A Collection of Rebellious Imaginings From Authors With Lived Experience of Mental Health & Addictions
For the second time in over three decades of supporting artists living with mental health issues and/or addictions, Workman Arts in collaboration with Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness is publishing a print literary anthology – launching on Sunday, November 30, 2025. That’s big news!
Up:Rising is an unapologetic chorus of Mad voices that refuse to conform or cower in the shadows. It was born from a collaboration between two organizations rooted in community care: Workman Arts, a multidisciplinary arts organization supporting artists with lived experience of mental health and/or addictions; and Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, a collectively-run publisher of radical culture grounded in anarchist ideals. We invited writers with lived experience of mental health and/or addiction issues from across Canada to send us their stories, poems, daydreams, imaginings, and manifestos around all the things it can mean to rebel.
Read the letter from our editors here.
Meet The Editors
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.
Hanan Hazime
Hanan Hazime is a multidisciplinary artist, creative writer, community arts educator and, creative writing instructor. She has a Master of Arts degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Windsor. Hanan’s writing has appeared in a number of publications including The Windsor Review, Feckless C*nts: An Anthology of Feminist Writing, and on CBC Arts. Her poetry chapbook Aorta was published by ZED Press in 2018. Hanan is one of the co-editors of the anthology Muslim American Writers at Home (Freedom Voices Publications, 2021). She is also a former editorial assistant for Rampike Magazine. Currently, Hanan is the Education Manager at Workman Arts.
Teyama Alkamli
Teyama Alkamli is an award-winning Syrian filmmaker based in Toronto. Her visually tender and deeply human work deals predominantly with issues of identity, sexuality, displacement and migration. She is an alumna of DocNomads, the European Mobile Film School, Hot Docs Emerging Filmmaker Lab, TIFF Writers’ Studio, and the Canadian Film Centre’s Director Lab.
In 2021 Teyama’s mid-length documentary, Hockey Mom, won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Documentary Program. Her films have screened worldwide at festivals such as TIFF, Berlinale, and Doc Lisboa.
What we received exceeded our expectations. While some pieces whisper rebellion through quiet acts of survival, others rage loudly against psychiatric incarceration, systemic violence, and various forms of injustice. Many of the pieces stare you defiantly in the eye while rupturing sanist stereotypes. They subvert genre.
They challenge traditional literary structures. They dare to crip time and space, to be nonlinear. Some pieces queer what healing means and turn the notion of recovery on its head until it is too dizzy to stand. None of these works follow a straight path. They all twist and tangle into a messy but bold collection of rebellious imaginings. This collection isn’t about overcoming madness, it’s about thriving with our madness, fully and fiercely, on our own terms.
Meet The Contributers
A.C. Yeboah
A.C. Yeboah is a Brampton-based writer, creative facilitator, learner for life, and quiet disruptor who is currently using her curiosity to embark on newfound paths of creativity. Her writings often centre on themes of playful discovery, growth, language and identity. A second-generation Canadian with Jamaican and Ghanaian ancestry, she is keen on exploring the intricacies of bicultural identity and the different ways it intersects with our everyday experiences. Most recently, an essay she wrote centred on her experiences travelling to her father’s homeland, was published in the “Back Where I Came From: On Culture, Home and Identity” anthology. One of A.C.’s favourite places to write is at a park not too far from where she currently resides.
A.G.A. Wilmot
A.G.A. Wilmot (BFA, MPub) is a writer and editor based out of Toronto, Ontario. They have won awards for fiction, short fiction, and screenwriting, including the Friends of Merril Short Story Contest and ECW Press’s Best New Speculative Novel Contest. For seven years they served as co-publisher and co-EIC of the Ignyte- and British Fantasy Award-nominated Anathema: Spec from the Margins. Their credits include myriad online and in-print publications and anthologies. They are also on the editorial advisory board for Poplar Press, the speculative fiction imprint of Wolsak & Wynn. Books of AGA’s include The Death Scene Artist (Buckrider Books, 2018) and Withered (ECW Press, 2024). They are represented by Kelvin Kong of K2 Literary (k2literary.com). Find them online at agawilmot.ca.
Althea Knight
Althea Knight is a poet, artist, teacher, and catalyst born in London, England to Jamaican and West African lineages. Poetry has been an enduring companion since age nine, shaping ache and astonishment into language. Her poems serve as witness and confidante, therapist and timekeeper, tracing survival, joy, memory, and the quiet insistence of change. They hold her in dialogue with who she’s been, what she carries, what longs to be released, and what still calls her forward. 4 works appear in Flaunt It’s anthology Love Dimensions, “Perhaps” in Recipes for Sustainability, “Udu you think you are” for the Gardiner Museum and Barbara Schlifer Clinic’s #WeBelieveSurvivors. She read her poem “2053” at Kuumba at Harbourfront in 2023. Althea continues to honour language as a living force, a way to document, disrupt, soothe, and ignite. She is currently shaping a new body of poetic work. Watch for new growth taking root.
