Few challenges are harder for a first-time filmmaker than the one Carolina Moscoso set for herself: to make a film based on the rape she was the victim of eight years before, when she was a film school student. The title Visión Nocturna refers to a function that allows digital cameras to film at night, to see in the dark, by enhancing their sensitivity. In order to give form to this darkness, Moscoso coordinates two kinds of contrasting materials and narrative modes. A silent linear account, via a text printed on shots or on a dark background, establishes the naked facts of the rape and its violence, prolonged by a legal process that failed to acknowledge it and to see justice through. In the background or in the gaps of this account, the editing arranges disparate fragments out of the raw footage that she has been shooting for the past fifteen years, as a kind of diary. Joyful, carefree scenes with friends, or solitary impressions; no comment, no explanation that reveals the secret. Only by delving into the silence, and cultivating this secret, does Visión Nocturna pull off the impossible feat of sharing the unshareable. (description courtesy FIDMarseille Festival)

SCREENING WITH JULIETA Y LA LUNA / JULIETA AND THE MOON
Milena Castro Etcheberry | 2020 | Chile | 8 min | Spanish with English subtitles
Julieta’s voice tries to reconstruct the family history of sexual abuse from her childhood, traveling
through the house in which it occurred. The place seems empty; however, she comes to life with the
projection on the walls of the family archive material of the protagonist.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A WITH Carolina Moscoso and Milena Castro Etcheberry
Please join Directors Carolina Moscoso and Milena Castro Etcheberry for a virtual Q&A to discuss
the experience of creating their haunting films. The discussion will be moderated by Tamara
Toledo, a curator and writer from Latin American-Canadian Art Projects.

Keywords: Gender | Rape | Sexual violence | Trauma

After the inconclusive death of his young niece, filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown to make a film about a broken criminal justice system. Instead, he pivots to excavate the depths of generational addiction, Christian fervor and trans embodiment. Lyrically assembled images, decades of home movies and ethereal narration form an idiosyncratic and poetic undertow that guide a viewer through lifetimes and relationships. Like the relentless Michigan seasons, the meaning of family shifts, as Madsen Minax, his sister and his parents strive tirelessly to accept each other. Poised to incite more internal searching than provide clear statements or easy answers, North By Current dives head-first into the challenges of creating identity, the agony of growing up and the ever-fickle nuances of family.

“For me, a personal, first-person approach to storytelling was the only way to make North By Current. My own voice is the only one I feel capable of representing. This merger of personal and political storytelling became an opportunity for my family members and myself to converse, collaborate, and create together — our own version of transformative justice.” — Angelo Madsen Minax

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A WITH ANGELO MADSEN MINAX
Watch a pre-recorded Q&A with the filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax about his experience creating the deeply intimate personal documentary North By Current. The discussion is moderated by Mike Hoolboom, a filmmaker and writer who lives in Toronto and director of Rendezvous 2020 opening film Judy Versus Capitalism.

Keywords: Addictions | Family | Gender | Religion | Trauma

زمانيكه مارى (باران كوثري) خواهر جالل (حبيب رضائي) كه دچار بيماري دو قطبي است مخفيانه با قمارباز قهار و
معتاد (پارسا پيروزفر) ازدواج ميكند،به پيچيدگي روابط خواهر و برادر كه همخانه بودند بسيار ميفزايد. جالل اهل كار
نيست و ترجيح ميدهد كه از اندوخته مالي پدرش روزگار خود را بگذاراند، او مايل است كه زمان آزادش را صرف سر
در آوردن از زندگي خواهرش كند. جالل كه از ازدواج مخفيانه مارى عصبانى است، وسائلش را جمع و شبانه خانه را
.ترك ميكند. حوادث پيش رويش هر يك عجيب تر از ديگرى
است

