened to Your Face?,” about the stories we tell about difference, aired on CBC Radio’s The Doc Project.
Winta Hagos
Winta Hagos is a Toronto-based multisensory artist and sound archivist whose work explores the intersection of sound, science, and cultural memory. Centering East African sonic traditions, she uses archival recordings, sculptural sound objects, and cymatics to investigate how sound can be both form and feeling. Her practice is rooted in community engagement, upcycling, and deep listening — creating immersive experiences that connect participants to epigenetic memory, emotional release, and spatial storytelling.
ALSO OF INTEREST
Farewell Strange Hotel
Album Launch Party
Farewell Strange Hotel
Performed by Ben E. Wood | Music | Album Launch
Content Keywords: Disability, Grief, Harm Reduction, Psychiatry, Trauma
Through experiments with technology, improvisation and new-found acceptance of lived experience, Ben E. Wood has built something of a catharsis-fueled time machine. The output is a rich and layered concept album that plays with hurt, love, anguish, wisdom, and self-destruction-for-the-sake-of-self-rebuilding. This album (and its live show counterpart) curiously dance through each stage of grief, ultimately landing on acceptance as the last stop. This is not just a story of endurance, it’s about transformation and growth. It’s about coming to accept reality, with all its pain and beauty. It’s about coming to terms with disability, and all that we can’t change.
This album is a dreamlike companion to crisis and recovery, drawing aesthetic inspiration from folk-punk, clowny 90s rock and psychedelic anti-folk. The refrains and motifs that weave in and out of the project are meant to tie each string into the bigger knot that is recovery. While the project is full of hard-found wisdom, throughout the show we get to see the emotional backstage of what it feels like to seek help.
Farewell Strange Hotel is about the derailment that comes from crisis, and the effort of helping the train onto a new track. This album moves us through frantic manic fear and urgency, to grounded and thoughtful resolutions. There’s pain and levity and roadblocks and epiphanies. And restarts. Sometimes recovery walks a circular path, and the lyrical and melodic interplay between the songs reflects that. It’ll walk with you. Sometimes in circles.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ben E. Wood
Ben E. Wood (he/they) is a disabled artist and media-maker in East York whose experiences fill out a whimsical body of work playing in the tension between misery and joy. Through experiments with technology, improvisation and new-found acceptance of lived experience, Ben has built something of a catharsis-fueled time machine. Ben’s new recoverycore concept album is called Farewell Strange Hotel, and it’s a dreamlike companion to 2024’s immersive psychosis episode, a 4-week hospitalization and its associated recovery efforts afterwards. It seeks to laugh and cry at the same time, covering both the manic frantic fear and the measured thoughtful resolutions.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31ST, 2025
Tranzac Club | 292 Brunswick Ave, Toronto
8 – 9PM
Box office opens at 7 PM | Tickets in Advance & By Donation at the Door while space allows
THE MAD HAUS HALLOWEEN BASH
HOSTED BY SUCKA QUEEN
WELCOME TO SUCKA QUEEN'S MAD HAUS HALLOWEEN BASH
PART OF OUR HALLOWEEN SERIES: WELCOME TO THE MAD HOUSE
🪦 6:00PM – How to be Normal ( Film Screening )
🪦 8:00PM – Farewell Strange Hotel ( Album Launch )
🪦 9:30PM – Mad Haus Halloween Bash, Hosted by Sucka Queen
🍭 CRAFTS, HANG OUTS, AND DRINKS IN THE SOUTHERN CROSS ALL NIGHT LONG!
TICKETS IN ADVANCE OR AT THE DOOR.
We’re all mad here, why not flaunt it?
Come celebrate with us in community on Halloween Night as we let loose and get juiced.
What’s Happening (more or less)
🍬 Costumes = Candy!!
🍬 Lip Sync Battle, do you have what it takes?
🍬 Give us your best vogue on the Cat Walk-Off.
🍬 Live performance by your host, Sucka Queen!
🍬 Dancing, Dancing, Dancing!!
