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.

KEYWORDS: Trauma, Family, Loss, Grief, Gender

Rana is a middle-aged woman holding a high-ranking position at a major bank. Her husband left her when she was pregnant with their daughter. Since that time, she has been raising Hoda alone and her daughter means the world to her. Hoda’s birthday is approaching fast, and she would like to celebrate it at an amusement park; overprotective Rana is not so pleased, but finally agrees. An accident at the amusement park ends fatally for Hoda, and Rana’s life is turned upside down. As if the pain and tragedy of losing her only daughter was not enough, Rana must also face the absurdity of the laws and traditions in her country.

فیلم: دیاپازون

کلمات کلیدی: تروما، خانواده، فقدان، سوگ، جنسیت

رعنا زنی میانسال است که در یک بانک بزرگ، مقام بالایی دارد. شوهرش او را زمانی که دخترشان را باردار بود، ترک کرد. از آن زمان، او هدی را به تنهایی بزرگ کرده و دخترش برایش به معنای تمام دنیاست. تولد هدی به سرعت نزدیک میشود و او دوست دارد آن را در یک شهربازی جشن بگیرد. رعنای بیش از حد محتاط، چندان راضی نیست، اما سرانجام موافقت میکند. حادثهای در شهربازی برای هدی به مرگ ختم میشود و زندگی رعنا زیر و رو میشود. گویی درد و تراژدی از دست دادن تنها دخترش کافی نبوده است، رعنا باید با پوچی قوانین و سنتهای کشورش نیز روبرو شود.

Keywords: Relationships, trauma, addictions, isolation, terminal mental illness, grief

Featured artists: TK Workman, Gavin Seal, Serena McCarroll, Ace Kazkayasi, Andrea Thompson, Brian Demoskoff, Ishaa Vinod, Zan Redcrow, Emmanuel Teji

Our annual short film program celebrating films by Workman Arts’ member artists! 

“Poetic Proclamations’’ features nine films exploring a wide palette of creations including documentary, fiction, animation, spoken word and 360-degree cinema. An all-encompassing range of poetic, personal and transformational expressions that not only disrupt common narratives around mental health they also embody the connections of what it means to connect, critique and commiserate in a mad world.

KEYWORDS: Suicide, grief, love, community

Award-winning Canadian documentarian Alan Zweig explores the nature of grief and helplessness after an old friend commits suicide. Zweig sits down with numerous friends and acquaintances also dealing with the loss of loved ones by their own hand. Their stories are as varied as the people they’ve lost, and their honesty and candour about their unimaginable experiences make an often taboo subject feel tangible and shared like never before. Their pain is palpable, but so too is their resilience. Love, Harold is a cinematic love letter to those we’ve lost but also a tribute to those left behind to pick up the pieces.

WITH SHORT FILM ——— Ghost—— Stephanie Quilliams | 2025 | Canada | Animated short | 3 minutes | English

Loss is universal, it’s something everyone encounters in some form. Ghost is a journey through some of the different ways one can cope – both healthy and unhealthy. Director Stephanie Quilliams has transformed the pain of losing her sister to suicide into a unique artistic endeavour by animating her sister’s ashes. 

Stephanie Quilliams an animator, puppeteer, director, and performance and multimedia artist. Steph has had her work shown internationally and has collaborated with artists both in Canada and America. Stephanie’s art often pushes boundaries and buttons. Through her most recent work Ghost, Steph takes a departure from her often humorous and bawdy themes to examine the concept of loss and how to cope with it.

This Performance Opens for Film Program: Peter Doherty: Stranger In My Own Skin.

Dance Synopsis
We Lost You A Long Time Ago is a poignant contemporary dance piece by Nicole Descey Dance Projects, running 20-30 minutes, that delves into the emotional turmoil of losing a close friendship. This work explores the unraveling of a bond that once felt familial but disintegrates seemingly without warning or closure, reflecting on the deep, often unspoken grief that accompanies the loss of a friendship. Choreographer Nicole Descey draws from her personal experience of watching a friend struggle with mental health, leading to an inevitable and painful separation. Through intricate, expressive movements, dancers Nicole Decsey, and Melissa MacTavish bring to life the stages of emotional turmoil – such as grief, anger, confusion, and sorrow, offering a raw portrayal of the longing for answers and closure that never comes.

Accompanied by a live musical track composed and performed by Luc Gaylie, the choreography takes audiences through memories and moments of connection and the chaotic aftermath of a friendship slowly fading, highlighting the complexity of coping with the absence of resolution. In this powerful exploration of mental health, friendship, and the enduring pain of relationships that cannot be mended, We Lost You A Long Time Ago resonates as a moving portrayal of loss, acceptance, and the memories of a bond that can now only be mourned and remembered.

Keywords: Grief, Trauma, Loss

Accessibility: Active Listener on-site

To celebrate the Canadian premiere of the German film BLUE SKY WHITE CLOUDS at Rendezvous With Madness, join us for an insightful talk about filmmaking featuring accomplished director Astrid Menzel.

The film BLUE SKY WHITE CLOUDS is streaming across Canada from November 6 – 12. You do not have to watch the film before attending the seminar but it is encouraged. The film page is found here Tickets to watch the film online are purchased through a donation of $0 -20. 

SEMINAR – Behind the Scenes Insights on Directing the Award-Winning Documentary BLUE SKY WHITE CLOUDS

Filmmaker Astrid Menzel explores the process of directing a feature film, dissecting her latest documentary BLUE SKY WHITE CLOUDS. Participants of this seminar will walk away with a deeper understanding of various aspects of film direction, production and techniques as well as uncover personal insights about the highs and lows of the process, including:

Topics Covered

• Different aspects and challenges of filming one’s own family.
• How to turn subjective thoughts and struggles into a dramaturgical outline of an intensive and personal documentary.
• The mix of materials and techniques used during the editing of the film.
• Open Q&A

GENRE: DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE), DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)
TYPE: FILM | IN-PERSON
KEYWORDS: AGING | DEMENTIA | GRIEF | FAMILY

German filmmaker Astrid Menzel makes her feature-length documentary debut with this incredibly personal and moving story of loss, love, and legacy. Following the death of her beloved grandfather E.O., the director and her brother embark on a 10-day canoe trip through the North of Germany with their widowed 86-year-old grandmother–a woman slowly succumbing to progressive dementia. Looking for some semblance of control at a time when grief seems insurmountable and change never-ending, a determined Menzel invites her grandmother to become a part of the planning and organization, looking for ways to connect with and involve her simultaneously. Eventually, the unlikely trio set out on a unique, emotional and unflinchingly honest journey that helps all three uncover different and changing perspectives on their existing relationships. With some distance and time come a little patience, unexpected joy and sorrow, and a brand new understanding of exactly what being there for someone you care about truly means.

Streams (online only) with Short Film:

White Noise | Tamara Scherbak | Canada | Drama | 2023 | 18 minutes | English with open captions

White Noise follows Ava, who suffers from misophonia – an extreme hyper-sensitivity to sound. When this reaches new terrifying heights, her doctor enrolls her in an experimental trial involving an anechoic chamber: the world’s quietest room.

PANEL

After the film enjoy a conversation with the film’s director Astrid Menzel; moderated by Jutta Brendemuehl from the Goethe Institut, Toronto.