Amrita Mathur
Amrita Mathur: I am an East Indian queer woman, a new mother and a decade-long nurse (OB-GYNE & now mental health) attempting to also work as an emerging artist and poet in Toronto (on ceded Indigenous peoples land). I actively volunteer in my community for over 10 years, supporting women facing addiction and trauma. My writing stems from my lived experiences and identity as a brown, queer, first-generation immigrant who has recovered from significant long-term addiction, mental health challenges, and numerous instances of trauma. My work has previously won at provincial level with the Canadian Legion and has been featured in social action projects with Gardiner Ceramic Museum (for International Day of Violence against Women) and for vulnerable persons with mental health, trauma, and addiction with YWCA. My work has been published or is forthcoming in West Trade Review, Libre Lit, Anti-Heroin Chic, Fruitslice, Kintsugi, swim press, Squid Lit Mag, Writers Resist, and Only Poems, as Poet of the Week.
Ash Winters
Ash Winters is a non-binary writer based out of Toronto. Their poetry and prose have appeared in; Existere, Open Minds Quarterly, The White Wall Review, Free Fall Magazine, Into the Void, and Filling Station. Their first collection of poetry, Run Riot: Ninety Poems in Ninety Days came out with Caitlin Press in January 2021. They live in a small apartment with their beautiful Wife, rambunctious dog Eloise, and tuxedo cat named The Smooch.
Cid V Brunet
Cid V Brunet (they/them) published their debut memoir, This Is My Real Name, with Arsenal Pulp Press in 2021. These days Cid is completing an MFA in creative writing at the University of British Columbia while working as a freelancer and editor. When not working on their upcoming historical fiction novel, Cid enjoys time with their new dog, weightlifting, and caring for an ever-growing collection of houseplants.
Daniel Oudshoorn
Daniel Oudshoorn is a father, fighter, lover, friend, and failure. A formerly homeless youth, he has spent more than twenty-five years actively pursuing life and mutually liberating solidarity in the company of the oppressed, colonized, and left-for-dead.
Elvie C
Elvie C (also, “LVC”) is a writer and creator, who studies and is deeply inspired by nature and the Earth, mysticism, religion, esoteric knowledge and ritual practice. She engages her crafts at her home in the strange surroundings she lovingly calls, the “liminal borderlands of Toronto” (more commonly known as north Scarborough).
Some of her identities (whether self-chosen, bestowed upon by the universe or “assigned’ by others – and sometimes shifting or evolving) include: Queer or Bisexual, Canadian-born Chinese-diaspora, POC, she/her, mother, solo-parent, “crazy”, community member, advocate/activist, insider/outsider, living with chronic physical pain from an auto-immune condition, survivor, friend, human and lover. She has been incarcerated in the mental health system for stretches of time throughout her life. To discover more, please visit: elviec.ca and/or follow her on the Instagram page she keeps promising to start using one-day @LV_see
Emily Couves
Emily Couves is a Vancouver-based multidisciplinary designer and writer. More of her work can be found in past and upcoming journals from Acta Victoriana, the Bellevue Literary Review, Wingless Dreamer, and more online.
Emily Schooley
Emily Schooley is a multi award-winning, multi-dimensional artist who tells stories by, about, and for unapologetic & unconventional queer heroines. She creates primarily across theatre, film, and new media as an actor, voiceover artist, director, and filmmaker; her body of work as a writer spans numerous poems, screenplays, short stories, and personal essays.
To date, Emily’s original works have been supported by organizations including Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Creates, Ontario Arts Council, the Canadian Film Centre, Panavision, Sunbelt, and Workman Arts. Emily is also the founder of Laughing Cat Productions, an emerging film production company that focuses on telling bold, forward-thinking, women-driven stories. You can find her online under @EmilySchooley across multiple platforms, and she publishes poetry at @lovepoemsfornobody on Instagram.
Eve Crandall
Eve Crandall: I have moved between many different art and craft forms in my life, always with delight at learning something new and becoming at least competent at it. I have written fiction and poetry, knitted, quilted, done stained glass and mosaics, folk art painting and paint pouring. From there I discovered pen and ink and also slipped into mixed media collage to highlight wonderful quotes collected over the years. Quilling has also become a passion. So now I have a lovely collection of possible media to create in, and that certainly makes it all never boring. One can never have too many options, especially when creation is so very, very gratifying.
