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
Poetic Proclamations
Short Films by Workman Arts Members
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.
Comme entendre à travers une feuille de métal (Like hearing through sheet metal)
Mariane Béliveau | 2024 | Québec/Canada | Documentary | 83 minutes | French with English subtitles
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.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Mariane Béliveau is a French documentary filmmaker and sociologist. She has been interested in documentary film since her studies in sociology and has also worked as a social worker. She is the author of two short documentaries, Narratives from Saint Gabriel (2017) and I Usually Sing It in the Shower (2018).
POST SCREENING PANEL
Mariane Béliveau — Comme entendre à travers une feuille de métal (Like hearing through sheet metal)
Mariane Béliveau is a French documentary filmmaker and sociologist. She has been interested in documentary film since her studies in sociology and has also worked as a social worker. She is the author of two short documentaries, Narratives from Saint Gabriel (2017) and I Usually Sing It in the Shower (2018).
Emma Badame — Rendezvous with Madness Film Programmer
One of our team of Rendezvous with Madness film programmers, Emma Badame, is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved entertainment journalist, the current Managing Editor at That Shelf, and an award-nominated digital marketing strategist for film, television, and not-for-profit arts organizations. Her coverage has appeared in POV, Billboard and Cineplex Magazines, on The Mary Sue, eTalk, Breakfast Television, PopLife, MuchMusic and more. This is her fourth year with the festival.
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IF YOU ASK ME
2025 | Canada | Short films | 60 minutes | World Premiere | English
Featuring artists: Amreen Kullar, Genesis Rose, 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.
Shuffle
Benjamin Flaherty | 2025 | United States | Documentary | 81 minutes | English | Canadian Premiere
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.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Benjamin Flaherty is an Austin-based filmmaker with a diverse collection of work – from documentary and art films with Lou Reed & Lola Schnabel to commercial spots for major brands. His short form PSA’s have been awarded at Cannes, D&AD, One Show and the Clios. His documentary feature debut, SHUFFLE, won the Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature at SXSW 2025.
POST SCREENING DISCUSSION AND Q&A
Benjamin Flaherty — Director, 'Shuffle'
Benjamin Flaherty is an Austin-based filmmaker with a diverse collection of work – from documentary and art films with Lou Reed & Lola Schnabel to commercial spots for major brands. His short form PSA’s have been awarded at Cannes, D&AD, One Show and the Clios. His documentary feature debut, SHUFFLE, won the Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature at SXSW 2025.
Geoff Pevere — Moderator
Geoff Pevere is one of Canada’s leading pop culture commentators and movie critics. The former host of CBC Radio’s groundbreaking Prime Time program, he is also the co-author of the national bestseller Mondo Canuck: A Canadian Pop Culture Odyssey . Currently a movie columnist with the Globe and Mail, he was a movie critic with the Toronto Star for ten years, a TV host with TVOntario and Rogers Television, and a lecturer on film and media. His other books include Toronto on Film and Donald Shebib’s Goin’ Down the Road.
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Writing Hawa
Najiba Noori, Rasul Noori | 2024 | Afghanistan, Qatar, France, Netherlands | Documentary | 84 minutes | Farsi with English subtitles
KEYWORDS: Activism, Family, Trauma, Youth, Feminism
Writing Hawa is the story of three generations of Hazara women from the same family in Afghanistan. With unique access, director Najiba Noori films her mother Hawa and her niece Zahra in their aspirations to emancipate themselves from patriarchal traditions. Forty years after her arranged marriage as a child, Hawa finally begins an independent life and begins studies to become literate. But with the return of the Taliban to power, her dreams, along with those of her daughter and granddaughter, are shattered as they face new daunting struggles
WITH SHORT FILM ——— Hatch—— Panta Mosleh, Alireza Kazemipour | 2024 | Canada | Fiction | 10 minutes
Naaji, An Afghan refugee boy hides with his mother inside a moving water tanker trying to cross the border to safety. Losing his mother in the process, Naaji forever tries to find a way to relive his last memory of her.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Najiba NOORI was born in 1995 in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. She began working for media organizations as a volunteer when she was just 15. She has reported for various organizations and agencies, including the AFP, Huffington Post, MSF, FMIC, NRC and UN Women in Afghanistan. She participated in the Close-Up program 2020-2021 and at the IDFA Academy in 2022. She joined AFP as a video journalist in 2019. In 2021, she was obliged to leave her country when the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, and now lives in France. Writing Hawa is her first documentary.
