Get Mad: IYAM shorts

For the third consecutive year, If You Ask Me (IYAM) has supported emerging filmmakers with mental health and/or addiction experiences to create new work. This constantly evolving program has grown to follow the needs of the filmmakers and RWM is very excited to be showing four new short films in 2019 by Saba Akhtar, Julianne Ess, Erum Khan and James Knott.

These filmmakers have worked under the guidance of mentor Fallon Andy and have been working at Trinity Square Video over the summer months to develop new short films. Each year these artists have been commissioned to create longer works to be shared in the festival and next year they will graduate into becoming mentors for a new generation of filmmakers looking to share their mental health stories through film.

This program is also being offered in conjunction with a Paprika Theatre Festival writing workshop.

For info and sign up, visit here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/paprika-workshop-bringing-your-authentic-self-to-your-writing-tickets-73823105897

1-on-1 advice for Young Filmmakers & Professionals 

The IYAM participants are emerging arts leaders who are interested in giving back to their communities. Join the artists as they engage in intimate conversations along with representatives from professional film making and theatre organizations as they offer advice, talk through ideas, give feedback and, most importantly, meet other young creators who are looking to share their stories!

With support from CAMH’s Youth Engagement Initiative and the National Youth Action Council

Hair is just keratin protein and dead skin cells. Yet beauty standards today and historically have made hair and its appearance a signifier of status. When you are dissatisfied with the state of your hair, each hair care advertisement is a microaggression advocating anything but otherness.

Foxy is a spunky film that debunks the social stigma surrounding alopecia universalis by interweaving a scripted memoir of director Trista Suke’s personal story with direct-to-camera interviews highlighting people from the community who are also living with hair loss. In flirty fashion, the fictional character Penny Todd tracks a journey of ultimate self acceptance and what it’s like to live as a beautifully bald woman.

Screening with

Consent Is… The Freedom to Choose
Lucy Drumonde | 2019 | Canada | 1 min | Canadian Premiere

In public or private the ethics of informed consent acknowledges the human right to choose.

Isolation by Ann Bekooy
Ann Bekooy | 2019 | Canada | 8 mins | Toronto Premiere

Through a dreamscape of surreal images, artist Ann Bekooy poetically narrates the universal but somehow alienating condition of existence.

Animating Artists’ Health (Shorts Program)
Canada | 19 mins

Animating Artists’ Health features short animations exploring artists’ health and wellbeing. This program is a product of Artist Health Alliance’s Creating Artists’ Health initiative. Featuring shorts by M.C Cruz, Shelton Deverell, Nikole Hidalgo McGregor, Ess Joelle Okemow, Raoul Olou, David Rendall, and Tommy Truong.

Animating Artists’ Health is co-presented with Toronto Animation Society, OCAD Art & Social Change, and OCAD Health and Wellness Centre. 

Sharing your story through film

We will be welcoming the range of filmmakers who are showing work as part of this screening to celebrate and reflect on the power of sharing their stories through film. What is it about the medium of film that has called each of these artists to create these works and how has it empowered them to reveal their vulnerable depths to themselves, audiences and each other?

Charlie is looking for happy, Remi is a struggling musician and bartender who has clinical depression, Jinx is a burlesque performer and PHD candidate who works at The Orange Balloon, and Minka, no one knows what Minka does. In This House is a play about four young adults living together in Toronto. It is a look into the epidemic of loneliness and depression among the Millennial generation and the daily struggle to make something of yourself in this city. In This House is a play about a generation, a city and an exact time in our lives. This is a play about how we save each other.

Written and Directed by Grace Thompson
Performed by: Astrid Atherly, Jonathan Sconza, Rosie Callaghan and Ciana Henderson
Stage Manager: Erin Maxfield
Set and Lighting Design: Lisa Van Oorschot
Sound Design: Shannon Farrell

Millennial Mental Health: a two-part conversation 

How are young people today talking about suicide? How are Millennials navigating their experiences with mental health and addictions? Join the cast of In this House after the shows on October 12 and October 15 as they discuss the production themes and their experiences navigating between being emerging artists, living on their own for the first time and managing their mental health. This two-part conversation will explore the unique difficulties for young people in Canada, and the communities of support being created as a response.