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.

KEYWORDS: Social stigma, identity, self-discovery

Freshly released from a psychiatric hospital, 26-year-old Pia moves back to her parents’ house on the outskirts of Vienna – only to discover that she is not the only one whose life has fallen apart. Her parents, Elfie and Klaus, are also finding it hard to keep up with a world that is constantly changing.  Who gets to decide what is normal? How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other World is an exploration of identity, family and self-discovery, and a young woman’s search for equilibrium and meaning in a world that is spiraling out of control.

WITH SHORT FILM ——— The Last Day —— Mahmoud Ibrahim | 2024 | Egypt | Documentary | 5 minutes | Arabic

Brothers Ziad and Moody spend their last moments in the family home they’re forced to leave due to a scheduled demolition as part of the city’s development plans. To pass the time while they move the furniture outside, Moody turns on the TV, which soon blares news of Palestinian home demolitions in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem, casting a somber shadow over their already melancholic last day.

Mahmoud Ibrahim, a 24 year old Egyptian filmmaker. He was among the first class of students to graduate from the Higher Institute of Cinema in Alexandria in 2023. He is interested in the relationship between the individual and the city, and the intersection of collective and personal archives. His debut short film “The last day” participated in Berlinale International Film Festival 75 in the Forum Expanded. Mahmoud has worked as a director, producer, cinematographer, editor, and sound designer. He co-founded HandyCam Films, an independent production company that seeks to explore new art spaces and create alternative production methods, away from centralism.

KEYWORDS: Addiction, harm reduction, drug use

Comme entendre à travers une feuille de métal offers a sensitive and intimate look at the complex world of injection drug use, through the experiences of Marianne, M. and Lion: a wander through the rituals of daily life, the interstices of the city, and the confines of memory.

Featuring artists: Amreen Kullar, Genesis Bovas, Imogen Lister, Jonathan Bent-Ford, Jessi Elgood, Jessica Wu, Leo Dean

For the ninth consecutive year, If You Ask Me (IYAM) has supported emerging filmmakers with lived mental health and/or addiction experiences to create new short films. This year’s program features shorts by filmmakers from across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). These new films were developed from July – September 2025 under the guidance of Robin Riad, along with IYAM alumnus Esteban Powell serving as mentor. Equipment rentals and facilities were generously provided by our community sponsor and partner, LIFT.

KEYWORDS: Depression, social anxiety, housework, dominatrix

Denis Côté’s documentary Paul finds its eponymous protagonist figuring out how to take control of his life. Weighing 300 lbs and struggling with depression and social anxiety, the film chronicles Paul’s unconventional path towards turning his life around. Paul finds solace in taking on the role of a “simp” (a man who excessively dotes on someone who doesn’t reciprocate their affection). He spends his days on his hands and knees cleaning the homes of various dominatrices before going home and sharing his experiences with his burgeoning social media audience.

Côté crafts one of the year’s most unconventional explorations of healing, self-improvement, and human connection. Paul emerges as a sweet and inspiring portrait of someone having the bravery to defy social norms in the pursuit of self-fulfillment. With shades of Wim Wenders’ modest masterpiece Perfect Days, Paul suggests mindful commitment to repetitive tasks can strengthen resilience while bringing meaning and satisfaction to everyday life.

KEYWORDS: Schizophrenia, family, childhood

Five children struggle to maintain any sense of normalcy after their mother, Judith (Micaela Gramajo), disappears one summer night. Their father, Emiliano (Bernardo Gamboa), goes off in pursuit of his missing wife, leaving the siblings with their grandmother, Romana (Carmen Ramos). It’s soon clear that Romana’s mental health challenges leave her in no condition to care for five rambunctious kids. It falls on the elder siblings Victor (Donovan Said) and Vanessa (Laura Uribe Rojas) to step up and keep the family together, even as they struggle to make sense of their current situation. Making matters worse, Romana’s foreboding ramblings intensify the children’s anxieties, suggesting the presence of an evil force in their midst.

