2023

imagineNATIVE: Generational Legacies Short Film Program
May 12, 7:00pm-10:00pm 
Generational Legacies Short Film Program Details

Hamilton Artists Inc. hosts  a special in-person screening of the imagineNATIVE  Film + Media Arts Festival Short Films Focus program “Generational Legacies” for the May Art Crawl. We will be screening this film program in our ArcelorMittal Dofasco Courtyard during the entirety of Art Crawl between 7-10pm. The program includes 79 minutes of film, so the entire program will be shown twice over the course of the night!

This program features a dynamic selection of six short films created by Indigenous filmmakers, all of which were presented at the 2022 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. This short film program reflects on the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next and honouring where you and your ancestors have come from.

2021

Courtesy of Canadian Film Makers Distribution Center
September 30, 12:00 pm – October 3, 11:59 pm
SURVIVANCE full program

Anishinaabe writer and activist Gerald Vizenor first deployed the term survivance in his 1999 book “Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance.” In many ways, the concept of survivance as the “active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories [alongside consistent] renunciations of dominance, tragedy and victimry” remains more relevant than ever.

With Indigenous communities enduring yet another generational health crisis, the old tools of survivance and resistance must be picked up. In order to tell the story of the present moment and speak to the coming generations, Indigenous storytellers and knowledge keepers must use their gifts to communicate. The existence of these films is a testament to contemporary Indigenous survivance on screen. Watch and listen as Indigenous artists from all over so-called North America deploy their voices through the medium of film and video.

2020

imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival
June 27, 6:00 pm – June 30, 6:00 pm
THE FUTURE full program

Hamilton Artists Inc. is pleased to present the shorts program, The Future in partnership with imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival. The Future features short-format experimental films by Daniel Fortin, Trevor Gould, Taran Kootenhayoo, Chris Grant, Bretten Hannam, Rebecca Thomassie and Conor McNally. imagineNATIVE’s Festival, Tour, and year-round initiatives showcase, promote, and celebrate Canadian and international Indigenous filmmakers and media artists and create a greater understanding of Indigenous peoples, cultures, and artistic expressions.

SACHA
September 23, 7:00 pm-September 26, 7:00 pm
Imagining BIPOC Futurisms full program

Imagining BIPOC Futurisms features short-format experimental films by Thirza Cuthand, Rah, Danielle Peers and Alice Sheppard. All three films will be available for flexible online viewing for 72 hours, starting at 7:00 pm on  September 23 until 7:00 pm on September 26. The link to watch the films will be released at the start of the event. Watch the films in your own time. In partnership with SACHA, Imagining BIPOC Futurisms shorts program is hosted as part of Hamilton Artists Inc.’s ongoing Screening Series, presented every summer between June and September.

SACHA is a fem­i­nist, non-prof­it, com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tion that pro­vides sup­ports to peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced sex­u­al­ized vio­lence at any point in their lives. They work to end vio­lence and oppres­sion through edu­ca­tion, advo­ca­cy, out­reach, coali­tion build­ing, com­mu­ni­ty part­ner­ships, and activism.

2019

imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival
June 8, 9:00 pm
NEW WAVES full program

Hamilton Artists Inc. is pleased to present the shorts program, New Waves in partnership with imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival. Bodies, New Waves features short-format experimental films by Ken Are Bongo, Richard Curtis, Nick Dangeli, Allan Hopkins, Brett Hannam, Kawenna’here Devery Jacobs, Devonia Laliberte, Jacqueline Michel, Pasha Partridge, Kanatahawi Schuyler, Trevor Solway and Amanda Strong. imagineNATIVE’s Festival, Tour, and year-round initiatives showcase, promote, and celebrate Canadian and international Indigenous filmmakers and media artists and create a greater understanding of Indigenous peoples, cultures, and artistic expressions.

South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC)
July 24, 9:00 pm
Monitor 13: Dance on my head and scratch my heart full program

Curated by Sharlene Bamboat and Priya Sen

Hamilton Artists Inc. is pleased to present the shorts program, Monitor 13: Dance on my head and scratch my heart in partnership with SAVAC. Monitor 13: Dance on my head and scratch my heart invites the viewer to consider the indecipherable traces and charges of the past. It is an invitation to dance to the meditative, moving images in the program. Through letters, biographies, surfaces, sounds and architectures, the curators have assembled the films to gesture not only towards things lost and hidden along the way, but their connections to living and renewal.

