The work of storyteller Yolanda Bonnell (she/they) aims to provide Indigi-Queer representation on and off the stage as well as disrupting the colonial structures of theatre. Bonnell believes in creating opportunities to have stories with Queer characters just existing as themselves. She has said that “representation is harm reduction,” particularly when it comes to Indigenous youth. For her keynote talk, Bonnell will be discussing her career as an actor, writer, director and especially how her work and the work of manidoons collective centers the stories, methodologies, and experiences of Indigenous 2SLGBTQ+ people.

With witty irony and superfluous melodrama, Lior Shamriz treats cinema not merely as the documentation of a dramatic performance but as a trace of the interaction between actors, crew, memory, and place, using the screen to project and examine topics like immigration, post-colonialism and orientalism, othering and belonging. “A separation of reality from mimesis is a dualist illusion,” Shamriz says. “A film is often not a record of an interaction, but rather, it is the interaction with the spaces we visit and the people we encounter”. For their keynote talk, Shamriz will discuss their work in research-based essay videos, poetry videos, performance, and independent cinema, and will turn to Keguro Macharia’s concept of Frottage to consider cinema as a medium of gathering traces of interactions that activate our engagement with the world.

This event is an online webinar. To attend, please log into your TQFF account and return to this page when the event is live. No other registration is required.