On Message

Freely drawing from a variety of film genres, including musicals, the sudsy melodramas and documentaries and combing them with a free-flowing narrative and bright pop-art sensibilities, this hard-hitting experimental romp from Canadian filmmaker John Greyson packs a political wallop while satirically comparing and contrasting the issues of censorship and circumcision. The tale centers on the exploits of three homosexuals named Peter. Peter Koosens is obsessed with the semi-scandalous behavior of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau while college student Peter Cort, ponders the significance and necessity of male circumcision. Peter Denham is an artist who seduces the other two and freely borrows from their work to make something of his own. Their exploits land the trio in prison after an operatic number (the police sing songs adapted from Bizet's Carmen).

"An experimental documentary about the violent closing of the first Queer Sarajevo Festival. Straddling truth and fiction, the film interweaves the courageous story of the four festival organizers with an apocryphal essay by Susan Sontag - about cover versions of "bird" songs - that pushes the limits of liberal solidarity."

On April 30th, 2004, York student and peace activist Dan Freeman-Maloy was suspended for 3 years for using a megaphone on campus. In a protest two weeks later, an impromptu megaphone choir performed. The composition "Motet for Amplified Voices", with over 50 megaphones.

Experimental musical based on a factual incident, the beating to death of a homosexual man in Toronto, 1985, by five teenagers.

A mystery man brings together a group of dead, gay artists to investigate a police response to the dilema of wash-room sex in Toronto. The artists have seven days in which to report on the ethics of police tactics. The artists infiltrate the police only to discover that they themselves are under surveillance as a political subversive group. The artists explore and report on the evolution of toilets and wash-room behavior.

Kipling is touring North America, hoping to recruit boy scouts, and he is trailed undercover by a CIA-TV reporter. Meanwhile, a travel agent, watching a film during his lunchbreak, meets Kipling - all three are arrested and the journalist is fired.

Irony abounds in this split screen depiction of unjustified imprisonment. Greyson traces Jean Genet’s “Un Chant d’Amour”, with his own story of penguins held within the stone confines of the film farm barnyard. Made at Phil Hoffman's Film Farm, 2009.

On Aug 16, 2013, Canadian filmmaker John Greyson and Palestinian-Canadian doctor Tarek Loubani were detained without charges in Cairo's Tora Prison. During their 50-day detention, John created these flash cards as a diary of their experiences. Following an international grassroots campaign, they were released on October 7, and returned to Canada on October 13. This video is dedicated to the many who spoke out for their release, and for the many who are still behind bars.

The ghost of "patient zero", who allegedly first brought AIDS to North America - materialises and tries to contact old friends. Meanwhile, the Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton, who drank from the Fountain of Youth and now works as Chief Taxidermist at the Toronto Natural history Museum, is trying to organise an exhibition about the disease for the museum's "Hall of Contagion".

A poem about sex work in the age of COVID to the music of Handel. Let me weep over my cruel fate, and let me sigh for liberty.

The adventures of a porn potato versus pop ups.

A car commercial send up in which Bambi meets Nissan. The question is: who’s who?

Animation based on a video clip from the Iraq war.

Experimental film that reanimates iconic photographs from the 1960's.

The 1st part of the 2nd half is a visual poem wrestling with ideas about love and resurrection.In the artwork’s initial incarnation all of the oversized frames were installed as filmstrips in a room to create the appearance of a giant trim bin that the the editor/viewer entered. The conceit was casting the viewer as a Lilliputian editor of an analog film and requiring of them to piece the ‘film’ together in their minds. In 2015 all the frames were re-shot and animated. There are two versions of the piece.In addition to this version (17:31 minute) gallery version, an additional version is available. It is a 40 minute slowed down version with a soundtrack by Mary Margaret O’Hara recorded live during its inaugural viewing.

YOU&i is a film version of a 'pas de deux for one' choreographed for Toronto Dance Theatre's 'Singular Bodies' program. In collaboration with dancer, Jarrett Siddall, the intent is to translate the various interpretations this image into movement. Some of the movement is determined by the autonomic nervous system response to exertion. It is the system that controls our heart and respiratory rates so the movement is driven both mind and body.

'play god' is a meditation on the movements of the shadows in Plato's cave or the TTC, take your pick. It was commissioned for TUFF (Toronto Underground Film Festival) to puzzle commuters on their way to and from work.