Freda Sze
Freda Sze is a writer with a love for literature and the slight difficulty of turning words into experience. Fiction makes life bigger than being yourself, and a way into worlds of existence, transporting across time and space and the fourth dimension. Freda lives in Toronto, Canada, and enjoys crepes, sparkling water, and anything that makes things cozy. She looks forward to the next book, next story, and the next protagonist that can change her world again.
K. Zimmer
K. Zimmer (they/she) is a Mad/disabled writer, musician, artist, and performer. They have poetry and prose in The Vault, Lived Collective, Workman Arts’ Literary Anthology, and Feels Zine, where they are a regular contributor. Their live readings include Feels Zine, With/out Pretend, Issues Magazine Shop, and literary symposia at the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, the University of Calgary, and York University. In their disability advocacy, they’ve presented their work about ableism in academia at several universities, work which featured in The Toronto Star.
They are trained in classical piano and have composed music for independent production companies. Their artwork has been displayed at Show Gallery and Nuit Blanche. As an actor, they performed in “Passport to Madville” (hosted by Workman Arts), the Hamilton Fringe Festival, and the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival. They were the 2025 Workman Arts literary artist-in-residence. The Toronto Arts Council funded their book in progress.
Katherine Sarah Palakovic
Katherine Sarah Palakovic (she/her) is a fitful writer and enthusiastic editor. Hailing from Hamilton, Canada’s city of waterfalls and steel, she writes about queerness, disability, belonging, and why she absolutely needs to own a horror shop’s worth of houseplants even as they slowly consume her. Katherine believes that a difficult life can still be beautiful, and also that noise-cancelling headphones are magic. Her words have found homes in places like Chestnut Review, Yellow Arrow Journal, and Renaissance Press, and if the writer could she would crawl into their pages and live there too. Until then, she lives in Toronto.
Leah Bobet
Leah Bobet: Author, editor, critic, and community organizer Leah Bobet’s novels have won the Sunburst, Copper Cylinder, and Prix Aurora Awards; her short fiction is anthologized worldwide. Her poetry has appeared in Grain, Prairie Fire, and Canthius, and has placed in the Muriel’s Journey Poetry Prize and the Rhonda Gail Williford Award for Poetry. She was the Utopia Award-winning poetry editor for Reckoning: creative writing on environmental justice’s 2021 issue and read for Grist’s Imagine 2200 climate fiction contest. She lives in Toronto, where she makes jam, builds grassroots food security networks, and plants both tomatoes and trees. Visit her at www.leahbobet.com.
Luke Kernan
Luke Kernan holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Victoria. His thesis, “Re-worlding the Self in Graphic Narratives” (2024), examines lived experiences of psychosis and how arts-based practices can translate those sensory states. Additionally, Luke is a poet, graphic novelist, and mental health activist.
His Liminalities article, “Psychotic Bodies/Embodiment of Suicidal Bipolar Poets” (2020), also delves into the topic of suicide and psychiatry from a creative, theoretical, and Mad Studies lens. Since 2009, Luke has been performing poetry sets at spoken-word venues across Western Canada. As a mental health advocate, he has organized poetry and music open mics, Unquiet Minds I and II, to support and fundraise for youth mental health initiatives as well as compiling, editing, and printing a book titled Unquiet Minds: Youth Anthology of Art and Poetry (2022), which features youth submissions that explore the theme of mental health as it intersects with their lives.
Mathhew Tomkinson
Mathhew Tomkinson is the author of oems (Guernica Editions 2022), Paroxysms (Paper View Books 2022), and For a Long Time (Frog Hollow Press 2019), as well as a collection of collaborative short fiction, Archaic Torso of Gumby (Gordon Hill Press 2020), with Geoffrey D. Morrison. His writing appears in Literary Hub, 3:AM Magazine, Minor Literature[s], Full Stop, The Ex-Puritan, Exacting Clam, and elsewhere. He is currently a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia, and his academic work has been published by or is forthcoming from Oxford University Press, Bloomsbury Publishing, McGill-Queen’s University Press, and Palgrave Macmillan. He lives in Vancouver on unceded Musqueam territory.
