Queer Connections

With assistance from Canada Council for the Arts, Charles Street Video was able to undertake a 10-week video dialogue project with three groups of youth across Toronto. Queer Connections was an innovative project model in which three groups of LGBTQ youth from three different neighbourhoods in Toronto (Etobicoke, Scarborough, and North York) used video to have an online conversation. Meeting twice a week for 10 weeks, each group created 7 short films, proceedng from pre-production to the internet in approx. 5 hours. This process resulted in 21 short films. At the beginning of the project each group of youth made a video exploring the theme of identity. These are the first videos in each of the three ‘video streams’. The videos were then posted online and viewed by one of the other groups, who in turn created a response based on their reaction to the content and ideas proposed by their peers. Each video is not only a response to the video before it, but a catalyst to the video that comes after it! The videos document the exploration of queer identity through drawings, acting, puppetry, dance, history, music, storytelling, playfulness, and personal narrative. The video format enabled these expressive forms to come alive through cinematic language to build a dialogue that is both rich and deep.

 2011