I'm only really curious about why we live: what kinds of faith subtends the mechanics of our day-to-day survival; the manner & the style through which we express our vitality. In the language of the University, I translate this curiosity into such terms as "experiential performance-based research": for my PhD I want to gather a collective of multimodal artists who are interested in spirituality and mystical experience to work at the limits of their practices, and to dissolve their limits into the mutation-structure of the group. Call it a cult but with no centre, no dogma, no direction.

Ahmed is an award-winning filmmaker, film scholar, and film programmer. His career spans over 19 years where he has made numerous shorts and features that played myriad international film festivals and picked several prestigious awards. Nour’s area of expertise comprises screenwriting, producing, video-editing, and directing. His work varies between experimental, documentary, and fiction films. However, his particular interest is in hybrid nonfiction filmmaking.

Funded by the Vanier CGS, his current research engages with hybrid film theory, nonfiction cinema, feminist theory, and ancient Egyptian mythology.

Despite being known for his 2013 hybrid picture Moug / Waves, Nour’s body of work encompasses several successful fiction, experimental, and documentary films. He has also produced and/or directed quite a few commercials and TV documentaries for renowned Middle Eastern TV Channels.

Nour is a Short Film Programmer at Kingston Canadian Film Festival, and the founder and director of the 18 mm Program, a yearlong film training program for youth, funded by KCFF, KFO, and Queen’s Film and Media department.

Darshana Chakrabarty is a doctoral student in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies under Prof. Ali Na. She completed her second M.A. in English, specializing in Film and Media Studies, from Arizona State University in Spring 2021. Her research focuses on the authentic representation of LGBTQ community and their issues in Indian Parallel/Avant-garde Cinema, it’s audience reception and possible solutions for better portrayal of the community in Indian cinema. She has written multiple articles and essays for renowned journals, and book chapters published by Routledge and IGI Global. She is a reviewer of CINEJ Cinema Journal, University of Pittsburgh and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Back in India, she used to be a high school teacher of English language and literature. Her research interests are Indian Parallel/ Avant-garde Cinema, Indian New Wave, Indian Cinema (Bollywood), Gender and Sexuality studies, South Asian, Cultural studies, Film Studies and Film Theories.

Vince Ha is a PhD candidate in Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies at Queen’s University. His research centers on two core themes: diasporic identities and queer archival methods. Currently, he is investigating transnational media and its relationship with queer diasporic sociality, with special attention to homoerotic representation in Asian cinema. 

Vince is also a writer-director who captures fragmentary moments and uses them to challenge issues of race, class, gender, and representation. He holds an MFA in Documentary Media from Toronto Metropolitan University. His work has been presented locally at Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, Gardiner Museum, Buddies in Bad Times, The ArQuives, Myseum of Toronto, and Hot Docs Rogers Cinema, and internationally in China, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Thailand, United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam. 

His research is funded by the SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship (formerly the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Doctoral Scholarship), the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and the Douglas Sheppard Wilson Fellowship. 

Clarke Mackey has been teaching in the Department of Film and Media at Queen’s University for 26 years. Before that he taught at York University and Sheridan College of Art and Design.

Clarke is an accomplished media producer. He has worked as a director, cinematographer, editor, producer or writer on over 50 film, television and new media projects. Many have won awards and critical acclaim. His first feature film, The Only Thing You Know (1971), won two Canadian Film Awards (now called Genies) including the Best Actress award. This film is considered by many critics to be an important film in the early development of independent cinema in this country.

His documentary A Right to Live (1977) is called "one of the key moments in the history of committed documentary in Canada" by Peter Steven in his book Brink of Reality: New Canadian Documentary Film and Video (1993). In the 1980s, Mackey directed several episodes of the Emmy Award-winning TV series Degrassi Junior High. Also in the 1980s Mackey began experimenting with interactive, computer-based video. His Memory Palace website (1997) made innovative use of media streaming long before Youtube. In recent years Clarke has been producing micro-budget documentaries about community activism in Eastern Ontario. Til The Cows Come Home (2014) has been screened widely and received positive critical response. Mackey’s current work in progress is a feature archival documentary called Revolution Begins at Home.

In addition to his media work, Clarke Mackey has been pushing at the boundaries between art producers and consumers for over four decades. Starting in the early 1970s when he received several “Artist in the Schools” grants from Ontario Arts Council to work with indigenous children and prison inmates, Clarke has been researching and practicing what he calls “vernacular culture”: unofficial practices that fall outside of the conventional definitions for fine art and popular culture. In 2010 he compiled his research and experiences in a book called Random Acts of Culture: Reclaiming Art and Community in the 21st Century. The book makes links between very old forms of culture -- before the industrial-commercial era -- and recent experiments in relational and site-specific work. This research is ongoing.

Links:

Personal page: http://www.clarkemackey.ca/