🍬 PRIZES & BRAGGING RIGHTS
ABOUT THE PERFORMER
Sucka Queen
Sucka is a powerhouse drag performer and host known for her outrageous humour, high-camp charisma, and crowd-loving energy. A fixture in Toronto’s queer nightlife and event scene, she’s taken the stage at beloved venues like The Garrison, The Baby G, Granite Brewery, The Smith House, Junction Underground, Bar Cathedral, El Convento Rico, Western University, and many more.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31ST, 2025
Tranzac Club | 292 Brunswick Ave, Toronto
9:30 – 11:30PM
Box office opens at 7 PM | Tickets in Advanced & By Donation at the Door while space allows
Sandpaper Hammock
Performed by Aliyah Aziz | Sonic Art | 40 minutes | English
Keywords: BIPOC, protest & resistance, technology & media
‘Everything has a voice’
Lips pressed against a mic with a determination to be heard, even in fragmented lines, distorting. Two gloved hands wave over a series of objects arranged on a large white table; a VHS player and CRT Monitor, a Cassette Player, three mixers, a camera, a power bar and several charging cells, the crackling electromagnetic static they emit made audible and interruptive. Their wires spill over the edge of the desk, entangled.
‘Sound is something that you can feel beyond your skin’
“Listening Gloves” designed as an instrument to play different pulsing electromagnetic frequencies of curated technological artifacts through touch. In this process of amplification, they tune into sounds as though they are rhythms of a living being.
This is “Sandpaper Hammock”, a solo multimedia performance series where improvised sound compositions are played off of technological artifacts in combination with original poetry recitations. Through sound, a story unfolds, inviting embodied feeling as a vehicle to share in ways that do not center language over sensation.
Static is used as a material of resistance; the electromagnetic frequencies made audible are a sonic reminder of a friction that exists between surface and depth, a disruption of smoothness. During the set, the camera is turned onto the audience and the frequencies generated from a live feed on a CRT are an act of subversion.
This piece disrupts the focus by interrogating the nature of viewership through technology in the performance itself. People are asked to “watch themselves, watching me. Who remembers longer? The static, the screen, or the human being?’
ABOUT THE PERFORMER
Aliyah Aziz
Aliyah Aziz is a multidisciplinary storyteller, poet and musician who uses light to talk about shadows, and sound to physically move them through us. She uses disruption as a tool of resistance, embracing glitch and static to channel the friction that exists between the surface and the depth of the technology that we engage with. Her expressions take many forms, from multimedia moving collages of archived material, experimental sound and poetry compositions, interactive media installations, to live performances. I consider my practice to be an exploration of identity and the power that stories hold, from the history of our shadows to the projection of our futures.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30TH, 2025
Tranzac Club | 292 Brunswick Ave, Toronto
Performed in the Southern Cross
7:30 – 8:15PM
Box office opens at 6:30 PM | Tickets in Advanced & By Donation at the Door while space allows
MORE EVENTS
No More News For Nancy
Performed by Keira Marie Forde | Interactive Multi-Disciplinary Performance & Installation | 25 minutes | English
Keywords: Digital Media, news, desensitization, marginalized communities, community care
No More News for Nancy is a spoken word, movement, and sound-based digital performance experiment exploring the connection of 24-hour news in marginalized communities.
Nancy is a young Biracial Gen Z millennial cusp who has a very unhealthy relationship with news. Deemed too empathetic by the “system,” Nancy is placed in TIN (Trapped In News), a government program designed to desensitize people of the global majority to news. Through spoken word, dance, and music, Nancy confronts some serious life questions that she is not sure she is equipped to deal with.
“Why do conspiracy theories exist?”
“What was it like to grow up in the generation that was the birth of the digital age?”
“What is the obsession with 24-hour news?”
“How is access to information harmful vs. helpful?”
“What is it like as a black person to consume news that causes unfathomable pain?”
Was it the Twin Towers? The mad cowers? Or Tori, that girl who has been missing for hours?
Performance includes audience “goodie bags” featuring nostalgic 90s/2000s snacks stress relief treats.
ABOUT THE PERFORMER
Keira Marie Forde
Keira Marie Forde (Shey/They) is a multidisciplinary artist and community arts producer who has worked in culturally relevant pedagogy and the arts for over nine years.