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#skoden
Damien Eagle Bear | 2025 | Canada | Documentary | 76 minutes | English
In partnership with Shkaabe Makwa
KEYWORDS: Internet culture, houselessness, addiction, systemic racism
#skoden tells the story of Pernell Bad Arm, the Blackfoot man behind the infamous “Skoden” meme. What started out as a social media post to bond Indigenous people across Turtle Island over rez slang and relatable uncle material opened our eyes to something much more: a man whose life on the streets became a mockery to some and a figure of Indigenous empowerment to others but was most beloved by those who knew him personally. Damien Eagle Bear’s heartfelt and compassionate documentary humanizes the man behind the image, sharing stories from Pernell’s family and friends about his life and struggles, and serves as an anecdote to a bigger issue — the harsh reality of street life for many Indigenous people living in urban centres across so-called Canada.
WITH SHORT FILM ——— The Fourth World Problems Collective—— Kira Doxator | 2024 | Canada | Fiction | 7 minutes | English
On a cold Toronto night, a tight-knit collective of friends embark on an unusual mission—tapping maple trees in their neighborhood. A simple act becomes a reflection on belonging and tradition.
Kira Doxtator is an Anishinaabe, Oneida, and Dakota filmmaker exploring Indigiqueer identities, land relationships, and Indigenous futurisms through impactful storytelling and industry advocacy.
FEATURING POST-SCREENING DISCUSSION
Damien Eagle Bear — Director, #skoden
Niitsitapi, amateur physicist, frybread-eating machine, Damien Eagle Bear is a multifaceted filmmaker from the Kainai First Nation of the Blackfoot Confederacy. His career began with the short experimental documentary Napi, which asks the question of what will happen when the Blackfoot trickster gets behind the camera. Damien has gone on to produce, direct and write short films, web series and documentaries that have played at film festivals across both Canada and the United States. Damien continues to expand his horizons with work that explores the themes of belonging and Indigenous resiliency.
Lindsay Monture — Artistic Director, ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival
Lindsay Monture is Mohawk, turtle clan from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. A graduate of York University’s Film and Media Studies program, Lindsay has worked in the media arts sector for over 15 years. Throughout her career she has followed her passion for the arts, culture, language and education. Her desire to work with Indigenous communities has been enriched through opportunities to work with non-profit organizations such as; Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, Native Earth Performing Arts, Maoriland Film Festival, Revolutions Per Minute, Woodland Cultural Centre and Indigenous Climate Action. Lindsay is currently the Artistic Director for the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.
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Rendezvous Spoken Word and Open Mic
Please join us at our first Rendezvous spoken word and open mic event as part of our Shine ; Together year!
We are excited to feature esteemed writers Ghadeer Elghafri and Kelly Rose Pflug-Back – see their biography and contact details below! The event will also feature open mic from Workman Arts writers each sharing 5 minutes of writing with our audience – sign up for the open mic begins at 1:30 PM and continues until the 12 slots are filled. Tickets are available at the door or in advance – pay what you can and no one turned away!
This event follows the Workman Arts short film program.
Any questions please contact info@workmanarts.com.
ABOUT GHADEER ELGHAFRI
Ghadeer Elghafri is a Palestinian-Canadian poet from Gaza, born and raised in Dubai, UAE, living in Toronto. She immigrated to Canada 10 years ago from Dubai without her family. She is a Palestinian activist, a feminist, and an advocate of women, children, human rights and social justice.
Since she was 10 years old child, she was writing poetry in her mother language Arabic. What inspired Ghadeer to write is nature, her father, love, longing, nostalgia, diaspora, her homeland Palestine, difficult emotions, hard feelings, trauma, feminism, freedom, liberation, human rights and justice.
