This Doc Talk featured a virtual Q&A with filmmaker Theo Cuthand to discuss his works Neurotransmitting, Medicine Bundle, Extractions, Woman Dress, Less Lethal Fetishes, Reclamation, 2-Spirit Dreamcatcher Dot Com, and Madness in Four Actions.
Since 1995 Theo Cuthand has been making short experimental narrative videos and films about sexuality, madness, Queer identity and love, and Indigeneity. In Neurotransmitting a mother and child talk about the child’s recent manic episode. Medicine Bundle explores colonial trauma and healing through found footage. Extractions traces parallels between natural resource extraction and the Canadian Indigenous child welfare system. In Woman Dress a Two-Spirit person travels the Plains. Less Lethal Fetishes wryly comments on tear gas controversies in the art world and Chemical Valley, Southern Ontario. Reclamation speculates upon Indigenous futurity in a post-apocalyptic world. 2-Spirit Dreamcatcher Dot Com queers and indigenizes traditional dating site advertisements. In Madness in Four Actions a fellow bipolar sufferer recontextualizes Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker.
Moderated by Lana Lin, Director of the Graduate Certificate in Documentary Media Studies. Co-produced with Documentary Program Associates Adriana de Lucio (Media Studies ’24) and Johann Yamin (Media Studies ’24).
Theo Cuthand was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Cuthand’s work has screened in festivals internationally, including the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC, Mix Brasil Festival of Sexual Diversity in Sao Paulo, ImagineNATIVE in Toronto, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Images in Toronto, Berlinale in Berlin, New York Film Festival, Outfest, and Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, and at galleries, including the Remai in Saskatoon, The National Gallery in Ottawa, the Whitney Museum of American Art and MoMA in New York, and The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. In 2020 he completed a 2D video game called A Bipolar Journey, and is finishing his second video game, Carmilla the Lonely, a lesbian vampire game about ethics. He has also written three feature screenplays. Cuthand is a trans man of Plains Cree and Scots descent, a member of Little Pine First Nation, currently residing in Toronto, Canada.
Presented by the Graduate Certificate in Documentary Media Studies at the School of Media Studies at the Schools of Public Engagement.
The New School Doc Studies 