John Greyson

Pink:Diss

John Greyson

Alexander Chapman, Kiley May

The colour pink has been ascribed many meanings, from a reflection of the feminine to a symbol of reclaimed humanity by LGBTQ2S communities. In his latest work, avant-garde filmmaker John Greyson explores the colonial implications of the colour pink, from its association with activist movements to its colouring of the water in Grassy Narrows due to mercury poisoning. Pink this.

Green Laser

John Greyson

In June 2011, John Greyson joined a freedom flotilla trying to sail to Gaza to break Israel's blockade. Green Laser weaves together interviews and documentary footage with Hornet lore, Riverdance moves and rewritten clips from Exodus (featuring a shirtless Paul Newman) to explore questions of solidarity, civil disobedience, queer activism and the growing boycott movement.

Rex vs. Singh

Richard Fung, John Greyson

In 1915, two Sikh mill-workers, Dalip Singh and Naina Singh, were entrapped by undercover cops and accused of sodomy. Their story becomes a fascinating case study of Vancouver power relations: how police corruption, racism, homophobia, and a covert "whites-only" immigration policy, conspired to maintain the status quo of this colonial port city. Told in four parts, by three separate directors, the film is a hybrid of film forms including drama, documentary and musical.

The Making of Monsters

John Greyson

Christopher Anderson

Experimental musical based on a factual incident, the beating to death of a homosexual man in Toronto, 1985, by five teenagers.

After the Bath

John Greyson

John Greyson

Expose into how the news story of a kiddie porn bust was fabricated / sensationalized / distorted by police officials, journalists and social workers to create the specter of a "province-wide child pornography ring"

The Perils of Pedagogy

John Greyson

The relationship between gay people and mainstream values in society. During a production of a music video, actor and director are disturbed by cultural values and their own relationship.

Lilies - Les feluettes

John Greyson

Brent Carver, Marcel Sabourin

1952: Bishop Bilodeau visits a prison to hear the confession of Simon, a boyhood friend jailed for murder 40 years ago. However, once there, Bilodeau finds himself forced to watch a play put on by Simon and the other inmates depicting the two men's youths. As the play progresses, the tragic truth of Simon's crime comes to light.

Moscow Does Not Believe in Queers

John Greyson

Michael Balser, Colin Campbell

Documentary about the ten days the director spent in Moscow, during the 1986 Moscow Youth Festival, as kind of a gay delegate.

Fig Trees

John Greyson

Van Abrahams, Zackie Achmat

FIG TREES is a documentary opera about AIDS activists Tim McCaskell of Toronto and Zackie Achmat of Capetown as they fight for access to treatment drugs. Documentary interviews, speeches, press conferences and demonstrations are sampled, taken apart, and set to music, replayed this time as operatic scenes. A surreal fictional narrative is intercut with the stories of their struggles against government and the pharmaceutical industry. In this fictional world, Gertrude Stein decides to write a tragic opera about Tim and Zackie and their saint-like heroism. She kidnaps them, transports them to Niagara Falls, and forces them to sing a series of complicated avant-garde vocal compositions. However, when Zackie ends his treatment strike and starts taking his pills, Gertrude realizes that there will be no more tragedy, and thus, no more opera.

The Jungle Boy

John Greyson

An intertextual essay clashing gay porn, Mexican pop songs; imperialist fiction (Zoltan Korda’s 1942 Technicolor epic The Jungle Book), and Toronto landscapes. While a TV journalist examines the contradictory homoeroticism and imperialism of a Rudyard Kipling film adaptation, her husband undergoes his own coming-out narrative and confronts the politics and fantasy of washroom sex.

Masculinity/Femininity

Russell Sheaffer

Barbara Hammer, John Greyson

Masculinity/Femininity is an experimental film project interrogating normative notions of gender, sexuality and performance. Shot primarily on Super 8, the project merges academic and creative critique -- a document of gender de-construction rather than a documentary about gender construction.

International Dawn Chorus Day

John Greyson

Birds from six continents on a zoom call gossip about the deaths of Egyptian filmmaker Shady Habash and Egyptian queer activist Sarah Hegazi.

Pissoir

John Greyson

Paul Bettis, Pauline Carey

A mystery man brings together a group of dead, gay artists to investigate a police response to the dilema of wash-room sex in Toronto. The artists have seven days in which to report on the ethics of police tactics. The artists infiltrate the police only to discover that they themselves are under surveillance as a political subversive group. The artists explore and report on the evolution of toilets and wash-room behavior.

Proteus

Jack Lewis, John Greyson

Rouxnet Brown, Neil Sandilands

An exquisite period piece that skillfully explores the intersections of sex, race and politics takes place in 18th century South Africa, telling the passionate (true) story of two men caught in an unjust system rife with racism, homophobia and cruelty.

Zero Patience

John Greyson

John Robinson, Norman Fauteux

The ghost of "patient zero", who allegedly first brought AIDS to North America - materialises and tries to contact old friends. Meanwhile, the Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton, who drank from the Fountain of Youth and now works as Chief Taxidermist at the Toronto Natural history Museum, is trying to organise an exhibition about the disease for the museum's "Hall of Contagion".

The Law of Enclosures

John Greyson

Sarah Polley, Brendan Fletcher

Story of the same couple, first in their teenage years and then in their twilight years, paradoxically set in the same time during the backdrop of the Gulf War in the Middle East.