Keira’s artistic practice focuses on amplifying stories from youth (under 30) in Toronto. Recent performance credits include NYC’s Richest Man (web series), Suitable Climate with b current at SummerWorks, The Christie Pits Riot with Hogtown Collective, What’s So Funny with Carousel Players, and her original digital work No More News for Nancy with Alberta-based company Major Matt Mason Collective. In 2023–2024, No More News for Nancy underwent further research through the Creative Catalyst Dance Program at Nia Centre for the Arts.
In 2025, Keira completed a residency on the decolonization of bodies at HAUT in partnership with KRA/RAS in Denmark. In 2024, she produced and choreographed Generation Gentrified for the Paprika Festival, inspired by Toronto’s changing communities. Keira is passionate about professional arts in public spaces and shares that passion in her role as Community Arts Coordinator with Toes for Dance.
Rhythm of the Night
MUSIC SHOWCASE AND NIGHT MARKET
Back by popular demand, the 2nd annual Rhythm of the Night closes out the Rendezvous With Madness festival.
We #DISRUPTTHEFOCUS and challenge stigma placed on our community by daring to create, regardless of whether what we create has anything to do with our challenges or not. Our life, our passion, our joy, our creativity belongs to us. Not always our struggles.
Join us for a musical showcase and mini night market that celebrates and connects audience with amazingly talented and diverse local musicians and vendors who all support and exist within the various intersections of mental illness and addictions. Come be in community as we headbang, dance, groove, vibe, and shop the whole night away.
MUSIC | MAIN HALL
11:00PM | SUPERFRAUD
10:00PM | SAM-R
09:20PM | Vivek Mehmi
08:45PM | DJ Nico
NIGHT MARKET | MAIN HALL & SOUTHERN CROSS
Electric Retro Designs
Prickly Cactus Collage
Hana and Hala
Secret Teatime
byAffrica
Birdsong Witchery
this fragile world photography
The Gloomy Angel Shop
FLOOBY
MakeSomething.K
Sticky Mangos
Sentient Pansy
Feels Zine
MUSIC LINEUP
SUPERFRAUD
Marek Skiba (Guitar)
Kyle Gritchen (Guitar)
Sean Davidson (Bass)
Luke Pieroni (Drums)
Victor Salazar (Vocals)
Kyle Gritchen (Guitar)
Sean Davidson (Bass)
Luke Pieroni (Drums)
Victor Salazar (Vocals)
They’re dancey. They’re spacey. Their heavier moments approach almost ballad-like grooves… like a wasted Sinatra lost in the desert, arms flailing and wild-eyed. At other times they drone ethereally without boredom, or plod along rhythmically like a friendly giant picking grapes on a Calabrian hilltop. In general they look like a handful of H&M models.
SAM-R
Andrew Noseworthy (Lead Guitar)
Daksh Joshi (Rhythm Guitar)
Luis Vasquez (DJ/Bass)
Warren Joseph (Keys)
Samer (Drums and Vocals)
Daksh Joshi (Rhythm Guitar)
Luis Vasquez (DJ/Bass)
Warren Joseph (Keys)
Samer (Drums and Vocals)
“A rapping drummer telling honest stories of resilience, culture, and community.” Sam-r is a Toronto-based artist of Lebanese-Syrian heritage whose music fuses the raw storytelling of hip-hop with the soul and grit of the blues. Known for his rare combination of live drumming and rapping, Sam-r brings an emotional depth to his performances that reflect the struggles, strength, and triumphs of his immigrant experience.
DJ NICO & VIVEK MEHMI
Nico is a DJ from Bogotá, Colombia, who’s always exploring new sounds and rhythms to bring fresh energy to his sets. Whether it’s a chill vibe or a packed dance floor, he loves creating moments that people can truly feel and enjoy. Vivek Mehmi is a multidisciplinary artist and seeker whose work bridges music, spirituality, and self-discovery. Drawing from healing, and creative expression, he explores themes of transformation and inner truth through sound and storytelling.