Myriad Augustine
Myriad Augustine is a queer and disabled interdisciplinary artist whose focus is on own-voice stories centering multiply-marginalized perspectives. With a long history as an organizer and educator, they have worked to advance social justice issues and facilitate intersectional solidarity, often through their non-profit community organization ‘The Wheelhouse’ and through their self-designed curriculum on community-focused disaster preparedness (‘Get Out Alive, Together!’ or ‘GOAT’). The latter has earned mention in publications such as Broken Pencil and Briarpatch, as have their accompanying zines on the topic. Myriad has also spoken on panels, consulted for organizations, and designed curricula, strongly focusing on the subjects of diversity and inclusion as collective efforts.
Nadja Lubiw-Hazard
Nadja Lubiw-Hazard: Prior to turning to full-time writing, Nadja worked as a veterinarian. She is the author of the novel The Nap-Away Motel, and an upcoming short story collection, The Life of a Creature. She also writes for children. Nadja is a trained creative writing workshop facilitator, and has worked with Firefly Creative Writing, The Writers Collective of Canada, East End Arts, and CAMH Collaborative Learning College. A life-long animal-lover and long-time vegan, her writing often explores themes related to the more-than-human world. She lives with her wife, their two adult daughters, and a feisty fluffy cat in Toronto.
Paulette Andria Hamilton
Paulette Andria Hamilton: I am a BIPOC Workman arts Artist. I write with humour, pop culture and music in mind at all times. I try to let the muse take me and the reader into a journey grounded in Fantastical realism. I’ve been doing spoken word poetry for years. How I write is an act of rebellion because I truly believe rules were made to be broken. My artist name is PAH.
Parvati Mehmi
Parvati Mehmi is a transgender and disabled multidisciplinary artist from Brampton, Ontario. Inspired by The Lord Of The Rings, Parvati wrote a short story at the age of 12, picking up more art forms as she got older, learning FL Studio and Photoshop as a teenager. Most of her art centers around themes of gender, culture and identity, as well as her experiences with mental health and illness. While no longer making as much art as before due to her mental and physical health, her art can be found on her Instagram at @parvatimehmi, with her music at her Bandcamp at parvatimehmi.bandcamp.com
Shae Yusuf Stamp
Shae Yusuf Stamp is a neurodivergent surrealist artist, graphic/user experience designer, and creative writer originally from Newfoundland, who now resides in Tkaronto/Toronto. He has a BA from Memorial University and an Advanced Diploma in Graphic Design from Centennial College.
He was very active in the artist community in St.John’s and received a junior honors achievement award from the Arts & Letters Awards Program of Newfoundland. Since relocating to Toronto, he has been involved in several local art projects including EEA’s Coxwell Mosaic Mural and Workman Arts’ Channel 2400. Most recently, he was part of the space themed surrealist duo show entitled “Forged From Stars”, alongside Hanan Hazime, at Show Gallery on Queen Street West. Instagram: @shams_creates
Website: shaethedesigner.ca
Shantell Powell
Shantell Powell is an Indigiqueer swamp hag of Inuk/Mi’kmaw/settler ancestry who grew up on the land and off the grid in an apocalyptic cult. She’s an alum of Roots Wounds Words, the Banff Centre for the Arts, The Writers’ Studio at Simon Fraser University, GrubStreet’s LGBT+ Novel Immersive, the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive, and the LET(s) Lead Academy at Yale University. She studied art and design at Conestoga College, the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, and the University of New Brunswick.
Her writing appears in Augur Magazine, Solarpunk Magazine, On Spec, The Deadlands, and more. She is a winner of Brave New Weird 2024 and the Dystopian Fiction Award, is a finalist for the 2024 Aurora Award, and was first runner-up for the Native Voices Award. When she’s not writing or making things, she wrangles chinchillas or gets filthy in the woods.
JOIN US FOR OUR LAUNCH PARTY
IN PERSON
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2025
7-9 PM, Glad Day Bookshop
32 Lisgar St, First Floor, Toronto
VIRTUAL
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2025
6-8PM (EDT), Virtual via Zoom
Closed Captions Available
ACCESSIBILITY
ONSITE ACCESS
Our in-person launch party takes place at 32 Lisgar St, Toronto. Please see below for venue accessibility information.
-
Lisgar Park is accessible with ramps and flat concrete paths (may be affected by snow/ice in winter).
-
Elevator available just inside the entrance.
-
Ground floor washroom is wheelchair accessible.
-
Second floor all-gender washroom has two accessible stalls.
-
WA has a scent-free policy.
-
Various types of seating available on the first and second floors.
From Unist'ot'en to Palestine
``INVASION`` by Unist’ot’en Camp (2019, 18 minutes)
In this era of “reconciliation”, Indigenous land is still being taken at gunpoint. INVASION is a short film about the Unist’ot’en Camp, Gidimt’en checkpoint and the larger Wet’suwet’en Nation standing up to the Canadian government and corporations who continue colonial violence against Indigenous people.
