through the bushes and the trees, you’ll find me intertwines the personal and political histories of Hanlan’s Point Beach, the site of Canada’s first pride gathering in the early 1970s, also called a “gay picnic.” A hole punch serves as a symbolic peephole, reflecting the cruising areas on the beach that invite both spectatorship and participation. By situating the tender moments of queer desire amidst the vast body of water surrounding the Toronto islands, the film celebrates and interrogates the histories and spaces of queer love and resistance.

This work was made by hole punching frame by frame using a cricut machine, then manually taping together 10,000+ frames. Print made by Niagara Custom Lab.

Screenings:

Alchemy Film and Arts Festival, Hawick, Scotland

Queer Shorts Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Artifact Film Festival, Calgary AB

Buffalo Squeaky Wheel Animation Festival, Buffalo NY

Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen, Grunt Gallery, Vancouver

Toronto Queer Film Festival, Toronto ON

ACME Obscura, Madrid, Spain

Queer City Cinema, Regina, Saskatchewan

For bookings, please contact my distributor Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC) bookings [at] cfmdc.org

Process videos for how this work was made are found here.