Photo by Inger Whist
23th FEMALE EYE FILM FESTIVAL, "Always Honest, Not Always Pretty"
RESILIENCE!
FeFF Photo Exhibit & Experimental Films
Opening Tuesday, Oct. 14th, 6PM-11PM
an audience Q & A with artists
Photo Exhibit runs until Saturday Oct. 18th, 2025
at The Women's Art Association of Canada
23 Prince Arthur Ave, Toronto, ON
How do female, lens-based artists express Resilience as a source of creative inspiration in these turbulent times?
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FeFF Featured Photographers
Corinne Duchesne, Darya Gualtieri, Elaine Whittaker, Erin Youngman, Imogen Whist, Jacqui Gajewski, Jana Abrams, Lin Duperron, Martha Davis, Negar Pooya, Nina Silver, Ronni Rosenberg, Sabrina Leeder, Surya Badalera, Tara Arnst, Inger Whist and Elaine Brodie. Curation by Inger Whist and Elaine Brodie
This curated group exhibition based on the theme of Resilience is the VIP Opening Night Reception of the 23rd Female Eye Film Festival (FeFF) on October 14th, 6PM -11PM.
A moderated Artist Talk on August 14th.
FEFF SCRIPT READINGS will take place daily in the gallery, Oct 15 to17th, 10AM-4PM. FeFF's Script Reading Series is a creative incubator for writers with completed features and pilots that are ready to be kicked up to the next level. It’s an intensely creative, collaborative, and career-enhancing experience. This program centres on public readings where screenwriters receive feedback from industry experts and their peers along with fellow writers. FREE and open to the public.
 Corinne DuchesneMay Delete Later "These photographs, invite unexpected results. Playing with handmade papier mâché masks, mirrors, movement and random light flares, I tease and coax, something to the surface, that is rather monstruous. That moment of recognition, as you pass your own reflection. Time keeps trudging on, we keep adapting." |  Darya GualtieriWall Growth For me, resilience is not about resisting but adapting. With the right mindset, it can turn almost any situation into an opportunity to grow, create, and find meaning. I notice this same strength in nature and art, and it reminds me why resilience matters so much in everyday life. |  Elaine WhittakerRenee-Malaria Nature upended? The world’s ecology is increasingly fragile and frightening. Climate change remorselessly cultivates the emergence of infectious pathogens. As with all the earth’s species, our resilience has never seemed more precarious and challenged. |
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 Erin YoungmanMother Mary The austerity of moment, shapes and architecture against natural features of sky, snow and fauna evoke a tension of grit and resilience in theme and lifted emotion. Long walks through South Philadelphia during the COVID pandemic: Mary defying the midnight snow, Glorious Sky overwhelming lines and homes, vines growing out of an abandoned Ceiling. |  Whist ImogenBirthing Room In May, I joined a team of doctors in Uzhhorod and Lviv, Ukraine, to document a humanitarian trip. It became a mutual exchange of medical knowledge shared in universities, hospitals, and over bowls of borscht. Where I anticipated desolation, I found resilience instead, accompanied by joy, generosity, and the enduring human impulse to connect. |  Inger WhistResilience Pan Regeneratively working an orchard gone no-till; soft mosses, strong grasses, sweet blossoms, juicy persimmons, stinging nettles, bees. Greatest in resilience are the olive, fig, jujube tree and grape vine. Horrors as water-needy fruiting trees succumb to the sécheresse, to be later pruned and painted as stark skeletal statues to hubris. |
 Jacqui Gajewski1 of 4 Resilience in the face of struggle requires the courage to dig deep and excavate those unseen parts of ourselves not yet fully realized. Prayer and meditation can be a reservoir of inner strength during hardship. The psyche’s archetypal forces unleashed, enduring the alchemical fire of metamorphosis. The soul is released from its suffering and resilience is ultimately rewarded. |  Jana AbramsShelter of Strength Resilience endures on ancestral land in a hand-built teepee, its weathered poles braced against open sky as a quiet testament to community and belonging. Jag’s mission centers on Resilience, finding light in humble forms and honoring how protection and hope are crafted from what we inherit and carry forward. |  Lin DuperronEnjoy your Meal “Symbolism plays a crucial part in my visual storytelling. My work aims to inspire reflection and challenge the narratives that have historically shaped the story of women and the roles they were assigned to play. Women possess remarkable resilience, especially when silenced.” |
 Martha DavisPandas' Ark “In a world rife with challenges, these three diorama photographs playfully explore resilience in a way that is relatable. Through my body of work known as the “Diorama Dramas”, I hope to spark conversation about difficult topics, reduce anxiety and encourage creative problem-solving among people of all ages. To promote this further, I hold diorama-making workshops for both adults and children.” |  Negar PooyaEchoes of the Self "My self-portraits explore resilience through memory, identity, and the quiet strength of belonging. By layering textures, light, and reflection, I create visual poems that hold both personal history and emotional truth. Photography, for me, is not about capturing moments but about expressing what remains when words are not enough.” |  Nina SilverI've Always Loved You ars. Though my mother has Alzheimer’s and my father struggles with physical abilities, so much strength is in their endurance and shared moments together. The personal reflects universal themes. |
 Ronni RosenbergThe Important Thing is the Porousness of the Rock Photography animates what is mute. Drawing and painting give voice to personal feelings and ideas. By entangling the two an opportunity for a conversation between inner and external worlds is created. And this conversation can be a source of strength. |  Sabrina LeederThrough Her Eyes This work is about connecting the whole community - both indigenous and not, to the stories of MMIW. Paying tribute to these women in a dignified and non-exploitive way. This beautifully meaningful work of art was created to celebrate the stories, resilience and culture of indigenous peoples across the nation. It is their turn to speak and our turn to listen. |  Surya BadaleraBefore Ruin "Before Ruin" is an image that speaks to resilience through a dual lens: the perseverance of nature in an untouched state, and the innocence of a childhood that is yet to be shaped by the world. Taken in the tranquil outskirts of Dublin, Ireland, this photograph reflects resilience as a quiet endurance - resisting ruin without the need to harden. |
 Tara ArnstWild Rose Resilience, although often associated with ideas of strength, durability and vigor, can also be witnessed in the tension of its opposite. Seen through the feminine principle, resilience becomes a more subtle and delicate quality. As fragile as these forms appear, the brute force upon which they have pushed themselves up through the stark earth is a testament to the resilience and the timeless endurance of their beauty. |
7:15PM
Experimental Film Program
Total running time: 00:53:36
Followed by audience Q & A.
