Bernice Afriyie | Arts Editor
Featured photo: Shant Joshi’s “Pyaaz” and Kristina Wong’s “Tidal Waves” (shown here) demonstrate the importance of having diverse narratives in Canadian film. | Photo courtesy of Toronto Youth Shorts
Provocative and daring are two words that may not be immediately associated with Canadian cinema. Not-for-profit film festival Toronto Youth Shorts, or YTS, aims to change that by featuring short films in a variety of genres by young filmmakers across the GTA. In its eighth year, YTS showcased a diverse lineup that included work in the genres of drama, comedy, documentary and animation with many pieces touching on relevant subjects like immigration, LGBTQ, sexual assault and other social justice issues locally and abroad. Shant Joshi and Kristina Wong are two York students who are probing the face of Canadian film in new ways with their short films.
Joshi’s film “Pyaaz” “is about a young boy, [Aryan], who has trouble accepting the situation that he is in. Using his friends on Skype as an escape, Aryan avoids the stress and panic of a complete change in environment. We follow Aryan as he reaches a moment of realization that by escaping reality, he’s completely unaware of what is going on right in front of him,” says Joshi.
“On one end, you have the cast. All have immigrated to Canada at some point in their lives and have experienced their own anxieties of entering into a completely new and alien space. Each actor adapted to moving to Canada in their own way. That made the film more real.
“On the other end, you have the crew, including myself, all born and brought up in Canada. An inside person with a view of the Other. Because as important as it is that we understand how Others view us as seen by the script and the performance, we have to also understand how we view Others as seen by the overall cinematic style. That was key in approaching this film,” adds Joshi.
Instead of subjugating the Other to the scrutiny of the filmic gaze, “Pyaaz” brilliantly shows that it is possible for characters, cultures, races and identities to exist outside of a mainstream narrative.
“Canadian film should represent the various facets of our society. Primarily, we as a country take pride in our immigrants. Canadian film follows stories throughout the country to various different types of people,” he adds.
“Being a Canadian filmmaker means a lot of DIY, as I’m learning right now as production manager for the DIY queen herself, Ingrid Veninger, on her sixth feature Porcupine Lake. It means finding the beauty in everything and using limited resources to tell a human story.”
Wong similarly uses everyday encounters between individuals to express the beauty of the commonplace. A recent graduate of the film program at York, Wong’s “Tidal Waves” tells the story of a young dancer who struggles with scoliosis.
“For me it was really important to make films about stuff I knew about. I grew up with scoliosis so that was a huge inspiration for the film,” says Wong.
“I wanted to show scoliosis in a different light. There’s a lot of media out there where scoliosis is a funny thing so I wanted to take a different approach to it.
“As an Asian filmmaker I definitely feel responsible, but in a very positive way, to shed light on my culture and other Asian actors or actresses who don’t necessarily get these lead roles all the time because of the way Hollywood is.
“I know that a lot of the reasons why people don’t cast minorities are because they say people don’t respond well to it or it’s not bankable, but I think that’s very untrue. I think it’s the story that matters not who portrays a role,” she adds.
“Tidal Waves” and “Pyaaz” demonstrate the importance of having diverse narratives in Canadian film, and the necessity of having people of colour telling their own stories.
