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Amélia Simard

Directing

Biography

Amélia is an emerging French-Canadian filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist from the traditional and unceded territories of the Lekwungen and Songhees peoples (Victoria, BC). Now based in so-called Vancouver, they have completed their BFA in Film at Simon Fraser University where they have written, shot and directed short narrative dramas and documentary films. Their works have been featured in Vancouver Island Short Film Festival and the Small File Media Festival. They are also a theatre-maker, with the debut of their co-written and co-performed piece "Cracking The Nonbinary Code" as a part of Ignite! 2023. In their practice, Amélia explores themes of queerness, language through metaphors based in memory, nostalgia and the fantastical.

Known For

Retrouvailles inconnues: Les francoqueers à Vancouver avant et après l'an 2000

Amélia, an emerging non-binary filmmaker, has been given 2 months given and a research grant to find out more about francophone queer life in western Canada. As the only participant from (what is colonially known as) British-Columbia and with only 3 weeks left, the pressure is on: Amélia rushes to find any traces of francophone queer people in Vancouver before the year 2000, the year they were born. Amidst this chaotic research effort, they find André, an older French-Canadian gay man that lived in Vancouver for 25 years. Through their conversations, Amélia unlocks André's hidden personal visual archive, that proves that, indeed, francophone queers were alive and thriving years before they were born. This documentary shows how Amélia put together a presentation about their own queer ancestors through screen capture, archival footage, interviews and narration that ends up changing their own view of themself as a queer french-canadian in the west.

Retrouvailles inconnues: Les francoqueers à Vancouver avant et après l'an 2000

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