The Unist’ot’en Camp has been a beacon of resistance for nearly 10 years. It is a healing space for Indigenous people and settlers alike, and an active example of decolonization. The violence, environmental destruction, and disregard for human rights following TC Energy (formerly TransCanada) / Coastal GasLink’s interim injunction has been devastating to bear, but this fight is far from over.
For more information unistoten.camp
“The Poem We Sang” by Annie Sakkab (2024, 20 minutes)
“The Poem We Sang is a 20-minute, black and white and color, experimental documentary that meditates on love and longing – the love of one’s family and the longing for one’s home, contemplated through overcoming the trauma of loss of family home and of forced migration, transforming lifelong regrets into a healing journey of creative catharsis and bearing witness.
The meditation on family love and longing for home centers on an old audio recording in which my uncle Elias was telling my brother how our family had to flee from the bombing in 1948 and run away from our family home at Al Baq’a neighbourhood in Jerusalem, Palestine, without personal belongings, thinking that the family would return home in a week’s time. Years later when my grandmother finally did return to the family home with my uncle just after the 1967 Six-Day-War, her home was occupied by settlers.
The Poem We Sang is at once deeply personal and fiercely nostalgic – a tribute to my Uncle Elias and my family, and an ode to our lost family home in Palestine.”
– Annie Sakkab, Director, The Poem We Sang
National Day for Truth & Reconciliation Day Screening
Thursday, October 2, 2025
Virtual via Zoom
7-8:30 PM (EDT)
FREE TO ATTEND
ACCESSIBILITY
THE INFERNAL GROVE User Group
The Infernal Grove is an unsystematic structural analysis of drug use, addiction and recovery (and not necessarily in that order). This free online user group is an unstructured meeting where people are encouraged to talk about their relationships with drugs/alcohol and sobriety.
All are welcome. No particular topic, except the ones participants wish to bring to the virtual table.
User Groups are informal meetings where participants share their experiences and perspectives on drugs/alcohol, addiction/sobriety and everything in between. All are welcome to join the conversation. This month, we’ll open with a short presentation on the sensibilities and principles that have animated our work so far, and how we hope the project will unfold going forward.
Join us for this special edition of User Group as part of the Rendezvous with Madness Festival!
For more information about The Infernal Grove please visit www.theinfernalgrove.com
ABOUT THE INFERNAL GROVE
The Infernal Grove is an unsystematic structural analysis of drug use, addiction and recovery (not necessarily in that order). It is anti-carceral, anti-prohibition and seeks to amplify the voices of radical harm-reductionists and their coalitions. It recognizes the value of the sacred while rejecting all forms of piety. It posits wonder and the land as spaces of enchantment, as not an antidote to but an extension of the space opened up by drugs.
It’s based on the artists’ lived experience of drug use and the consequent interventions of state and medical establishments, which included both involuntary hospitalization and outpatient rehabilitation.
Friday, November 1, 2024
Time: 6 – 7:30 PM (ET)
Workshop Length: 1.5 hrs
ONLINE – Free and open to all
Rendezvous with Madness & The Gathering
SHINE ; TOGETHER
This interactive, 2-hour virtual workshop offers a space to share what has been arising for us during the festival and explore how this year’s festival theme, Shine ; Together, shows up in our lives.
Shine ; Together as a theme invites us to shine a light on our narratives surrounding mental health, addictions and recovery. Through creative expression we shine a light making room for complexities and nuances; in gathering as a community, we hope to create an alliance by healing together.
The hosts and co-creators of The Gathering, Katt Topolniski, Ellen Snowball Alys McLeod and Petra Dolman will hold the space and gently guide the conversation.
They will open and close the event with simple somatic embodiment practices to support our presence in the shared space and grounding as we depart.
ABOUT THE GATHERING
The Gathering explores healing within community through lightly structured and gently guided conversations in a community-led, virtual space.
Recognizing our relational nature, The Gathering nurtures individual growth and collective healing through connection and sharing, weaving together participants’ experiences, stories, and wisdom.
Somatic embodiment practices are integrated into The Gathering, ensuring emotional safety while fostering an environment for sharing, reflecting, deep listening, and meaningful connections.
Co-creators and hosts of The Gathering: Katt Topolniski, Ellen Snowball, Alys McLeod, and Petra Dolman.
