Anny became a sex worker at the age of 46, and since then has kept returning to the streets of Prague, rain or shine, as cars pass by her at a snail’s pace. Director Helena Třeštíková recorded Anny between 1996 to 2012 as is her unique approach: she follows ordinary people for years in what she’s dubbed “time-lapse documentaries.” These carefully crafted portraits indirectly capture larger lines of histories — in this case, the economic crisis years that sometimes prompt Anny to reflect on communism. Gently edited, this documentary shifts in time between Anny slowly growing older and her daily life that is often challenging, filled with concerns about her grandchildren and her failing health. An insightful portrait of a person who, with courage and determination, carries on despite life’s surprises.

SCREENING WITH SCARS Alex Anna | 2020 | Canada / France | 10 min | French with English subtitles

Alex Anna’s body is a canvas: her scars come to life to tell a new story of self-harming. Live action and animation intertwine in this short and poetic documentary, both intimate and universal.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A Watch a pre-recorded Q&A with Director Helena Třeštíková and learn about her experience documenting the life of Anny over 16+ years. The discussion will be moderated by Jenny Duffy, a representative from Maggie’s Toronto Sex Workers Action Project.

Keywords: Aging | Class | Gender | Sex work | Trauma

Filmed over the course of three years, this documentary begins at the Maine Correctional Center where Jacinta, 26, and her mother Rosemary, 46, are incarcerated together, both recovering from drug addictions. As a child, Jacinta became entangled in her mother’s world of drugs and crime and has followed her in and out of the system since she was a teenager. This time, as Jacinta is released from prison, she hopes to maintain her sobriety and reconnect with her own daughter, Caylynn, 10, who lives with her paternal grandparents. Despite her desire to rebuild her life for her daughter, Jacinta continually struggles against the forces that first led to her addiction. With unparalleled access and a gripping vérité approach, director Jessica Earnshaw paints a deeply intimate portrait of mothers and daughters and the effects of trauma over generations.

SCREENING WITH VERY PRESENT
Conor McNally | 2020 | Canada | 5 min | English
How does prolonged confinement shape our experience of time? Filmmaker Conor McNally explores the question in the company of his brother Riley, a young man who’s learning to cope with a new—yet strangely familiar—reality.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A with Jessica Earnshaw

Keywords: Addiction | Family | Generational Trauma | Prison Industrial Complex

Few challenges are harder for a first-time filmmaker than the one Carolina Moscoso set for herself: to make a film based on the rape she was the victim of eight years before, when she was a film school student. The title Visión Nocturna refers to a function that allows digital cameras to film at night, to see in the dark, by enhancing their sensitivity. In order to give form to this darkness, Moscoso coordinates two kinds of contrasting materials and narrative modes. A silent linear account, via a text printed on shots or on a dark background, establishes the naked facts of the rape and its violence, prolonged by a legal process that failed to acknowledge it and to see justice through. In the background or in the gaps of this account, the editing arranges disparate fragments out of the raw footage that she has been shooting for the past fifteen years, as a kind of diary. Joyful, carefree scenes with friends, or solitary impressions; no comment, no explanation that reveals the secret. Only by delving into the silence, and cultivating this secret, does Visión Nocturna pull off the impossible feat of sharing the unshareable. (description courtesy FIDMarseille Festival)

SCREENING WITH JULIETA Y LA LUNA / JULIETA AND THE MOON
Milena Castro Etcheberry | 2020 | Chile | 8 min | Spanish with English subtitles
Julieta’s voice tries to reconstruct the family history of sexual abuse from her childhood, traveling
through the house in which it occurred. The place seems empty; however, she comes to life with the
projection on the walls of the family archive material of the protagonist.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A WITH Carolina Moscoso and Milena Castro Etcheberry
Please join Directors Carolina Moscoso and Milena Castro Etcheberry for a virtual Q&A to discuss
the experience of creating their haunting films. The discussion will be moderated by Tamara
Toledo, a curator and writer from Latin American-Canadian Art Projects.

Keywords: Gender | Rape | Sexual violence | Trauma

After the inconclusive death of his young niece, filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown to make a film about a broken criminal justice system. Instead, he pivots to excavate the depths of generational addiction, Christian fervor and trans embodiment. Lyrically assembled images, decades of home movies and ethereal narration form an idiosyncratic and poetic undertow that guide a viewer through lifetimes and relationships. Like the relentless Michigan seasons, the meaning of family shifts, as Madsen Minax, his sister and his parents strive tirelessly to accept each other. Poised to incite more internal searching than provide clear statements or easy answers, North By Current dives head-first into the challenges of creating identity, the agony of growing up and the ever-fickle nuances of family.

“For me, a personal, first-person approach to storytelling was the only way to make North By Current. My own voice is the only one I feel capable of representing. This merger of personal and political storytelling became an opportunity for my family members and myself to converse, collaborate, and create together — our own version of transformative justice.” — Angelo Madsen Minax

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A WITH ANGELO MADSEN MINAX
Watch a pre-recorded Q&A with the filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax about his experience creating the deeply intimate personal documentary North By Current. The discussion is moderated by Mike Hoolboom, a filmmaker and writer who lives in Toronto and director of Rendezvous 2020 opening film Judy Versus Capitalism.

Keywords: Addictions | Family | Gender | Religion | Trauma