Ileana Pietrobruno

In a world of fixed positions and prescribed roles, expanding the definition of gender requires the courage to dive deep into understanding and acceptance. Written and directed by Christina Willings, Beauty explores the lives of five gender-creative kids, each uniquely engaged in shaping their ideas of what it means to be fully human. Claiming your own sense of gender when everything around you insists that you comply and conform can be challenging, and sometimes scary—but family and friends are there to help. Free-flowing animated elements, ranging from images of octopuses to astronauts, draw together the kids’ shared experiences in beautifully rendered fantasias that celebrate the power of imagination and the flourishing force of self-determination. Playful, goofy, loving and brave, each of these remarkable young people—including Ladner, B.C.’s transgender advocate Tru Wilson—have found their own way to break free and show the world what it really means to be your true self.

Documentary about the Holy Angels Residential School in Alberta, where hundreds of First Nations children were imprisoned.

Rosie Ming, a young Canadian poet, is invited to perform at a Poetry Festival in Shiraz, Iran, but she’d rather be in Paris. She lives at home with her over-protective Chinese grandparents and has never been anywhere by herself. Once in Iran, she finds herself in the company of poets and Persians, all who tell her stories that force her to confront her past; the Iranian father she assumed abandoned her and the nature of Poetry itself. It’s about building bridges between cultural and generational divides. It’s about being curious. Staying open. And finding your own voice through the magic of poetry. Rosie goes on an unwitting journey of forgiveness, reconciliation, and perhaps above all, understanding, through learning about her father’s past, her own cultural identity, and her responsibility to it.

A man obsessed with prostitutes discovers that love is a lot more expensive than sex. An entertaining peek into the world of prostitution from the client's point of view.

A man obsessed with prostitutes discovers that love is a lot more expensive than sex. An entertaining peek into the world of prostitution from the client's point of view.

This animated short looks at the building of Canada's transcontinental railroad with wit and whimsy. Engine 371 illustrates the struggle humans have with nature and how this fundamental tension united a country.

An enigmatic Japanese woman, abandoned by her wealthy Chinese husband in a remote Pacific Northwest village, becomes entwined in the lives of two rugged locals.

Butch, a handsome, but naive baby butch, is compelled by the Queen to seek out and bring back her purlined "Koilos" the source of all pleasures and the key to order and harmony on her island. As an additional inducement, the Queen holds out to Butch, the promised return of the hostaged Claudia, a beautiful and feisty femme, who is not about to sit idly by awaiting rescue!. Under the Queen's wrathful gaze, tops are bottomed, tranny sailors seduce pirate Captains, Kings are Mothers and cross-dressing femmes pack a wallop

Butch, a handsome, but naive baby butch, is compelled by the Queen to seek out and bring back her purlined "Koilos" the source of all pleasures and the key to order and harmony on her island. As an additional inducement, the Queen holds out to Butch, the promised return of the hostaged Claudia, a beautiful and feisty femme, who is not about to sit idly by awaiting rescue!. Under the Queen's wrathful gaze, tops are bottomed, tranny sailors seduce pirate Captains, Kings are Mothers and cross-dressing femmes pack a wallop

Butch, a handsome, but naive baby butch, is compelled by the Queen to seek out and bring back her purlined "Koilos" the source of all pleasures and the key to order and harmony on her island. As an additional inducement, the Queen holds out to Butch, the promised return of the hostaged Claudia, a beautiful and feisty femme, who is not about to sit idly by awaiting rescue!. Under the Queen's wrathful gaze, tops are bottomed, tranny sailors seduce pirate Captains, Kings are Mothers and cross-dressing femmes pack a wallop

Butch, a handsome, but naive baby butch, is compelled by the Queen to seek out and bring back her purlined "Koilos" the source of all pleasures and the key to order and harmony on her island. As an additional inducement, the Queen holds out to Butch, the promised return of the hostaged Claudia, a beautiful and feisty femme, who is not about to sit idly by awaiting rescue!. Under the Queen's wrathful gaze, tops are bottomed, tranny sailors seduce pirate Captains, Kings are Mothers and cross-dressing femmes pack a wallop

Butch, a handsome, but naive baby butch, is compelled by the Queen to seek out and bring back her purlined "Koilos" the source of all pleasures and the key to order and harmony on her island. As an additional inducement, the Queen holds out to Butch, the promised return of the hostaged Claudia, a beautiful and feisty femme, who is not about to sit idly by awaiting rescue!. Under the Queen's wrathful gaze, tops are bottomed, tranny sailors seduce pirate Captains, Kings are Mothers and cross-dressing femmes pack a wallop

In this animated short, a young girl and her father move from China to Canada, bringing only their Chinese violin along for the journey. As they face the challenge of starting fresh in a new place, the music of the violin connects them to the life they left behind and guides the girl towards a musical future.

This personal documentary is the story of Teresa Marshall, who grew up on a British Columbia ranch. Every child needs a demon, and Teresa took battle against rattlesnakes. In the dry interior of B.C., the south Okanagan and Similkameen valleys form the bio-region known as Canada's "pocket desert." As settlers' dreams of creating an agricultural Eden erase fragile desert lands that support a breathtaking array of wild species, the narrator and her snake-hunting neighbours are forced to examine their environmental attitudes.

Cat Swallows Parakeet and Speaks!, Ileana Pietrobruno's triumph of mid-vaginal modernism masterfully confronts the surreal nature of societal attitudes towards the female body. Beautifully shot at Riverview Hospital (formerly an insane asylum), the film follows the journey of Scheherazade, a young model attempting to insulate herself from paternalistic and sinister medicalization throught the re-telling of tabloid tales. Replete with lesbians, anorexics, necrophillic undertones and a deluge of menstrual blood, Pietrobruno's febrile fable contains enough raw passion to ignite the sensiblities of even the most faded feminists.

The director of the underground feature "Cat Swallows Parakeet And Speaks!" turns her eye for stunning metaphoric imagery to the myth of Narcissus.

The director of the underground feature "Cat Swallows Parakeet And Speaks!" turns her eye for stunning metaphoric imagery to the myth of Narcissus.

The director of the underground feature "Cat Swallows Parakeet And Speaks!" turns her eye for stunning metaphoric imagery to the myth of Narcissus.

The director of the underground feature "Cat Swallows Parakeet And Speaks!" turns her eye for stunning metaphoric imagery to the myth of Narcissus.