Performed by Val Cole

Get to know the writer:

1. What is your short story about?

A female teenager's blossoming sexuality in the hood.

2. What genre(s) would you say this story is in?
Young Adult Drama

3. How would you describe this story in two words?

Urban Sexuality.

4. What movie ha...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Pain and grief,
Sadness and sorrow
Will I have the strength to make the morrow?

I fear my loss
Will forever emboss.
Can I shed this pain, no matter the cost?

Rage and anger
Are no stranger,
Especially towards the one born in the manger.

You watch your world burn
...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

The sky opens,
raindrops fall,
and sunlight breaks the clouds,
casting its glow
throughout my backyard.

An event, as if tailored for me—
a dance of water and light.
The universe is communicating
through the space between.

I am in tune with the
presence of somethin...

An inexperienced team of thieves attempts a heist only to be double-crossed by one of their own.

Performed by Val Cole

After a brutal assault by his classmates, a bullied and marginalized gay indigenous adolescent in Ecuador embarks on a spiritual journey where he discovers his inner warrior-shaman.

Performed by Val Cole

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

When my final day comes,
And it’s my turn to go,
When to the pain you’ll succumb,
Remember that I’ve loved you so.
Don’t fret, my dear,
For I have lived a happy life,
It’s all alright, my love,
It’s all alright.
Don’t bury me into the ground,
As I don’t want to rot,...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

When I die, I’m coming back to haunt the shit out of everyone who ever screwed me over in this lifetime.And I will be immune to your puny exorcisms. And if you’re on my afterlife shit list and you happen to get yourself dead before me, don’t consider yourself off th...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

I smoke to take the pain away
Hoping for better days
That I don’t have to stress
And just be blessed
What God blew my way

I run to take the pain away
Running just clears my brain away
Away of any negative thoughts
That I may have running through my mind at the time...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

1
The cello stands in silence, holding
Its breath.
In one baton flick,
everything changes.

2
In music, rests and notes possess equal power –
Practice both. You’ll discover
life’s balance.

3
Framed family photos hang,
smiles obscuring the fights before the
CLICK
No...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

I turned fifty this year
Which made me reflect
That at best I have twenty
Good years left before
My life is basically over
As seventy is pushing it
For a man these days
This of course assumes
I don’t get hit by a bus tomorrow
Or even later today
Or have a heart atta...

https://youtu.be/0LufixXAwoA

POEM:

Summer arrives
in a dazzle
of pink blooms.

The gardener admires
my petals with his fingers.
Reach for the sky!

Seasons pass. Rivers slow. The gardener comes in shadow — a small flask
of rain.

A brutal cutting!
Tendrils reach out for him, asking
“Why?” as th...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

I am a lost soul,
Blighted, bruised,
Condemned to wait
For what will never come.

But still, I am not idle;
I drift, aimless, through desolation—
A desert, cold and cracked,
A barren land devoid of life.

Here, hope is an illusion.
Time—wasted and worn,
A currency t...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

My body isn’t a protest.
It’s a betrayal.

I’ve been trapped in here for years,
buried inside a harp seal,
wide-eyed with hakapiks overhead.
It was silent when I wanted to scream.
It froze when I wanted to fight.
It stayed when I should have fled.
My body isn’t a pr...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

T’was my last caper, a risky but weighty score:
Safe dial whirred, door popped at speed,
No chance to focus, time to take a shot,
In n’ out in minutes, so why’d I get caught?

Cops cuff’d me, then questioned me, but I didn’t break,
The files stashed, they couldn’t c...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

She climbed to the top of the mountain
In her ascent
She failed to see
Red roses blooming, so fair, so sweet
Grass green growing there
Purple lilacs, stalks so bright
Pink glowing sky
Turning white clouds red by and by
Blue fading into black
Her steps show her track...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

professor says,
“picasso had a blue period, which was later followed by a rose period.
people tend to associate the blue period with melancholic sentiments.
& the rose period, with its opposite.”
but professor, i sense lingering melancholy
in his rose period, too.

...

Performed by Val Cole

Get to know the writer:

1. What is your short story about?
An unnamed and unidentified narrator talks to a young man about the Dump Lands, where they work as a shoveler. "The Big Guys" eat what they like, they dump it without care, and leave the mess to be cleaned up by t...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

“I’m so fucking broke it’s absurd,” Floyd noticed the tear inside his jacket pocket. There are miserable times and there are the best of miserable times. Weeks had gone by and his dog Sue had been eating from the hand that fed him, trolling along on a loose rope. An...

Performed by Val Cole

Get to know the writer:

1. What is your short story about?

How political discourse has gotten in the way of relationships and how to cope with this through love and compromise.

2. What genres would you say this story is in?

Political.

3. How would you describe this s...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Capri is framed by the east window,
Mount Vesuvius centers in the west. Chandeliers
suspend high, trapeze artists erupting their crystal
blooms to guide a Mardi Gras of painted clay and gesso
far below ceiling

vaults. Do you recall sunset velvet splayed across marb...

Type of Story: Historical Fiction

Two children, who are forced to deal with the start of World War II and its struggles and loss of life consistency, seek a finer meaning of life and how to continue love. Despite both these sudden massive changes, they eventually recognize their mother's dete...

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

The horses of Gaza—the stallions, colts, mares
the donkeys too—and mules, and jennies
who once tugged the people
on their carts, across the streets and intersections
for twenty centuries and maybe thirty,
now they scramble, the neighs, the braying,
the gallop in dru...

See the full lineup of films:

HELLBOUND FUGITIVE, 5min., USA
Directed by Christopher Patrick Vallone
In a desperate bid for freedom, a convict seeks refuge in a decaying fortress within the mountains. He inadvertently enters a nightmarish arena where ancient demons punish the wicked, and surviv...

Question & Answer session after festival screening with filmmakers from the January 2025 Documentary Festival at the Carlton Cinemas, in downtown Toronto, Canada.

Filmmakers on stage:

Data – The New Oil
Director Spencer Maurice

WHAT MAKES AN ARTIST?
DIrector Raafat Abou Daka