Director Ernesto Martínez Bucio’s The Devil Smokes (and Saves the Burnt Matches in the Same Box) offers an emotionally gripping and thematically rich experience elevated by evocative cinematography and extraordinary performances from its young cast. Bucio plays stingy with certain plot details, and infuses events with spectral undertones, cultivating a cryptic and haunting atmosphere that lingers long after the credits roll.

WITH SHORT FILM ——— Semillas (Seeds)—— Esteban Powell, Francisca Rojas, Ruben Dario Chavez-Munoz | 2024 | Canada | Documentary | 11 minutes | English, Spanish

When uprooted plants may face ‘transplant shock’ where they are unable to root themselves into a new environment. Similarly, the migrant narrative is steeped by difficulty adapting to a new land. Often overlooked from this narrative is the “1.5” generation – people uprooted in their formative years who have assimilated into their new environment and maintained vigorous roots with the ‘homeland,’

Semillas is a dual-screen documentary portrait of three “1.5” generation Latine individuals (Veronica, Francisca and Josue). Through their voices, likenesses, memories, and interlaced experiences Semillas explores their stages of transplantation: ‘uprooting,’ ‘transplant shock’ and ‘seed dispersal.’ Interrogating how the ‘soil’ of home permeates one’s evolving sense of home and Latine identity.

KEYWORDS: Rehab, insurance fraud, addiction, recovery

Shot over the course of three years, Shuffle follows three individuals whose lives depend not on getting into addiction treatment, but on getting out alive, and in the process, shines a light on the insurance-fueled cycle of rehabilitation fraud spreading across the USA. With the filmmaker serving as narrator, and using his own experience as a roadmap, these personal stories provide an upsetting framework for a more public investigation with the help of an FBI informant, an insurance analyst and the former Director of a Philadelphia-based treatment facility. Shuffle unravels a web of public policy and private interest preying on a desperate population for the sake of profits.

KEYWORDS: Trauma, family, PTSD

This brand-new feature, directed by Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi, delves into the ramifications of one family’s intense experience with mental health.

It follows Maya, a multitasking mother who lives in Kolkata with her husband, Sundar, and their teenage son, Debu. She juggles three jobs as the family’s primary breadwinner, while also dealing with ostracization and neighbourhood rumours about Sundar, an unemployed ex-soldier suffering from PTSD. Debu is often left as his father’s primary caregiver, and the young man valiantly copes with feelings of affection and embarrassment in the face of his father’s daily struggles. After her husband disappears, Maya must fight to hold her family together in the face of an unexpected murder investigation and an unknown and very uncertain future.

With highly engaging lead performances and a fresh perspective on both trauma and caregiving, Shadowbox is a poignant yet tense film that exposes prejudice and peels back the layers of obligation, love, and the complexities of relationships. 

WITH SHORT FILM ——— Adieu Ugarit —— Samy Benammar | 2025 | Quebec/Canada | Documentary  | 15 minutes

“In 2012, Mohamed had seen his best friend shot dead by an armed militia on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria; the blood spilled in the lake contaminated his memory. Ten years on, the reflections on the Laurentian waters revive Mohamed’s trauma. I ask him if he’d like to dredge up the memories, repair the pain by retreating for a few days to the most distressing calm he can find. He talks about death, immigration and anger. We wonder how and why we should recount this story.” – Samy Benammar

KEYWORDS: Intersex, medical ethics, gender

‘After demanding his medical records, Jim discovers that like many intersex people, a gender presentation, carried out through invasive operations,  was constructed for him in childhood. It is common practice for intersex children to never be told the truth of what happened to them. We follow the aftermath of these invasive interventions, supported by fraudulent research and celebrated by doctors, though the real results show a very different story. As Jim makes very clear, this is not a transgender story. It’s one that highlights the problem of a binary understanding of gender, asking us to consider the continued medicalisation of our bodies and our identities, and questions who it is that tells us who we are.’ – Sheffield Doc Festival