Aerlyn Weissman

Aerlyn Weissman (born 1947 in Chicago, Illinois) is a two-time Genie Award-winning Canadian documentary filmmaker and political activist on behalf of the lesbian community.

Career Weissman trained in sound recording in the United States before coming to Canada in 1970, and worked as a sound designer at the National Film Board of Canada - one of very few women in that role. She worked on Janis Cole and Holly Dale’s P4W: Prison for Women (1981), and Hookers on Davie (1984). and the 2002 film Little Sister's vs. Big Brother, about the longstanding censorship battle between Canada Customs and Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium, a prominent LGBT bookstore in Vancouver. She was one of the co-directors, alongside Louise Clark, Jackie Burroughs, John Walker and John Frizzell, of the landmark Canadian feminist feature film A Winter Tan (1987), the controversial semi-fictional account of Maryse Holder's sex odyssey to Mexico. Weissman has studied at the Centre for Digital Media and taught at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Currently, she mentors at the Gulf Islands Film and Television School on Galiano Island, British Columbia. She has also participated in many panels and academic symposiums about filmmaking, and offers workshops at VIVO, a Vancouver Media Arts Centre. She is a member of the Canadian Independent Film Caucus, and Vancouver Women in Film and Television, and received the award for Woman of the Year in 1996. Now living on the West Coast of British Columbia, she continues to explore her interest in independent cinema and innovative television. creating a template for heritage tourism in BC with The Saturna Project, and sustainable strategies for the fishing industry with the UBC Fisheries Project.

Weissman's documentary Little Sister's vs. Big Brother was included in the NFB's 2003 queer pedagogical package.

She is interviewed in Matthew Hays' 2007 Lambda Literary Award-winning book The View from Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers.

Themes Aerlyn Weissman's work has covered topics ranging from forensic archaeology, digital technologies, censorship, and social software. She is also interested in politics and aesthetics of urban space, locative art/mapping, public rituals, and peace building.

Her work is deeply engaged with Canadian women's, sexual, and lesbian history. She has remarked that Studio D films often ignored the Canadian context and wanted to take on the “politics of specificity”.

Personal life Aerlyn Weissman was born in Chicago and moved to Canada in 1970. She received the Vancouver Women in Film and Television award for Woman of the Year in 1996. She was awarded the Mayor's Arts Award for Film and New Media in 2009 by the City of Vancouver. She received an honourable mention in 2008 for her film Crossing at the Webby Awards. For her film Webcam Girls has a HotDocs Selection.

Filmography

Director A Winter Tan, 1987 Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives, 1992 Fiction and Other Truths: A Film About Jane Rule, 1995 Scams, Schemes, and Scoundrels, 2002 Little Sister's vs. Big Brother, 2002 KinK, 2002-2003 Lost Secrets of Ancient Medicine: The Journey of the Blue Buddha, 2006 Lost Secrets of Ancient Medicine: The Blue Buddha in Russia, 2006 The Portside, 2009 Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride, 2009

Sound My Friends Call Me Tony, 1975 Tree Power, 1979 A Wives' Tale (Une histoire de femmes), 1980 The Breakthrough, 1981 The KGB Connections, 1982 Portrait of the Artist... as an Old Lady, 1982 Body by Garret, 1982 Hookers on Davie, 1984 Inner Rhythm 1986 Blue Snake, 1986 No Way! Not Me, 1987 Eternal Earth, 1987 Artist on Fire, 1987 Calling the Shots, 1988 Strand: Under the Dark Cloth, 1989 Meeting Place, 1990 Distress Signals, 1990 John Wyre: Drawing on Sound, 1991