Ghadeer is the founder of Toronto Poetry Club. She has organized inclusive and diverse multicultural multilingual open mic poetry nights in Toronto for 8 years. She has published her Arabic and English poetry in newspapers, magazines, exhibitions, including the anthology “Poetry ReRooted: Decolonizing Our Tongues” and in the anthology “To Hear The Birds”
Ghadeer’s poem “Alhuwiyya (The Identity)” had been published in English in an anthology of “Muslim American Writers at Home” in San Francisco by Freedom Voices Publisher. It was about her 3 different identities contained within her while being in diaspora, relocating in different countries and her nostalgia to her homeland Palestine. She received a grant from The Toronto Arts Council to start a Multilingual Poetry Collective.
Ghadeer is an Ontario Ambassador, Outreach to Arab speaking community of National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse (NAASCA). She completed her BSc. in Computer Science and MBA at the American University of Sharjah in UAE. Her dream is to have her own house and host her poetry nights, under the name Qahwa Art Café, in its back or front yard in the Summer and in the basement in the Winter. “Qahwa” means coffee in Arabic.
YouTube: Ghadeer Elghafri
Instagram: gghafri
ABOUT KELLY ROSE PFLUG-BACK
Kelly Rose Pflug-Back is a writer and creative writing workshop facilitator. Her fiction, poetry, and journalism has appeared recently in publications like The Briarpatch, The Deadlands, and This Magazine, as well as anthologies such as Queer Little Nightmares (Arsenal Pulp, 2022) and Imaginarium: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing (ChiZine, 2012) . Their debut collection of poems, The Hammer of Witches (Caitlin Press/Dagger Editions, 2020), recently placed as a finalist in the upcoming Bisexual Book Awards.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
Tranzac Club | 292 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto
Box office: 1 PM | Open Mic signup opens at 1:30 PM
Spoken Word event starts at 4 PM sharp and runs until 5:30
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Bionico's Bachata (La Bachata de Bionico)
Yoel Morales | 2024 | Dominican Republic | Experimental Fiction | 80 minutes | Spanish with English subtitles
GENRE: Experimental Fiction (feature)
TYPE: FILM | IN-PERSON
KEYWORDS: Rehabilitation, Addiction, Recovery, Hybrid film
Bionico (Manuel Raposo) and his closest pal Calvita (El Napo) live their lives on the wild side, driven by their insatiable desire to get high, no matter the cost. Early on in the film, Bionico decides to turn his life around. He’s a romantic at heart, and he wants to clean up his act before the love of his life La Flaca (Ana Minier) completes rehab. To begin this new phase of life, he must find a job, buy an engagement ring, and find a nicer place to live. But making life-changing plans is easier said than done, as Bionico struggles to detox while facing an endless parade of temptations.
WITH SHORT FILM ——— CHRYSTALLID —— Esteban Powell | 2023 | Canada, Mexico | Experimental documentary | 7 minutes | Spanish with English subtitles
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Peter Doherty: Stranger in My Own Skin
Katia de Vidas | 2023 | France, United Kingdom | Documentary | 95 minutes | English
GENRE: Documentary (feature)
TYPE: FILM | IN-PERSON
KEYWORDS: Addiction, Recovery, Music, Documentary
Opening Performance: Contemporary Dance | We Lost You A Long Time Ago | Nicole Decsey Dance Projects | 2023 | 25 minutes
“‘As the lead singer of The Libertines and Babyshambles, Pete Doherty became the most iconic singer and rock n’ roll poet of his generation. First came the music, then came the success, but then came the drugs. At the peak of his career Doherty was best known for his dual relationship with Kate Moss and the tabloid press and for the turbulent episodes that followed in the wake of his very explicit heroin use. And it is this abuse that Peter Doherty: Stranger in My Own Skin finally faces. Over a ten-year period, director Katia DeVidas – now Doherty’s wife – follows the musician as he attempts to overcome his addiction and relapses. Her unique access to Doherty provides a relentless insight into an addict’s struggle to overcome his demons without losing himself and his undeniable artistic genius in the process."
– CPH:DOX
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