درام “بى حسى موضعى” حسين ماهكامى مطالعه شخصيت هايى را كه با اعتياد، ، وابستگي چندگانه، و بيماري دو قطبى
دست بگريبانند به تصوير ميكشد. فيلم همچنين عالقه تماشاگر را به تعقيب اين شخصيت هاى قابل مطالعه در طول فيلم بر
مى انگيزاند. نقش بازيگران كه همگى فضاهاى بازيگري خود را ماهرانه ارائه ميكنند ناشى از تصاوير پر رنگ آنها در
فيلمنامه ايست كه با مهارت و بصورت بسيار ملموسي جايگاه هر يك را با طرافت و دقت تنظيم نموده است

When Jalal’s (Habib Rezaei) sister with bipolar disorder Mary (Baran Kosari) secretly marries a dashing gambling addict (Parsa Pirouzfar), it complicates the sibling’s uneasy living arrangement. Jalal refuses to work, preferring to live off his father’s savings, and uses his free time to pry into Mary’s relationships. Upset by Mary’s secret marriage, Jalal packs up and heads out into the night, where he finds himself in one strange encounter after the next.

Hossein Mahkam’s dramedy Numbness is a vibrant character study tackling addiction, co-dependence, and bipolar disorder with levity. It’s also a lively movie allowing you to savour each and every moment with these dynamic characters. The entire cast delivers strong performances, thanks to an incisive script that grounds its larger-than-life characters in all-too-relatable feelings.

SCREENING WITH CLENCH MY FISTS
Sarah Trad | 2020 | USA | 6 min | Arabic with English subtitles
Clench My Fists is a found-footage collage video that explores the process of growing up in an Iranian family deeply affected by death and grief.

Keywords: Bipolar Disorder | Contemporary | Existentialism | Night walks | Siblings

Marianne Joan Elliott-Said (aka Poly Styrene) is a punk rock legend. She entered the music business as
a rebellious teenager with big dreams and then willed those dreams into reality. As the frontwoman for her band X-Ray Spex, Poly Styrene was the first Black woman in the UK to front a successful rock band. She would go on to earn legions of fans by producing defiant songs about consumerism, class, and
racial identity.

Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché looks at the icon’s life and career from the perspective of her daughter, the film’s co-director, Celeste Bell. Bell uses archival footage, electrifying live performances, and her mother’s diary entries to celebrate Marianne Joan Elliott-Said, and Poly Styrene. Narrated by Oscar-nominee Ruth Negga, this intimate portrait of a punk icon offers a candid look at a reluctant public
figure who struggled with fame while battling mental illness.

SCREENING WITH ABSOLUTE PANIC
TJ McEachran | 2019 | Canada | 1 minute | English
A music video for “Absolute Panic,” a song from R U Experiencing Discomfort?, the debut album by
Vancouver’s punk band, Bedwetters Anonymous made by its bassist/vocalist.

Keywords: Gender | Immigration | Mother & Daughter | Punk rock | Racism

Every now and then, a film comes along that rips out your heart and shreds it to pieces. Director Jessica Nilsson’s staggering documentary The Testament of Oliver chronicles her friendship with Oliver Juvonen-Peel. Oliver has schizophrenia and struggles with alcohol use disorder. He drinks to cope with his psychiatric issues, but his dual diagnosis makes it challenging to find effective treatment. He reveals
to the camera that mental health facilities reject him due to his alcohol abuse, and he’s involuntarily discharged from outpatient clinics because he’s mentally ill.

The Testament of Oliver reveals what happens to the people who fall through the cracks of the healthcare system. Nilsson’s documentary offers a raw and hardhitting account of a man in dire need
of specialized treatment and support systems. Nilsson captures her dear friend’s struggles with an unflinching eye, sharing Oliver’s soaring highs and crushing lows on his arduous road to recovery.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A WITH JESSICA NILSSIN & OLIVER JUVONEN-PEEL
Join us for a virtual conversation with the director and subject of the film The Testament Of Oliver. Discussion moderated by Victor Stiff member of the Toronto Film Critics Association and Rendezvous’ film programming committee.

