Mi Vida

It's no secret Toronto has placed itself amongst North America's most buzz worthy music cities due to the blockbuster ascents of Drake and the Weeknd. But that attention has also turned the city's local rap scene into a hyper-competitive environment where young vie for attention on the world stage. Director Shawney Cohen (Rat Park, The Manor) follows some of Toronto’s most exciting emerging talents as they ascend to success, offering an intimate glimpse into the challenges they face, and how their city and communities influence their music. Featuring Big Lean, CMDWN, Friyie, Jazz Cartier, Pressa, Prime Boys and more, Vice’s 6ix Rising is one of the most comprehensive documentaries about the Toronto hip hop scene ever created.

No Tickets At The Door is an in-depth look into Toronto’s diverse underground music scene and the myriad of challenges that musicians, promoters, and venues are facing during COVID-19. Questions about creative survival and perseverance during lockdown, as well as the overwhelming effects of merciless gentrification, are actively raised and discussed by the community. Part documentary, part love letter to the scene, filmmaker and musician Danny Alexander explores the creative impulses that are driving musicians today while paying close attention to the endangered status of Toronto as an incubator for the arts. Featuring interviews with prominent contributors such as Sook-Yin Lee, Dan Burke, Luna Li, Vypers, Alaska B, and TRP.P, owners of historic venues like the Horseshoe Tavern, and local politicians who are championing the arts, No Tickets At The Door examines the importance of music communities in the modern age and what is at stake if a city is no longer hospitable towards them.

Selected industrial and city settings from the three films were documented again for Usinimage and intercut with the corresponding fiction film scenes, in order to give the landscapes a new accent through artistic defamiliarization and condensation. It is an exploration of city architecture, in which the shooting location serves not just as reflective or constrastive backdrop but rather becomes itself content.

This is a film about a medium approaching extinction, an 8mm documentary film about a vanishing 8mm cinema. Blending two genres, the science film and the personal film, and benefiting from the participation of multiple generations of cineastes, it is a reflection upon the original cinematic experience.

Kamal Aljafari’s short film once again collapses time, questioning the meaning of life in a system in which humanity is reduced to a number and the value of one’s future is measured by applications within grey hallways. Step into this black hole, where bones and flesh have become numbers in a queuing system. This surreal film observes the origins of our being versus the future of how we are defined. What have we become from our point of origin until today’s chaos of bureaucratic mazes? It’s a long way from Amphioxus, we all came from there.

How China's magical Zhangjiajie National Park attracted director James Cameron, who came seeking inspiration for a mysterious fictional planet.

Peer into the day-to-day tasks of those on the frontline working to rescue and provide humanitarian support to migrants fleeing to Italy's shores.

It came as a shock at the peak of her artist career, HSU Su-chen died of cancer. She went cross-disciplinarily in a short 14 years of her creative life. From early work such as “Self-Portrait” revealing multi layers of her own images to “Plant-Paradise” which collaborated with many people of different expertise lead her to the winning of Taishin Bank Arts Annual Award. HSU always walks out of the box to touch all of us from deep inside herself to ordinary plants as well as neglected communities in foreign countries. Every step of her attempts raised applause. This film assembles HSU’s talks and images of exhibitions of different locality spreading world wide including Vietnam, Micronesia, Australia and footages photographed by her personally at many places in Taiwan. It tells an extraordinary story and unseen visions of a distinct artist who endlessly discovers real issues of human life.

A unique look at three of the greatest builders of the African Savannah: weaver birds, aardvarks and termites. In their spectacular buildings they do not live alone! Many roommates from other species, from small insects, reptiles and birds to large mammals, not only live together — they also benefit from sharing the same roof.