Through formal experimentation based on the artist’s personal struggle with gender identity, a singular self has been split into two.
Supported by
Media Partner
Community Broadcast Partner
Community Partner
Taliesin Mason-McCrea
Canada
2022
English
Flashing/Strobing Lights
Featured in:
VIFF Short Forum: Program 2
Fear, doubt, and loneliness give way to pleasure, empowerment, and reclamation—or, is it the other way around?
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Secret Agent
Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.
Seeds
Shot over nine years, Brittany Shyne’s Sundance-winning documentary is a tender portrait of Black farming families in the American South. A moving meditation on land, legacy, and the strength it takes to hold on.
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, and Special Jury Prize Winner, Sundance, 2025, this exposé shot by a Russian primary teacher shows how the Putin propaganda machine works to militarize children.
Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story
Harlem-based photographer, freedom fighter and activist Kwame Brathwaite took 500,000 photos across his 70-year career, always devoted to celebrating the joy and beauty of African American life. Brathwaite pioneered the idea that Black is Beautiful.
Cutting Through Rocks
Winner of Sundance's World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize, Cutting Through Rocks follows Sara Shahverdi — motorcyclist, midwife, and first-ever councilwoman elected in her Iranian village. A vérité triumph by Sara Khaki & Mohammadreza Eyni.
A Poet
When embittered poet Oscar Restrepo takes a job at a local high school, he meets Yurlady, a talented student from a poor background. Seeking to help her cultivate her art, he draws her into the poetry world — to disastrous and comedic results.
Credits
Producer
Sidney Gordon
Screenwriter
Sidney Gordon
Cinematography
Emil Vargas
Original Music
Aysha Dulong
Director
Sidney Gordon
Sidney Gordon is a queer multimedia emulsion-based artist, born and raised on Treaty 4 territory. They hold a Bachelor of Media Arts in Film + Screen Arts from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in so-called “Vancouver,” where they currently reside. In 2022, they won the Chancellor’s Award, Best Experimental Film, and the VIVO Distribution Award, and were longlisted for The Polygon Gallery’s Lind Prize in 2021. Their film and cameraless-photo works have been shown both locally and internationally.