Wrik Mead

Animated magazine cutouts of two men having sex lead into appropriated gay porn images, blurred to the point where they become abstract colour and motion. All this is set to pastoral sounds, sex noises, and a reporter's voice-over about the RCMP’s “fruit box” experiments - official and ludicrous attempts to expose closeted gay men.

How To Clean Your Closet combines glitched clips from adult films with sound bites from an old tape cassette with the same title. Cleaning your closet couldn't be more fun!

Naked male body meets crumbling brick wall... in an embrace?

A lonely lighthouse keeper rescues his fantasy: a frostbitten man on the rocks.

The curtains are drawn, a clown stands in the spotlight, the reception is dismal. Before s/he can even begin to perform, debilitating fear takes over. Both sad and humorous, this film explores how one can be manipulated by the depths of fear.

"Broken Relationship" moves through a kaleidoscope of colour and pixels to fragments of embraced bodies. Using glitched video footage from classic porn, the broken and distorted imagery speaks to the difficulty that the LBGTQ youth encounter when trying to navigate through their sexuality and relationships. Easy access to pornography means that many young people are learning these important life lessons through a distorted lens. This is especially true of the LGBTQ community where access to information is difficult to acquire from their family, teachers or even friends. The glitched video images mimic the broken messages that much of the porn industry communicates, certainly not the birds and the bee's stories that most youth grow up with.

Animated magazine cutouts of two men having sex lead into appropriated gay porn images, blurred to the point where they become abstract colour and motion. All this is set to pastoral sounds, sex noises, and a reporter's voice-over about the RCMP’s “fruit box” experiments - official and ludicrous attempts to expose closeted gay men.

How To Clean Your Closet combines glitched clips from adult films with sound bites from an old tape cassette with the same title. Cleaning your closet couldn't be more fun!

Naked male body meets crumbling brick wall... in an embrace?

A lonely lighthouse keeper rescues his fantasy: a frostbitten man on the rocks.

The curtains are drawn, a clown stands in the spotlight, the reception is dismal. Before s/he can even begin to perform, debilitating fear takes over. Both sad and humorous, this film explores how one can be manipulated by the depths of fear.

"Broken Relationship" moves through a kaleidoscope of colour and pixels to fragments of embraced bodies. Using glitched video footage from classic porn, the broken and distorted imagery speaks to the difficulty that the LBGTQ youth encounter when trying to navigate through their sexuality and relationships. Easy access to pornography means that many young people are learning these important life lessons through a distorted lens. This is especially true of the LGBTQ community where access to information is difficult to acquire from their family, teachers or even friends. The glitched video images mimic the broken messages that much of the porn industry communicates, certainly not the birds and the bee's stories that most youth grow up with.

This film is based on one year in the filmmaker's fractured life. Rotoscoped figures are layered with stills and live video footage to create an open narrative based on events in his life that took place in 1975. He was 13 and this was a pivotal year for him in many ways. He discovered the magic of animation and was hooked. He made his first animated film with his best friend, they locked themselves away for the whole summer to complete it. 1975 was also the year that he had his first sexual experience, with said best friend. It was a time of great excitement, confusion, fear and withdrawal.

This film is based on one year in the filmmaker's fractured life. Rotoscoped figures are layered with stills and live video footage to create an open narrative based on events in his life that took place in 1975. He was 13 and this was a pivotal year for him in many ways. He discovered the magic of animation and was hooked. He made his first animated film with his best friend, they locked themselves away for the whole summer to complete it. 1975 was also the year that he had his first sexual experience, with said best friend. It was a time of great excitement, confusion, fear and withdrawal.

"Hoolboom" is a film that Arts Toronto commissioned local filmmaker Wrik Mead to make based on his impressions of fellow filmmaker Mike Hoolboom. With some collaboration from Mike, Wrik has produced a film about the body, self-awareness, and the art of film.

"Hoolboom" is a film that Arts Toronto commissioned local filmmaker Wrik Mead to make based on his impressions of fellow filmmaker Mike Hoolboom. With some collaboration from Mike, Wrik has produced a film about the body, self-awareness, and the art of film.

A master drags out his slave and attempts to control him. Things go terribly wrong. Every touch of the slave produces a distortion that encompasses the master. Who exactly is the manipulator? The slave, the master, or the filmmaker?

In this quintessential 'coming out' film, a grinding rhythm leads us through a passage of closed doors, as a man struggles to break free from his literal and social confinement.

Through pixilation a male centerfold attempts to embellish his features only to take on more than he can handle.

Through pixilation a male centerfold attempts to embellish his features only to take on more than he can handle.

Based on real-life experiences, “camp” recounts the stories of homosexual survivors of the WWII concentration camps. A series of short, expressionistic vignettes weave together these horrific experiences. Part documentary, part drama, “camp” uses a variety of mediums to explore the emotional reality of those marked with the pink triangle.

An experimental film that merges Super 8 and 16mm formats to examine the presence of queer intimacy. At its center are two shirtless men, locked in an embrace, dancing — a quiet yet radical act. Overlaid with hand-inked 16mm film, their bodies become both seen and obscured, highlighted and erased. Through this layered process, Marked reflects on how queer love is shaped, celebrated, and scarred by the society that surrounds it.

