Spectra Queer Non-Fiction Films and Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest Presents: The Past We Hold. A short film screening followed by a Q&A with filmmakers.
This programme brings together stories reimagining archival material. Across three short films, we explore how its custodians preserve and engage with the legacy of those we've lost and what they've left behind. Boxes of documents, home videos and photographs have been passed to family members, friends and strangers. As they organise and reflect on these inherited items, the lives of lost community members are brought forward.
In Absences, director Laia Ricart returns to her hometown to learn about the life of her uncle by examining the items and memories her mother kept of him.
Lloyd Wong, Unfinished explores the meaning of incompletion as filmmaker Lesley Loksi Chan's experimental documentary reworks the footage of artist and activist Lloyd Wong's long-lost contribution to an episode of the radical TV show "Toronto Living With AIDS".
And Again I Dream is a moving portrait of journalist and activist Ivy Young. While Ivy was still alive, she realized that mainstream society would not preserve her story and instead rallied her community to prepare an archive meant to inspire a shared future of resilience and compassion.
Followed by a Q&A with director Laia Ricart
- Absences | dir. Laia Ricart | 2026 | Spain, Sweden | 17’
- Lloyd Wong, Unfinished | dir. Lesley Loksi Chan | 2025 | Canada | 29’
- And Again I Dream | dir. Catherine Gund & Mariah Norman | 2026 | United States | 39’ | International Premiere
CW: Depiction of terminal illness, medical procedures, themes of death and stigma