Trace on My Body
Directed by Yue Hua
A film about self-acceptance, and a conversation with self. In spring 2023, a physical illness forced me to re-examine my relationship with my body. Scars, spots, skin, hair, and my unflattering voice, everything
belongs to my body. Shot on 16mm film and scanned digitally.
(2024, Animation Experimental, 00:03:30, United States of America)
17H10
Directed by Marie Julliard
Introspective, experimental film directed by Marie
Julliard. A short film filled with gentleness and poetry in the form of superimposed shots translating the multiplicity of her sensibilities and existential questions.
(2024, Experimental, 00:06:26, France)
Pomona
Directed by Julia Dufek
Pomona, a cautious but curious woman, discovers towering Greek statues of Mars; the god of war. Her initial awe turns to playful subversion, but when her increasingly bold acrobatics take an unexpected turn,
Pomona must confront what these ancient symbols truly mean to her identity and future.
(2024, Animation, 00:05:00, Germany)
Lavinia
Directed by Sarah Dutton
Inspired by a character from Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronichus”. Despite undergoing a huge transformation within the play, Sarah felt that there was a key moment in Lavinia’s character arc that was not featured in the text. Determined to depict this missing story beat, Sarah settled on a movement based short film.
(2024, Experimental, 00:03:45, United Kingdom, England)
Childish
Directed by Emily Munro
An archival exploration of childhood choreography. How does the child through time resist oppression, violence and control? The childish imagination breaks out in flights of fantasy, both brief and absorbing. Energy is directed and contained. I'm live as a battery. Who am I to you?
(2024, Experimental Documentary, 00:15:00, United Kingdom, Scotland)
9:30PM
INTERMISSION
Experimental Film Program
Followed by audience Q & A.
exits / entrances
Directed by Yen Lim
I live to leave. I leave to live. Every door is an
opportunity or a risk. Are they just symbols of transition, curiosity, and the constant negotiation between leaving and staying? What lies behind? Why do we constantly seek for more? Of stepping into others' safe spaces and leaving something behind, of human connection and freedom across linguistic barriers and unfamiliar territories. On
embracing the in-between, on questioning the shift in physical and lyrical perspectives, while also making mistakes along the process while trusting every move made. A confrontation with both cultural unfamiliarity and personal introspection. An unplanned exploration, a concept of "how not to make a film" produced as part of Apichatpong Creators' Lab 2023 and shot in Yucatán, Mexico.
(2024, Documentary Experimental, 00:11:22, Singapore).
In Stock vel vitae
Directed by Agnès Roux
Between land, sea and sky, I follow the water, an offering in my hands... In this psycho-geographical movement at the border of the natural world and that of men, I seek to experience, to metaphorically resonate with this adage from the Middle Ages, between threat and protection. In this performed film, I
question the significant function of my plastic elements* in this experience of reality. Between the theatrical instinct of the imagination and the animal instinct of adaptation, I strive to find a fair balance between the authentic character of my performance and the
simulacrum of my dramaturgical writing. The sound work is based on this same postulate but it also represents the intangible dimension of this experience that the video tool cannot capture. The film was entirely produced in iphonography (images and sound recording) to respond to “on the spot” work oscillating between sensitive perception and the search for plausibility that the optimized miniaturization of the
camera/sound object of smartphones can offer.
(2025, Experimental, 00:13:20, Monaco)
LUVOS migrations (Cut 25)
Directed by Editta Braun
The experimental shortfilm LUVOS migrations tells of creatures that wander through a world dominated by humans. It seems to remain open whether there is room for such fragile creatures in these landscapes devastated by human civilisation.
Vision of the future or images from a parallel universe?
In breathtaking natural scenes, automated industrial landscapes and
deserted ruins, a journey through time and living spaces unfolds.
(2025, Experimental, 00:13:39, Austria)
Kraak; op een broze vensterbank, een vogel of de vanzelfsprekendheid
Directed by Petra van der Schoot
A figure wearing a diving helmet and swimming fins arrives at a building and gets drawn in both unwillingly willingly. Some passersby, sensing something, return to the place and sneak in through the back door. Inside they are taken by a performance initiated by this strange figure. A both humorous and serious film in which sound and space are the main characters.
(2024, Experimental, Fiction , 00:38:38, Netherlands).
Photo Exhibit curated by Inger Whist and Elaine Brodie
Film Program curated by Leslie-Ann Coles
