Session 36 | Kriss Li

On December 5, 2024 at 7 pm

For Session 36, Kriss Li presents Abolition Film Society V1, a video program initially commissioned for the CFMDC’s symposium called The Breadth Of. In this context, Kriss Li chose five works based on the interests of five incarcerated participants, who then wrote responses for the filmmakers.

Accompanying a screening of these films, Kriss Li will discuss the particularities of the prison system’s imposed restrictions on communication, the underwritten politics thereof, and the experiences shared by each of the incarcerated participants.

Program — 29 min 17 sec

Geoffrey Pugen, Xam (2020) — 9 min
Canana | sound | color | Russian, French, English

Xam is a sci-fi exploration on the future of surveillance and body hacking. While in the London subway, an unsuspecting man opens a strange text, rendering him unconscious and dragging him through a wormhole. He awakes, lost, on the train tracks in Kiev, Ukraine, unable to communicate with friends or family. With the help of the hacker community in Kiev, and then Paris, the man harnesses alternative virtual transmissions in an attempt to find his way home. Xam is told through an intimate, first-person frame and video collage to emphasize the increasing integration of human and technology. The story is inspired by the story of the filmmaker’s grandfather who in 1905, was captured by the Russian Empire, but escaped somewhere in Ukraine by jumping off a train.

Terry J. Jones, Ode to the Nine (2018) — 3 min 05 sec
United States | sound | color & black and white | English

Ode to the Nine is influenced by video artist Jon Rafman. His work 9-Eyes and You, the World and I inspired the filmmaker to make this video piece. This short experimental video allows the filmmaker to ponder the relevance of the moving image and what impacts it has on the Native experience of the past, present and future.

Sonya Reynolds & Lauren Hortie, Whatever Happened to Jackie Shane? (2014) — 8 min 12 sec
Canada | sound | color | English

Toronto, 1963. Jackie Shane — a black, queer, soul-singing, flamboyant Nashville-born, Toronto-based musician — had a hit song on the charts. The song was a sensation, and with the lyrics "Tell her that I'm happy, tell her that's I'm gay; tell her I wouldn't have it any other way", it was also an underground gay anthem. But before being able to fully enjoy the fruits of this success, Jackie suddenly disappeared.

Uncovering this forgotten piece of Toronto queer music history, artists Hortie and Reynolds recreate Jackie's story using original shadow puppets, overhead animation and stop motion techniques. Follow Jackie through the 1960s Toronto Yonge Street music scene, the tabloid rumors and scandals, to the mysterious disappearance. What ever happened to Jackie Shane? You have to watch to find out.

E. Hearte, unexplained as yet (2013) — 2 min 40 sec
Canada | silent | black and white | No dialogue

The vernacular of gender identity is ever growing and changing, yet many continue to live beyond these definitions, defying language and category; we are unknown, akin to mythical creatures. Multiple exposures of a single roll of Super 8 film allow a brief glimpse into the heart of this chimera: to be unidentified... unexplained.

Nadine Valcin, Whitewash (2016) — 6 min 20 sec.
Canada | sound | color | English

Whitewash examines slavery in Canada and its omission from the national narrative. The country prides itself as being the benevolent refuge where enslaved Africans who were brought to the United States gained their freedom via the Underground Railroad. That powerful image overshadows the fact that slavery was legal in Canada for over 200 years under both French and British rule. Whitewash brings to light some of the slave families that were brought to Prince Edward Island by Loyalists and looks at how nine generations of descendants have assimilated to the point of leaving very few visible traces of their origin.

Kriss Li investigates the divisions and hierarchies that maintain the social order, and the hidden sites of possibility that can be exploited towards greater collective capacities. Their artistic practice is informed by extensive engagement with community organizing, especially at Prisoner Correspondence Project, a volunteer-run solidarity initiative for LGBTQ prisoners where they've been a collective member since 2009. Li’s work has been shown extensively in film festivals, including screenings at DOC NYC, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Images Festival (Toronto), Vancouver International Film Festival, Athens International Film + Video Festival, Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival, International Documentary Film Festival of Mexico City, Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival, and Laceno d'oro International Film Festival (Italy). They have done residencies at Amant New York (USA), Kulturhaus Villa Sträuli (Switzerland), Antenna’s Paper Machine Residency (USA), Struts Gallery, Vidéographe, Céline Bureau, and Ada X (Canada). They’ve programmed for Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, Vancouver Queer Film Festival, and Slut Island Festival (Canada).