Keywords: Addiction | Schizophrenia | Recovery

Rohith Vemula, a Dalit Ph.D research scholar and activist at University of Hyderabad who was persecuted by the university administration and Hindu supremacists, died of suicide on January 17, 2016. His suicide note, which argued against the “value of a man being reduced to his immediate identity” galvanized student politics and solidarity movements. The ensuing outrage gave rise to protests across India, calling the neglectful treatment and systemic oppression faced by Dalit people into question, and encouraging solidarity with minority groups facing similar discrimination from Hindu nationalists, students, administration and aligned governing authorities.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A WITH DEEPA DHANRAJ
Please watch a pre-recorded Q&A with the director of We Have Not Come Here to Die, Deepa Dhanraj and the Director of As I Want, Samaher Alqadi moderated by filmmaker and film programmer Aisha Jamal.

Keywords: Academia | Caste oppression | Fascism | Identity | Student Activism | Suicide

Death holds a paradoxical place for us: we understand our own death is inevitable, at the same time as it feels utterly inconceivable. Recently, death has felt closer than ever as millions of people have died of COVID-19 and the deadly effects of global warming accelerated in earnest. This collection of films explores dying in relation to ritual, spectacle, care, love and the traces we leave behind.

As included in this program, Thanadoula and Season of Goodbyes intimately grapple with the loss of a loved one, and engage on a journey of mourning and paying homage to the dearly departed. Digital Traces explores the circulation of death in digital spaces, informing contemporary practices of mourning, and expressing grief. Similarly, She’s Not Gonna Get More Dead consists of excerpts of Black women vampires appearing in commercial media, and highlights Black femininity being constrained within therealms of invisibility and hypervisibility. Three Metres and a Few Centimetres portrays the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ahvaz, Iran, as “dead-washers” volunteer at a cemetery to cleanse and prepare the corpses of deceased persons for burial in accordance to Islamic customs and ritual. You Were an Amazement on the Day You Were Born is a fictional portrait that tenderly balances loss, grief and humour, and embraces the definite truths of life (such as death) as what makes a life worth living.

DIGITAL TRACES (April Lin | 2019 | United Kingdom | English with English subtitles | 18 min)

SHE’S NOT GONNA GET MORE DEAD (Ariella Tai | 2018 | Canada | English | 6 min)

THANADOULA (Robin McKenna | 2020 | Canada | English | 6 min)

THREE METRES AND A FEW CENTIMETRES (Mostafa Salehi Nezhad | 2020 | Iran |
Persian with English Subtitles | 18 min)

SEASON OF GOODBYES (Philippa Ndisi-Herrmann | 2018 | Kenya | English | 14 min)

YOU WERE AN AMAZEMENT ON THE DAY YOU WERE BORN
(Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby | 2019 | USA | English | 33 min)

Keywords: BIPOC Experience | Death | Existentialism | Grief | Healing

JOIN THE CONVERSATION:
WHAT EVERYONE GETS

Please join the filmmakers for a conversation where the prompt is death and all the grief
that comes with less life; moderated by Lee Henderson, a Toronto-based artist and educator who’s practice investigates association networks of human intellectual-emotional investment, more commonly known as “meaning”.

The Malian city of Gao in western Africa has for decades been a peaceful haven for hopeful migrants.
On the edge of the Sahel desert lies the House of Migrants, a temporary home for thousands of people every year. The hopeful ones are on their  way to Europe alongside those whose luck ran out and who are now on their way back to their hometowns and families across Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin and beyond.
Documentarian Samassékou listens to two young girls and a middle-aged woman lying in a small room and exchanging dreams and stories. Elsewhere in the house, young men are watching wrestling on TV. Samassékou’s attentive camera frames the faces, the voices and their stories in a uniquely beautiful and humane film no longer solely about having a home. The atmosphere in the house itself expresses the melancholy of exile through calm, intimate and vulnerable images. All around the city, new and old wars are taking place in the endless desert.

SCREENING WITH IN-TENTS
Stephanie Nakashima and Scott Morris | 2021 | Canada | 11 min | English
In this brand new diaristic documentary we follow individuals who are experiencing homelessness in
Hamilton, Ontario and learn their experiences with systemic barriers to housing and health care in the
midst of a global pandemic.

Keywords: Freedom | Im/migration | Refugees | Trauma