Image+Nation

BECOMING

These films explore non-binary and trans lives, challenging rigid gender expectations with wit, feeling, and a healthy dose of irreverence. From animation and documentaries to music videos and intimate narratives, the programme moves between humour and vulnerability, embracing the contradictions, surprises, and everyday absurdities of living beyond the lines of gender.

PosterShort
ABJAD HAWAZ (أبجد هوز)[BECOMING]5 minutesNOV 21 / 18:00This programme includes 9 filmsBECOMING84 minutes

Named after the ancient ordering of the Arabic alphabet, Abjad Ḥawaz embodies each letter through Salma Zahore's dancing body in the ruins of Barcelona. Fashion, music, poetry and performance reclaim a language often feared, transforming it into a celebration of identity and freedom.

PosterShort
BUT STILL, WE MOVE[BECOMING]13 minutesNOV 21 / 18:00This programme includes 9 filmsBECOMING84 minutes

When their housemate moves out, Tendai faces accessibility barriers alone for the first time. Haunted by stereotypes about how a wheelchair user should be, they eventually decide to take action and free themselves from the narrative imposed upon them.

PosterShort
DACID GO8LIN - BUBBLEGUM[BECOMING]3 minutesNOV 21 / 18:00This programme includes 9 filmsBECOMING84 minutes

Nonbinary Austrian-Kosovar rapper Dacid Go8lin leads a wild queer gang in an anarchic takeover of the patriarchal government. Claiming space, freedom and queer joy, they subvert hip-hop gender roles and cis-patriarchal imagery in a battle cry for protest and civil disobedience.

PosterShort
HOW TO TIE A TIE[BECOMING]2 minutesNOV 21 / 18:00This programme includes 9 filmsBECOMING84 minutes

Adeline, who identifies as nonbinary, tries to tie a tie for the first time. What begins as a simple act of gender-affirming care turns into satin-polyester chaos when a YouTube tutorial misgenders them.

PosterShort
I'VE NEVER MET MYSELF[BECOMING]9 minutesNOV 21 / 18:00This programme includes 9 filmsBECOMING84 minutes

Back home after a night on stage, Kim strips away the remnants of her drag persona. As each layer of performance disappears, painful memories resurface, forcing her to confront what she has been trying to leave behind.

PosterShort
PERIPHERAL VISION[BECOMING]10 minutesNOV 21 / 18:00This programme includes 9 filmsBECOMING84 minutes

Through repeated analog and digital video manipulation, Peripheral Vision explores the relationship between optical and social aberrations through a transsexual and neurodivergent lens, expressing the artist's anxieties about the rise of surveillance and fascism in Canada.

PosterShort
QUINN[BECOMING]20 minutesNOV 21 / 18:00This programme includes 9 filmsBECOMING84 minutes

After surviving a sexual assault, Quinn, a young person exploring their identity, decides to track down their attacker.

PosterShort
SHAPING A DRESS[BECOMING]4 minutesNOV 21 / 18:00This programme includes 9 filmsBECOMING84 minutes

In the early nineteenth century, a tailor makes a dress for themselves. Through the careful process of constructing the garment, the act of creation also becomes a way to affirm their identity and prepare to come out to their family.

PosterShort
SOME OTHER PLACE[BECOMING]18 minutesNOV 21 / 18:00This programme includes 9 filmsBECOMING84 minutes

Esther returns to her rural Utah hometown with one goal: break into her parents' house and retrieve her identifying documents. She desperately needs them to legally change her name and gender before doing so becomes illegal.