OTHER LINKS
Monday, October 28, 2024
Time: 7 – 9 PM (ET) / 5 – 7 PM (MT) / 4 – 6 PM (PT)
Workshop Length: 2 hrs
ONLINE – Free and open to all
PRESENTED BY
LAND OF NOT KNOWING
Steve Sanguedolce, 2017, 16mm/DCP/digital file, 72 minutes, B&W/colour, sound, Canada
‘In this bold experimental documentary, four artists talk about suicide: the role the recurring thought has played in their life and art, the struggle to understand and overcome the impulse, and the ongoing confrontation with a form of stigma that renders the very concept of suicide as a kind of pariah even among mental health issues and discussions. With a frankness that is both bracing and illuminating, Artist Steve Sanguedolce’s subjects tell their stories, and the filmmaker responds with a striking visual scheme that permits us something rarely attempted in the engagement with this most misunderstood of conditions: a sense of first person understanding.’
– Geoff Pevere
Film subjects + actors: Marina Black, Maria de Sanctis, Janieta Eyre, Michael Hoolboom, Vivien Kiss, Lulu Hazel Turnbull, Emily Vey Duke.
Filmmaker: Steve Sanguedolce has been an active member of Toronto’s independent film community for over thirty years winning numerous international awards. He has had retrospectives at the Cinematheque Quebecoise in Montreal, the National Film Board in Toronto as well as the the Arsenal Institute for Film and Video in Germany. Over the past 15 years he has been hand developing and hand colouring motion picture film to great acclaim. Much of his time has been spent teaching at local universities, community colleges or conducting independent filmmaking workshops across Canada.. His work incorporates documentary, narrative and experimental genres. His film work include Blinding (2011), Dead Time (2005), Smack (2000) and Away (1996). He lives Toronto.
Programmer: Scott Miller Berry, Managing Director and Programmer, Rendezvous with Madness, Toronto, Canada. Scott has been working at film festivals for 20+ years – previously as Director of the Images Festival and now at Rendezvous. He’s also a film programmer, instructor and mentor. Since 2009 he has presented touring screenings in Jakarta, Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Bangalore, Bangkok and Amsterdam, among others. Scott also makes short diary films and is on the Board of the Toronto Media Arts Centre and Long Winter Music + Arts Festival.
Rendezvous With Madness và Hoa Quynh Cinema giới thiệu:
“LAND OF KNOWING NOTHING” (Steve Sanguedolce, 2017, 72 phút)
“Trong bộ phim tài liệu thể nghiệm táo bạo này, bốn nghệ sĩ nói về tự tử: ý nghĩ về việc tái diễn nó đã đóng vai trò như nào trong cuộc sống và trong các thực hành nghệ thuật của họ, những khó khăn để hiểu và vượt qua được cám dỗ của cái chết cũng như cuộc đấu tranh trường kỳ với sự kỳ thị đã khiến khái niệm về tự tử bị bỏ qua như nào trong các cuộc thảo luận về sức khỏe tâm thần. Với sự chân thành mãnh liệt, những nhân vật của tác giả Steve Sanguedolce đã kể lại câu chuyện của mình trong phim. Bằng việc phản hồi lại những câu chuyện đó qua một đường dây hình ảnh ấn tượng, nhà làm phim đem đến cho chúng ta một trải nghiệm mang tính cá nhân hiếm thấy khi đưa người xem trực tiếp tiếp cận với câu chuyện qua một trong những phương diện dễ bị hiểu lầm nhất: cảm thức thấu hiểu từ góc nhìn thứ nhất.” – Geoff Pevere
– Geoff Pevere
Phim nói tiếng Anh và phụ đề tiếng Việt
Thời gian: 7h30 tối thứ bảy, 9 tháng 12
Địa điểm: babau AIR, 82A Thợ Nhuộm
Buổi chiếu phim sẽ có sự tham gia góp mặt của tác giả Steve Sanguedolce và giám tuyển chương trình Scott Miller Berry, Giám đốc điều hành và người sáng lập chương trình Rendezvous with Madness, Toronto, Canada.
Steve Sanguedolce là một thành viên tích cực trong cộng đồng phim độc lập của Toronto trong hơn ba mươi năm và đã giành nhiều giải thưởng quốc tế. Anh đã có các buổi triển lãm tại Cinematheque Quebecoise ở Montreal, National Film Board ở Toronto cũng như Arsenal Institute for Film and Video ở Đức. Trong 15 năm qua, anh đã tự tráng rửa, tô màu bằng tay cho những bộ phim và nhận được sự khen ngợi nồng nhiệt. Anh đã dành nhiều thời gian giảng dạy tại các trường đại học địa phương, trường cao đẳng cộng đồng hoặc tổ chức các khóa học làm phim độc lập trên khắp Canada. Công việc của anh bao gồm các thể loại phim tài liệu, phim truyện và thử nghiệm. Các tác phẩm điện ảnh của anh bao gồm Blinding (2011), Dead Time (2005), Smack (2000) và Away (1996). Anh hiện sống ở Toronto.
