Rex vs. Singh
2008 · 30 min · Drama, Documentary, Music
In 1915, two Sikh mill-workers, Dalip Singh and Naina Singh, were entrapped by undercover cops and accused of sodomy. Their story becomes a fascinating case study of Vancouver power relations: how police corruption, racism, homophobia, and a covert "whites-only" immigration policy, conspired to maintain the status quo of this colonial port city. Told in four parts, by three separate directors, the film is a hybrid of film forms including drama, documentary and musical.
Directed by John Greyson
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Queer as Folk · 2000Queer as Folk
★ 8.32000
SeriesDrama
Brash humor and genuine emotion make up this original series revolving around the lives, loves, ambitions, careers and friendships of a group of gay men and women living on Liberty Avenue in contemporary Pittsburgh, PA. The show offers an unapologetic look at modern, urban gay and lesbian lives while addressing the most critical health and political issues affecting the community. Sometimes racy, sometimes sensitive and always straight to the heart.
Lilies · 1997Lilies
★ 8.11997
MovieDramaRomance
1952: Bishop Bilodeau visits a prison to hear the confession of Simon, a boyhood friend jailed for murder 40 years ago. However, once there, Bilodeau finds himself forced to watch a play put on by Simon and the other inmates depicting the two men's youths. As the play progresses, the tragic truth of Simon's crime comes to light.
Proteus · 2003Proteus
★ 6.02003
MovieDramaHistory
An exquisite period piece that skillfully explores the intersections of sex, race and politics takes place in 18th century South Africa, telling the passionate (true) story of two men caught in an unjust system rife with racism, homophobia and cruelty.
Zero Patience · 1993Zero Patience
★ 5.81993
MovieFantasyDrama
The ghost of "patient zero", who allegedly first brought AIDS to North America - materialises and tries to contact old friends. Meanwhile, the Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton, who drank from the Fountain of Youth and now works as Chief Taxidermist at the Toronto Natural history Museum, is trying to organise an exhibition about the disease for the museum's "Hall of Contagion".
The Jungle Boy · 1985The Jungle Boy
★ 5.01985
MovieDocumentaryDrama
While a TV journalist examines the contradictory homo-eroticism and imperialism of a film version of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, her husband confronts the politics of fantasy and washroom sex. A pseudo-narrative whose disparate threads unite in the final "documentary" sequence.
Fig Trees · 2009Fig Trees
★ 5.02009
MovieDocumentaryMusic
FIG TREES is a documentary opera about AIDS activists Tim McCaskell of Toronto and Zackie Achmat of Capetown as they fight for access to treatment drugs. Documentary interviews, speeches, press conferences and demonstrations are sampled, taken apart, and set to music, replayed this time as operatic scenes. A surreal fictional narrative is intercut with the stories of their struggles against government and the pharmaceutical industry. In this fictional world, Gertrude Stein decides to write a tragic opera about Tim and Zackie and their saint-like heroism. She kidnaps them, transports them to Niagara Falls, and forces them to sing a series of complicated avant-garde vocal compositions. However, when Zackie ends his treatment strike and starts taking his pills, Gertrude realizes that there will be no more tragedy, and thus, no more opera.
The Law of Enclosures · 2000The Law of Enclosures
★ 4.92000
MovieDrama
Story of the same couple, first in their teenage years and then in their twilight years, paradoxically set in the same time during the backdrop of the Gulf War in the Middle East.
Urinal · 1988Urinal
★ 4.31988
MovieDrama
A mystery man brings together a group of dead, gay artists to investigate a police response to the dilema of wash-room sex in Toronto. The artists have seven days in which to report on the ethics of police tactics. The artists infiltrate the police only to discover that they themselves are under surveillance as a political subversive group. The artists explore and report on the evolution of toilets and wash-room behavior.
Uncut · 1997Uncut
★ 3.91997
MovieComedyDrama
Circumcision and artistic freedom concern three homosexuals, denied communication during a surreal jail stay.
The Making of Monsters · 1991The Making of Monsters
★ 3.71991
MovieMusicComedy
Experimental musical based on a factual incident, the beating to death of a homosexual man in Toronto, 1985, by five teenagers.
You Taste American · 1984You Taste American
★ 3.01984
Movie
Michel Focault and Tennessee Williams meet the police in Orillia, Ontario, in this mixed media performance film about the 1983 Canadian washroom arrests.
Photo Booth · 2022Photo Booth
★ 1.02022
MovieMusicDocumentary
Outraged by the latest bombing of Gaza, Palestinian queer activists Hamza and Walid recruit queer novelist Jean Genet to help them sabotage the Eurovision song contest in Jericho. Their method? Secure the collaboration of Buddy and Pedro, Toronto's famous gay penguins... The emergence of queer BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) as a dynamic Palestinian-led global movement is brought to vivid life through interviews and actions, opera and agitprop, protests and pranks. Recounting fifteen years of passionate activism in Toronto and worldwide, Photo Booth juxtaposes a surreal operatic narrative with documentary scenes that explore pride and pink-washing, gay soldiers and homo-nationalism, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, and the accelerating weaponization of anti-Semitism.
On Message · 2006On Message
2006
MovieAnimation
An analog animation using the same set of drawings to tell four different versions of the same story. The emotional fallout of two witnesses to a police shooting, a musical about groovy gay boys making the scene, a cop show about the chase and arrest of a suspect, and a news report about soldiers on leave in Iraq.
Door Prize · 2025Door Prize
2025
MovieMusicMystery
Mars Brito, a trans bike courier, is killed by an SUV. Is he the victim of an accidental 'door prize', or is this murder? His case becomes a city-wide obsession, with hourly true crime updates and rewards for clues. While this murder mystery unfolds, a Toronto trans activist (also named Mars) works with his friends on an operatic memorial, creating arias for each of the 375 trans murders that were committed around the world that year. Door Prize weaves together documentary, drama, and opera scenes into a hybrid film that explores issues of media spectacle, solidarity violence, trans visibility, and anti-trans violence.
Death Mask · 2023Death Mask
2023
MovieMusicHistory
This experimental opera reenacts the lesser known history of Chinese medical student Li Shiu Tong, and his lover Magnus Hirschfeld, a much older German sexologist and gay rights pioneer during Nazi Germany.
Mariposa · 2022Mariposa
2022
MovieDocumentaryMusic
In 2021, aspiring chef Phelokazi Ndlwana was stabbed to death because she fought back against her rapist. She was targeted specifically because she was a proud black lesbian, beloved in her home community of Khayelitsha Township, South Africa, and the latest victim in a national epidemic of homophobic violence. Funeka Soldaat and her activist group Free Gender in Khayelitsha took the police to court, alleging incompetence and corruption in Phelokazi's case. Ndodana-Breen and Greyson have crafted an operatic cine-poem inspired by Phelokazi's story, featuring vocals by mezzo-soprano Chantelle Grant.
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