An experimental film that merges Super 8 and 16mm formats to examine the presence of queer intimacy. At its center are two shirtless men, locked in an embrace, dancing — a quiet yet radical act. Overlaid with hand-inked 16mm film, their bodies become both seen and obscured, highlighted and erased. Through this layered process, Marked reflects on how queer love is shaped, celebrated, and scarred by the society that surrounds it.

An experimental film that merges Super 8 and 16mm formats to examine the presence of queer intimacy. At its center are two shirtless men, locked in an embrace, dancing — a quiet yet radical act. Overlaid with hand-inked 16mm film, their bodies become both seen and obscured, highlighted and erased. Through this layered process, Marked reflects on how queer love is shaped, celebrated, and scarred by the society that surrounds it.

Arising from the earth, a body discovers its nakedness. A suit of armour becomes a metaphor for the trappings of identity. Pixilated to produce the effect of a human marionette, accompanied by a good-natured verse.

"In '(ab)NORMAL' the relationship spectrum, from paranoid avoidance to smothering and overwhelming attention, is traced through four pixilated sketches." - Toronto International Film Festival

“Deviate” is a short Super 8 film made specifically for the Memorial Project. While friends of Dan Moyen, who died of AIDS in 1990, talk about him, the viewer sees old footage of Dan expressing his feelings on the matter.

When you wake up and you have so much to do that you just want to go back to bed. The illusion created by shooting the entire film in reverse emphasizes the entire cycle of life.

Fear meets gay desire against an audio background of sitcom homophobia and jarring personal testimonies. Textured layers of figures, rotoscoped and real, move in and out of difficult scenarios, resolving into knowing acceptance.

Mixing fact and fiction, this film tells the story of Dr. F.R. Wake and his bizarre creation, which became known as "the fruit machine." In the 1960s, Wake was hired by the Canadian government to devise a series of tests that would expose homosexuals working in the civil service. This modern retelling reveals that Wake may have had a few secrets of his own.

The political emotions of the butcher shop are discussed within the codes of Catholicism. Purging Catholic guilt, sins of the flesh, and flesh eating. The confessions of a butcher gone astray. An ambiguous layering of images, one is not sure whether the confessor is human or a pig, or if the priest is a butcher.

A devil makes a violent attempt to change himself into a heavenly creature. His evil process backfires when he is confronted with the creatures from within.

The housecall in "Filth" doesn’t go quite as planned when a simple cleaning job becomes a nightmare. A pixilated tale which combines both the action in the film and the action on the film.

A short film that touches on sexual orientation, homophobia and acceptance. An animated figure swings at the viewer while a robotic voice whispers so that no one around him can hear. Slowly descending into self-doubt, he questions his choices and what he has become.

Two male blow-up dolls become puppets in this short. Not only is one of the men out of air, but both of them are tragically out of synch with one another.

Cupid gets beaten at his own game.

Tender memories of a first gay embrace, of shock and exhilaration and disavowal animated against the waves of a deep blue lake.

An experimental film that fuses analog and digital techniques and reflects on the artist's life through the 1980s.—a time of rebellion, discovery, and loss. Blending Super 8 and 16mm film, digital animation and personal reflection, the film drifts from the raw urgency of punk rock to the glittering pulse of gay discos. Bookended by the deaths of his two closest friends, it’s a haunting and poetic elegy to a transformative era, where identity and community thrived amidst the shadows.

Toybox combines creepiness and playfulness in a series of animations that manipulate the most misused toy of all - the penis. Stripped of eros and emotion, The scenarios of sex-gone-mad play with the absurd qualities of an appendage and a desire that has a mind of its own, and a drive so strong that it leads to self-destruction.

Toybox combines creepiness and playfulness in a series of animations that manipulate the most misused toy of all - the penis. Stripped of eros and emotion, The scenarios of sex-gone-mad play with the absurd qualities of an appendage and a desire that has a mind of its own, and a drive so strong that it leads to self-destruction.

Beware takes sound bites from the 1961 anti-homosexual propaganda film Boys Beware and flips it on its head. The hacked-up narration serves as the voice-over to a barrage of glitched intimacies, making the homosexual monster more fun than frightening.

A short film that looks at the global push back on the civil liberties of the LGBTQ community. A kaleidoscope of anti-gay protests, captured and posted on the internet almost always erupt into violence. From the chaos comes hope, the lasting message of the film and the pursuit for a better future.

Two animated male figures are drawn together and pulled away until they fall into a pit of protesters. Then, a frightened look quickly disappears into the darkness. OUT is a one minute film that touches on the rising fear of being out during a global climate of growing hatred and pushback against LBGTQ rights and freedoms.

Homebelly combines waking dreams with unsettling fragments of this and that. An icy soundscape is set to a live-action animated drama featuring a sleeping body and a persistant rock.

Making use of a dizzying array of anti-gay protest footage captured and posted on the internet, Mead’s protagonist bears witness to the fractures, shifts and resistances that have brought us to this time in LGBTQ history.

Utilizing human pixillation, Isabelle's demand to nurture conjures a variety of sensations... perverse, kitsch, sweet witch voodoo?