Scott Miller Berry, Giám đốc điều hành và người sáng lập chương trình Rendezvous with Madness, Toronto, Canada. Scott đã và đang làm việc tại các liên hoan phim trong hơn 20 năm – nguyên giám đốc của The Images Festival và hiện làm việc tại Rendezvous. Anh cũng là một film programmer, giảng viên và người hướng dẫn. Kể từ năm 2009, anh đã tổ chức các buổi chiếu phim diễn tại Jakarta, Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Bangalore, Bangkok và Amsterdam, và nhiều nơi khác. Scott cũng làm phim ngắn nhật ký và là thành viên Hội đồng Quản trị của Trung tâm Nghệ thuật Truyền thông Toronto và Liên hoan Âm nhạc và Nghệ thuật Long Winter.
Saturday, December 9th, 2023
19:30 (+GMT 7), babau AIR,
82A Thợ Nhuộm street
Hà Nội, Việt Nam
ACCESSIBILITY
HOSTED BY
Presentation made possible thanks to
BECAUSE WE HAVE EACH OTHER
SARI BRAITHWAITE | AUSTRALIA | DOCUMENTARY | 2022 | 89 MINUTES | ENGLISH WITH OPEN CAPTIONS
GENRE: DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE), DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)
TYPE: FILM | IN-PERSON
KEYWORDS: NEURODIVERGENCY | SIGN LANGUAGE | FAMILY
Janet Sharrock and Buddha Barnes are in dire need of a holiday, but the universe has other plans. Together, along with the couple’s five adult children, they form a blended, neurodiverse family. Their exhausted and cash-strapped family must routinely navigate financial hardships in addition to the challenges that neurodivergent individuals face day-to-day. Their modest lives aren’t society’s ideal, but they never stop fighting to make it work.
Because We Have Each Other tells a tender tale about seven people overcoming adversity by putting their unwavering love and support for one another above all else. Australian filmmaker Sari Braithwaite’s documentary paints an intimate portrait of working-class struggle. Braithwaite places an achingly revealing spotlight on the forces that strengthen and weaken family bonds. Because We Have Each Other delivers a heartfelt and inspiring tale about how unconditional love and acceptance help people find resilience in the face of life’s greatest challenges.
Screening with Short Film
Regard Silence | Santiago Zermeño | Mexico | Doc | 2022 | 29 minutes | Spanish with English subtitles with open captions
Regard Silence shows several deaf people participating in a poetry workshop. Their attempts to express themselves are alternated in the film with individual interviews about being a deaf person communicating in a hearing world. How does it affect one’s sense of self-worth to learn sign language after years of lip reading? – IDFA
IF YOU ASK ME
OLIVIA (AUTUMN) RENNIE, CONSTANT YEN, THE NOISE WITCH, ASHLI AGATE, ALEX FLORAS-MATIC, JAY GEERTS, CARLA SIERRA SUAREZ, SAM GUEVARA, AYSIA TSE, ROBIN RIAD
2023 | CANADA | 60 MINUTES | WORLD PREMIERE | ENGLISH
GENRE: VARIOUS
TYPE: FILM | IN-PERSON
KEYWORKDS: ADDICTION | TRAUMA | MENTAL HEALTH | YOUTH
For the sixth consecutive year, If You Ask Me (IYAM) has supported emerging filmmakers with lived mental health and/or addiction experience to create new short works. This year’s program features shorts by filmmakers from across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
These new films were developed from July – September 2023 under the guidance of Robin Riad, along with IYAM alumni Gladys Lou and Esteban Powell serving as mentors. Over the course of three months, filmmakers strengthened their film production skills in the company of peers and industry guests. Rendezvous With Madness is excited to support the production and exhibition of these distinctly personal creative works.
Equipment rentals and facilities were generously provided by our community sponsor, Trinity Square Video.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION: FILMMAKING NOW
The world has changed substantially since If You Ask Me started. This year’s cohort of filmmakers adapted their practices to ever-changing social realities. Join the in-person panel discussion to learn how each artist developed their films.
