Grey Violet – Odd One Out
Nov 4 | 2:00pm
@ OCAD University
Sliding scale $5-15
(no one turned away for lack of funds)
In Reetta Aalto’s Grey Violet – Odd One Out, a Russian mother and her queer son try to cope with their new situation, as the son, a political activist and radical artist, applies for political asylum in Europe.
Preceded by local heroes Evan Tapper & Scott Sørli’s Gay Alien Shame Parade (GASP!) and Frances Arpaia’s reimagining of the early Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov’s classic silent film, A Trans with a Movie Camera.
Approximate running time: 73 minutes.
Films
Gay Alien Shame Parade (GASP!)
In solidarity with BLM-Toronto, filmmakers Tapper and Sørli animate a satirical Shame Parade composed entirely of floats that document police violence against the LGBT+ communities in the GTA from the 1940s to the present day.
A Trans with a Movie Camera
Cinematic trans representation is something that’s been limited mainly to narrative fiction and documentary. What’s been lacking is a push to explore how cinema as a tool can be used to depict and examine trans identities. A Trans with a Movie Camera is a non-narrative essay film built from super 8 footage, collaboratively created by interviewing trans women about how they would like to be represented non-narratively on film.
Grey Violet – Odd One Out
Russia’s current patriotic bluster and turn to ultra conservative values have driven many of its citizens to flee abroad. Grey Violet (not he or she, but ze) is a mathematician by profession, an activist by heart, and one of those who has had to leave Russia for fear of imprisonment. In Moscow, ze has become a target of various neo-conservative groups and has even been singled out by President Putin himself. Now ze is in Finland seeking asylum, having left ze’s mother Svetlana behind in Moscow. Apart from one another, they each have to find their own way to cope with this situation they cannot control.