Doors Open: What a Buzz Kill!

The 401 Commons Film Curation

The Commons @ 401, 401 Richmond Street West (4th floor)
Free Admission
All Ages

One weekend a year, dozens of sites open their doors for Doors Open Toronto, a city-wide celebration recognized as one of Toronto’s most culturally significant events. The City of Toronto is excited to work with the community to showcase their sites to residents and visitors.

FADO, imagineNATIVE, Reel Asian, SAVAC, and Vtape, collectively known as The Commons @ 401, are pleased to present the film curation What a Buzz Kill! for this year’s city-wide Doors Open event reflecting on the prompt “the world in a city”. We invite drop-in visitors into the Bachir Yerex Presentation Space to view a rotation of short films hand-picked by leading curators, Kelly Lui and Kaitlynn Tomaselli.

Who and what can exist within the city? Through the comings and goings of these five short films, we encounter anxieties, loss, and disconnection in a constantly changing world. In searching for strategies to find belonging, we find guidance from the interconnectedness between the nonhuman and human complexities.  How can we disregard the street-level buzz and listen more closely and intimately to the world around us?

What a Buzz Kill! Program

Naja (Little Sister)
Director: Marc Fussing Rosbach
Greenland | 2021 | 5 min | No Dialogue | Animation Short

Naja (Little sister) is a fantasy short film that tells a young girls death and her journey through shock and grief.

Inuk filmmaker Marc Fussing Rosbach is the founder of Furos Image and an award-winning director, editor, and visual effects artist. His filmography includes the short documentary IMAJUIK, Civilized (Witness 2024), Lessons from Our Grandfather, VFX work on Inngili Qernertoq, and multiple international short-film collaborations. Marc’s work has earned recognition including Innersuaq (2017) and A New Voice in Storytelling (2020). His artistic approach blends emotional storytelling with bold visual craft.

Honey For Sale
Director: Amanda Strong
Canada | 2009 | 7 min | English | Documentary Short

Honey For Sale is a poetic approach to the fragility of the disappearing honey bees. Director Amanda Strong reflects, drawing the parallel to her own vulnerabilities connecting a vital ecological species to our existence.

Amanda Strong is a Canadian Screen Award and Emmy-nominated director, artist, stop motion storyteller, and has served as a media-based artist for nearly 20 years. She is Michif/Red River Métis and is a member of the MMF (Manitoba Métis Federation). Strong is the owner, producer and director of the Vancouver-based animation studio Spotted Fawn Productions Inc., where they create stop motion animations, books, installations and explore digital technologies that complement the handmade art of stop motion. She is also a director at Atomic Cartoons, where she is the current director of Emmy-nominated 2D animated TV series, Molly of Denali on PBS.

RAT+CAMMIE=FOREVER
Director: Marissa Sean Cruz
Canada | 2025 | 12 min | English | Narrative Short

Cammie, a personified webcam that dreams of becoming a livestreamer, and Rat, an introverted rodent girl, are brought together on the digital self-help app, BetterHell. So unfolds this love story of two unlikely beings united by their fears of unrealized dreams and alienation.

Marissa Sean Cruz is a digital multimedia and video performance artist from Kjipuktuk (so-called Halifax). Cruz’s topics of interest are related to labour, power and surveillance as seen through digital platforms and pop culture. Their experimental videos comprise found footage, 3D modelling, sound design and costumed performances to look at value systems with critical sensibility. These satirical works aim to capture a fast-paced contemporary present and envision possible, liberatory futures.

Don’t Take My Joy Away
Director: Omar Gabriel
Lebanon | 2024 | 7 min | Arabic with English subtitles | Short

Set in Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, two friends revel in the small joys of life until violence suddenly disrupts their world. Forced to flee, they embark on a dangerous journey of survival, confronting fear, chaos, and the stark realities around them. Along the way, they must choose between remaining in the shadows or seeking the light.

Omar Gabriel is a Lebanese photographer and filmmaker. His work captures the beauty and complexity of human relationships, from the subtleties of love and societal pressures to the courage of breaking free from convention. Through his lens, he highlights the voices of marginalized communities, bringing their stories to the forefront and capturing their beauty and humanity. With a focus on intimate moments, he tells stories of resistance, defiance, and escape from societal pressures.

Dickie Beau’s OLDEN LOBES Speech
Director: Dickie Beau
UK | 2017 | 5 min | English | Performance Short

Dickie Beau’s acceptance speech for the Frank Byron, Jr. Award honouring his ambiguous contribution to something unexplained at the 2017 OLDEN LOBES.

A versatile actor and artist, Dickie Beau has worked as an actor in diverse contexts, from Shakespeare to pantomime to experimental physical theatre, and has played leading roles on major stages, including London’s National Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, New York’s Public Theatre, and Salzburg Festival. Most recently, he played Oscar Wilde opposite Sir Simon Russell Beale as A.E. Housman in Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love at Hampstead Theatre.