WHAT’S EATING MY MIND & KATANGA NATION
NOELLA LUKA | KENYA, SOUTH AFRICA | DOC | 2022 | 35 MINUTES | ENGLISH, SWAHILI, LUO, KAMBA WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES | CANADIAN PREMIERE
GENRE: DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE), DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)
TYPE: FILM | IN-PERSON
KEYWORDS: BIPOLAR DISORDER | SCHIZOPHRENIA | MISSING PERSON | FAMILY | UNORTHODOX TREATMENT
Noella Luka’s riveting autobiographical documentary deftly explores the grief of dreams diverted by a bipolar diagnosis and the vulnerability of searching for the right support and community while navigating new and difficult life changes. Her plans to live and work in film abroad are cut short by her initial hospitalization, and she returns home to Kenya where mental health issues remain strictly taboo. Once there, she decides to document and dig into the how and why of her condition, running up against tradition, prejudice, and uncertainty, which makes even discussing the subject of illness uncomfortable for both family and friends. With a lack of references to guide them, those close to her are truly unsure of what this shift in circumstance really means. Undaunted, Luka looks for further understanding and a sense of community in a mental health support group, where she befriends newly diagnosed schizophrenic Nick–a man who recently returned home from Colombia after putting an end to his quest to become a Catholic priest. Through Nick, viewers are given a unique and disturbing opportunity to observe how certain mental illnesses are still viewed and treated, even in the 21st century. In exploring their unique situations, Luka gives voice to all those navigating the often uncharted waters of mental health–for those both with and without support systems in place–and offers a truly inspiring story of hope, change and possibility.
Screening with Short Film
Katanga Nation | Beza Hailu Lemma, Hiwot Admasu Getaneh | Ethiopia, South Africa | Doc | 2022 | 26 minutes | Amharic with English Subtitles
Enkehone, naive but ambitious and from rural Ethiopia, lives in a hostel in the bustling neighborhood of Katanga. His host, Amele, lives in the back room of the dorms she rents out. As the path to his dreams unfold in uncertainty, Enkehone witnesses the raw, chaotic, and captivating life of his host family and their community in the last days of Katanga before it is engulfed by the monstrous construction of Addis Ababa.
DEAR MOTHER, I MEANT TO WRITE ABOUT DEATH
(我们在黑夜的海上)
SIYI CHEN | CHINA, UNITED STATES | DOC | 2022 | 64 MINUTES | MANDARIN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES | CANADIAN PREMIERE
GENRE: DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE), DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)
TYPE: FILM | IN-PERSON
KEYWORDS: TRAUMA | HEALING | ILLNESS | FAMILIES | MENTAL HEALTH
It’s never easy to talk about mortality with our loved ones. It’s even harder between a physician mother who excels at hiding her emotions under rationality and a daughter who spent her childhood solving math problems next to the morgue. They avoid conversation about mortality and related feelings at all costs – until the mother becomes a cancer patient and the daughter becomes her caregiver.
Screening with Short Film
Uproot | Queena Liu | Canada | Doc | 2023 | 11 minutes English and Cantonese with English subtitles
“Ten years ago, my dad was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in his forties and spent two years in and out of a psychiatric hospital. This film documents my first time having an open and honest conversation with my family about his diagnosis that I never could as a child and explores how mental health care in immigrant communities is often complicated by a cultural and generational divide. Even as I gain a new perspective on my family’s silent struggles, putting together my interpretation of their stories, I still feel the need to hide myself behind the camera.”
ADIEU SAUVAGE
SERGIO GUATAQUIRA SARMIENTO | 2023 | BELGIUM / FRANCE | 92 MINUTES | CACUA, SPANISH AND FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES AND OPEN CAPTIONS
GENRE: DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE) | DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)
TYPE: FILM | IN-PERSON
KEYWORDS: INDIGENOUS ISSUES | TRAUMA | FAMILY | HEALING
“I’m a descendent of a people who have more or less disappeared, all that’s left are a few indigenous and mixed-race people dotted around the world”. Having arrived in Europe at the age of 19 and lived in Brussels for many years, Colombian Sergio Guataquira Sarmiento carries a complex idea of his identity deep inside of him, because not only is he living in exile, he’s also an Indian, and “being an Indian person in Colombia is a burden, a source of shame, so we tend to lie low and westernise ourselves.” When the filmmaker learns that an epidemic of young indigenous people hanging themselves is raging through the jungle in his home country, he decides to visit the area in person, moved by a desire to investigate this phenomenon, but also to untangle his own confused feelings related to his roots” – Fabien Lemercier (Cineuropa)
Screening with Short Film
Love and the Art of Despair | 2023 | Tara Grundmanis | Canada | 9 minutes | English with open captions
Love and the Art of Despair is a profile on Rebeccah Love; a Toronto based filmmaker who perseveres over mental and physical illness to create art.