April 17th - 7:30pm
Silence
46 Essex St
Films in this program hover in dreams, nightmares, and indecision. They seek to find their way back into frame or adjust to a liminal life. They are in passage—transitory, in-between, and not quite. They interstitiate. All but the “soundie” opener of this set will be lived-scored by the Broken Film Festival Silent Film Ensemble.

Director: Sonny Newman
Country: United States
The night before her 18th birthday recital, an overworked and undertalented pianist is abducted by three ghouls.

Director: Amanda Tkaczyk
Country: Canada
A sequence of questions reveals the subtle coercion embedded in participatory frameworks in this filmed performance art piece.

Directors: Abigail Smith
Country: United States
A fogged-out fairy tale of vengeance and greed.

Director: Karen Ralph
Country: Canada
After finding the back door wide open in the middle of the night, a woman soon discovers that she may no longer be alone in her house.

Director: Guadalupe Arellanes
Country: United States
A lucid dream leads to a dance with Death.

Director: Jacob A. Mittermaier-Zubeck
Country: Canada
The gap between what humans can perceive and what exists beyond has left us disconnected from the natural world.

Director: Justin Rhody
Country: United States
An aurae psycho-portrait of a bush in bloom, time spent alongside it & a newfound comfort in isolation.

Director: Evan Bode
Country: United States
Trapped in their frames and monitored by a menacing curator, two paintings long to escape from the art gallery's white walls.

Director: Morteza Rashid
Country: Iran
A man who lives in the middle of nowhere finds a turtle one day and this turtle changes his life.
April 18th - 1:30pm
Art Not Shame
119 Wyndham St N
How might people reassociate through dreamstates, unexpected places, or desolate spaces? How might we move through or better carry our collective trauma to arrive somewhere else? What’s on the other side? Is this how the light gets in? Films in this program contend with these questions and seek solutions.

Director: Gizem Gungor
Country: Canada
A young woman explores recordings of her dreams in an effort to understand herself.

Directors: Thomas Moray, Stefano Montjoy, Burak Batu Tunçel
Country: Canada
Everyday class-conflict exacerbates into an unexplainable phenomenon in Toronto’s labyrinthine underground PATH system.

Directors: Daniel Jaśniewski
Country: Poland
An anti-road movie shot from a bed-level perspective in a room next to a busy street.

Director: Thomas M Downs
Country: United States
A poetic contemplation of the psychological impact of confronting the algorithmic function.

Director: Nina Razzeghzadeh
Country: Canada
Through memories and abstractions, the past reveals more about the present.

Director: Bob Kotyk
Country: Canada
Two people meet and make a connection at a subway station in downtown Toronto.

Director: Elly Moghtaderi
Country: Iran
Maede gets a call: the world is ending.

Director: Pouya Dastgiran
Country: Iran
An argument, a fish, a gendered divide.

Director: Jacob A. Mittermaier-Zubeck, Adam Leo Inniss
Country: Canada
A hero finds an object in Beaudry station during his commute on the Montreal Metro system.
April 18th - 7:30pm
Art Not Shame
119 Wyndham St N
Pushpins, clowns, circuses, abstraction, and meaning-making. What else is there left to be desired in life? While this program suggests that there is connection in disconnection, it also speculates that screaming in a hole might be the best way forward.

Director: Teo Baehler
Country: Netherlands
Fantasy, form, and texture merge into sensory experience in this stop-motion film, created using everyday materials.

Director: David Finkelstein
Country: United States
Unfolding in the form of a poetic dialog, an examination of the need to map out the world by identifying the objects, people, and works of art which define one’s sensibility.

Director: Dee Hood
Country: United States
How much madness can a people endure, how many cycles of history must replay, before we awaken to a path grounded in respect and shared humanity?

Director: Kianoush Eslami
Country: Iran
A drunken clown is fired from his job.

Director: Jamie Lynch
Country: United Kingdom
A film for all who feel the desire to scream with frustration, with pain, with longing... with all our hearts.

Directors: cyber//chiffon
Country: United States
Two films that centre feelings of rage conjured by being trapped by the perception of others and unsolicited attention.

Director: Mobin Hajilooie
Country: Iran
A struggling writer sells his books on the street. One day, he discovers a mysterious flyer on a tree, leading him to an unknown company where nothing is as it seems.

Director: Justine McCloskey
Country: Canada
As Venla documents plants in solitude, she slips deep into the fantastical world she observes and begins to question her senses and reality.

Director: Sina Khani
Country: Iran
An exploration of the American urban landscape juxtaposes with the filmmaker's inner feelings while returning to images of home.
BFF's opening night on April 17th features four exceptional musicians from Guelph and Hamilton who will providing live score for all silent films screened.

No-input Mixing Board

Saxophones and Woodwinds

Drums and Percussion

Electric Bass
New media installations will be running as part of BFF at Art Not Shame on April 18th. Check them out in between screenings.

Director: Ian Haig
Country: Austrailia
A hazmat-suited researcher in a bathroom/toilet, credited only as the slime narrator, talks about discovering a new kind of parasite that attempts to complete its life cycle within various contemporary media platforms.
4PM | Art Not Shame | Free
Join us mid-afternoon after "Reassociating" on April 18th for a panel discussion. Find out what panelists feel about experimentation in the 2026 arts landscape.

Artist and Educator

Curator and Organizer

Director and Artist
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