Queer Coolie-tudes
Director/Producer/Writer/Camera & Visual Design: Michelle Mohabeer
Creative Essay Documentary Canada, 2019 87 mins
SYNOPSIS:
Queer Coolie-tudes is a ground-breaking creative documentary which reclaims the slur of Coolie and visualizes the intergenerational lives, histories, identities, familial relations and sexualities of a diverse range of subjects (artists, academics, and activists) from the Queer Indo-Caribbean diaspora in Canada. “Instead of succumbing to pressures to find a shared narrative or common ground, the documentary is a powerful collection of testimonies which embraces the complexities of creole identities; dougla, mixed-race, genderqueer, gender, age and mobility are embraced in nuanced ways. Speaking to the limits of identity and the violence mainstream categorizations, Queer Coolie-tudes is a documentary that uses an evocative visual aesthetic to illustrate the importance of not accepting erasure. “ (Inside Out 2019 catalogue).
Cast of Performers: (in the order that they appear in the film)
- Michelle Mohabeer –filmmaker/academic/writer/photographer
- Amar Wahab –academic/writer
- Andil Gosine –academic /visual artist
- Mars -genderqueer youth/student
- Lindsey Addawoo –writer/filmmaker (dougla identity)
- Lezlie Lee Kam –activist (elder disabled/mixed-race identity)
- Anthony Mohamed –aids activist/advocacy work
- Ryan Persadie – drag performer/mixed race/graduate student
KEY CREW:
Director/Producer/Writer: Michelle Mohabeer
Visual Design & Additional Videography: Michelle Mohabeer
Videographer and Sound: Jonah Zapparoli
- Editor: Sabrina Budiman
- Composer: Donald Quan
- Jazz Composition: Sharron McLeod
Exhibition/Screening History: 2019-
-50th Visions du Reel Film Festival. Nyon, Switzerland April-July, 2019
Official Invitation to the Media Library for Industry professionals
-29th Inside Out LGBT Film Festival Toronto premier screening
May 30, 2019.
Short Synopsis
Queer Coolie-tudes is a creative essay which traces an eclectic queer ethnography and living archive of the Queer “Coolie” Indo-Caribbean Diasporic body in Canada; brown body, dougla (mixture of black and Indian), creole mixed-race (callaloo) identity, genderqueer, drag gender identity, disabled and older body.
Queer Coolie-tudes: a queer ethnography about the Indo-Caribbean diaspora in Canada. The colonial history of indentureship frames the intergenerational identities, familial relations and sexualities of a diverse range of subjects (academics, artists, and activists), who are mixed race, creole, genderqueer, disabled, aids activist, and a drag queen performer.
Queer Coolie-tudes: a queer ethnography about the Indo-Caribbean diaspora in Canada. The colonial history of indentureship frames the intergenerational identities and sexualities of a diverse range of subjects (academics, artists, activists), including mixed race, genderqueer, disabled, and fluid gender identity.
