Subjects of Desire | |
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Directed by | Jennifer Holness |
Written by | Jennifer Holness |
Produced by | Jennifer Holness Sudz Sutherland |
Cinematography | Ricardo Diaz Iris Ng |
Edited by | Lawrence Jackman |
Music by | Teddi Jones |
Production companies | Hungry Eyes Film and Television |
Distributed by | IndieCan Entertainment |
Release date |
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Running time | 103 minutes |
Country | Canada |
Language | English |
Subjects of Desire is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Jennifer Holness and released in 2021. [1] Nominally jumping off from the 50th anniversary of the Miss Black America pageant in 2018, the film is an exploration of the relationship between African-American and Black Canadian society with the broader cultural concept of beauty standards. [2]
Figures appearing in the film include India Arie, Jully Black, Rachel Dolezal, Alexandra Germain, Brittany Lee Lewis, Seraiah Nicole, Ryann Richardson, Cheryl Thompson, Carolyn West and Heather Widdows.
The film premiered on the online platform of the SXSW festival on March 12, 2021, [2] and had its Canadian premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in April. [3]
The film was nominated for the Directors Guild of Canada's DGC Discovery Award in 2021, [4] and was named to the Toronto International Film Festival's annual year-end Canada's Top Ten list. [5]
The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and June 2020. In addition to the annual festival, Hot Docs owns and operates the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, administers multiple production funds, and runs year-round screening programs including Doc Soup and Hot Docs Showcase.
Haida Modern is a 2019 Canadian documentary film about the art and activism of Haida artist Robert Davidson. The film was directed by Charles Wilkinson, filmed, produced and edited by Wilkinson and Tina Schliessler and executive produced by Kevin Eastwood. It premiered at the 2019 Vancouver International Film Festival.
Canada's Top Ten is an annual honour, compiled by the Toronto International Film Festival and announced in December each year to identify and promote the year's best Canadian films. The list was first introduced in 2001 as an initiative to help publicize Canadian films.
There's No Place Like This Place, Anyplace is a 2020 Canadian documentary film, directed by Lulu Wei. The film profiles the issue of gentrification in Toronto, Ontario through the history, demolition and redevelopment of the historic Honest Ed's department store and its effects on the larger Mirvish Village neighbourhood.
Akilla's Escape is a 2020 drama film, directed by Charles Officer, his final feature prior to his death in 2023. The film stars Saul Williams as Akilla, a marijuana dealer retiring from the business following legalization, who tries to rescue a young boy from being drawn into a life of crime.
Stateless is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Michèle Stephenson and released in 2020. The film centres on the crisis of Haitians in the Dominican Republic, many of whom have been left stateless by the Dominican Republic's 2013 decision to strip citizenship from Haitian immigrants and their descendants.
The 2021 Toronto International Film Festival, the 46th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held from September 9 to 18, 2021. Due to the continued COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto, the festival was staged as a "hybrid" of in-person and digital screenings. Most films were screened both in-person and on the digital platform, although a few titles were withheld by their distributors from the digital platform and instead were screened exclusively in-person.
Someone Like Me is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor and released in 2021. The film centres on Drake, a gay man from Uganda who moves to Vancouver, British Columbia as a refugee, and the group of Canadians who have agreed to sponsor him through Rainbow Refugee; it documents his arrival in Vancouver and his adaptation to Canadian life, including friction among his sponsors when all he wants to do is celebrate his new freedom by partying, and the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic as a complicating factor.
Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and released in 2021. The film centres on the opioid crisis, and its effects on Tailfeathers' home Kainai Nation community in Alberta.
Thyrone Tommy is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. After writing and directing the short film Mariner (2016), Tommy received acclaim for his work on the feature film Learn to Swim (2021), both of which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Learn to Swim is a Canadian drama film written by Thyrone Tommy and Marni Van Dyk and directed by Tommy in his feature-length directorial debut. The film centres on a stormy romantic relationship between Dezi and Selma, two talented but troubled jazz musicians.
Ste. Anne is a Canadian experimental drama film, directed by Rhayne Vermette and released in 2021. The film stars Vermette as Renée, a Métis woman returning to her hometown in Manitoba for the first time in four years to reconnect with her family.
Ain't No Time for Women is a Canadian short documentary film, directed by Sarra El Abed and released in 2021. The film centres on a group of women in a hair salon in Tunis, and their reactions to the 2019 Tunisian presidential election.
One of Ours is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Yasmine Mathurin and released in 2021. The film centres on the 2016 incident in which Josiah Wilson, a Haitian Canadian who was adopted into a Heiltsuk family and raised as a status member of the Heiltsuk Nation, was barred from participating in the All Native Basketball Tournament on the grounds that he is not indigenous by blood.
The Hot Docs Award for Best Canadian Feature Documentary is an annual Canadian film award, presented by the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival to the film selected by jury members as the year's best Canadian feature film in the festival program. The award was presented for the first time in 1998; prior to that year, awards were presented in various genre categories, but no special distinction for Canadian films was presented. The award is sponsored by the Documentary Organization of Canada and Telefilm Canada, and carries a cash prize of $10,000.
This House is a Canadian drama film, directed by Miryam Charles and released in 2022. Based around the suspicious death of her teenage cousin Tessa in 2008, the film examines the event's impact on her family through a blend of documentary footage with a scripted drama in which an adult version of Tessa continues to interact with her grieving mother Valeska in a liminal space between life and death.
Someone Lives Here is a 2023 Canadian documentary film, directed by Zack Russell. The film profiles Khaleel Seivwright, a carpenter who has launched a project of building small private shelters for homeless people in Toronto during the COVID-19 pandemic, against the bureaucratic resistance of the city government.
Julia Ivanova is a Russian-born Canadian documentary filmmaker based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is most noted for her films Family Portrait in Black and White, which won the award for Best Canadian Feature Documentary at the 2011 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and was a shortlisted Genie Award nominee for Best Feature Length Documentary at the 32nd Genie Awards in 2012, and Limit Is the Sky, which won the Colin Low Award at the 2017 DOXA Documentary Film Festival.
Steve J. Adams is a Canadian film director who co-directs with Sean Horlor under their production company, Nootka St.