Cinema Politica
September 27, 7:00 pm
Documentary Futurism – The Next 150  full program

Hamilton Artists Inc. is pleased to present the shorts program, Documentary Futurism – The Next 150 in partnership with Cinema Politica. This project seeks to usher in a new kind of filmmaking that brings actuality into conversation with speculation, realism with fantasy. Taking inspiration from Afro-futurism, Indigenous futurism, speculative fiction and non-fiction, Cinema Politica commissioned short films to inaugurate this new genre. Works created under the rubric of documentary futurism deploy filmmaking approaches and contexts associated with documentary in order to imagine, speculate and represent a “Canada” of the future.

2018

imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival
June 16, 9:30 pm
Bodies, Memories + Times full program

Hamilton Artists Inc. is pleased to present the shorts program, Bodies, Memories + Times in partnership with imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival. Bodies, Memories + Times features short-format experimental films by Beric Manywounds, Thirza Jean Cuthand, Jade Baxter, Conor McNally, Caroline Monnet, and Asinnajaq.

Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival
July 26th, 9:00 pm
Wexford Plaza full program

Hamilton Artists Inc. is pleased to present Wexford Plaza in partnership with Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. Wexford Plaza is an awkwardly humorous film about a lonely female security guard working at a deteriorating strip mall. Isolated and friendless, a glimmer of hope appears when a make-up salesman shows her kindness, leading to an unexpected sexual encounter. Although our protagonist and her paramour are well meaning in their intentions, their behavior ends up causing both of their lives to unravel.

2017

imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival
June 17, 9:30 pm
Femme Totale full program

Hamilton Artists Inc. is pleased to present the shorts program, Femme Totale in partnership with imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival. The female voice and perspective in Indigenous cinema remains a strong, vital, and influential force. From both sides of the Medicine Line – the Canadian-American border – outstanding new talents explore an array of topics that plunge into the core of humanity, addressing an expansive discourse around issues from resurgence, deep cultural ties and traditions, to sisterhood and loss.

SOUTH ASIAN VISUAL ARTS CENTRE (SAVAC)
July 20, 9:00 pm
Monitor 12: Figures Pointing Outside the Frame full program

Curated by Oliver Husain, Otty Widasari, Yuki Aditya

Hamilton Artists Inc. is pleased to present the shorts program, MONITOR 12: Figures Pointing Outside the Frame in partnership with SAVAC. The works that make up the Figures Pointing Outside the Frame consider the peripheries of the image as significant as the content within. Whether film, video, or a still image, the technology dictates the parameters of the frame. Decisions an image-maker makes regarding the composition, duration, performance, and location further contribute to a viewer’s experience. Collaboration is formed between the technology, image maker, and subjects- though this collaboration is often expanded with elements, situations, and conditions beyond that which is scripted. In this way, the program advocates for the viewer to consider the environmental, labour, historical, economical, gendered, and social conditions that influence the constructed experience.

2016

imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival
September 30, 9:00 pm
Canadian Indigenous Shorts 

Hamilton Artists Inc. is pleased to present the shorts program, Canadian Indigenous Shorts in partnership with imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival. Canadian Indigenous Shorts feature the work of  Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Lisa Jackson, Danis Goulet, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Alejandro Valbuena, Kate Kroll, Lisa Jackson,  and Jeff Barnaby.  The shorts program highlights Indigenous filmmakers and media artists helping to create a broader understanding of Indigenous people,and cultures through film.

Life of a Craphead: Bugs
July 19, 9:00 pm
Zak Tatham: Doorcuts

Hamilton Artists Inc. is please to present Life of a Craphead’s Bugs; and Zak Tatham’s Doorcuts in part of their summer Outdoor Screening Series. Bugs, written and directed by Life of a Craphead (Amy Lam & Jon Mccurley), is a satire about a bug society and its most powerful family. Bugs presents the absurdity of life within a patriarchal society obsessed with success. The DIY film sets the Bug universe right in the middle of the real world, creating multiple layers of reality that interact with each other. Zak Tatham’s Doorcuts follows a traveler as she leaves her home though a door, she enters a door which enters a door, taking as many Doorcuts as possible. It may be transparent to access doors that fold space, linking alternate universes, but as the short-cuts are exploited hospitality closes an octo-edge door.