Welcome to the 2023 Society for Visual Anthropology Film & Media Festival in Toronto! We are excited to present 53 films in 16 thematic blocks over the four days of the festival, representing the best of ethnographic film and media this year. Many of the films were produced during or just after the height of the pandemic, and there is a sense of a discipline in transition—from the confinements of lockdown to the openness of collaboration and co-creation, from the constraints of disciplinary conventions to the freedom of performance and artistic exploration. As a testament to the emerging ethic of co-creation, an unprecedented 28 filmmakers and film participants will be present at the festival. If you will be at the AAA meeting in Toronto, we hope you will join us in celebrating their achievements by attending the screenings and participating in the conversations.

On Wednesday, the festival opens with the screening block "First Nations." The block includes an animated short film about the impact of polar bear management policies on Inuit communities and two feature films on the resurgence of indigenous cultural practices in Canada. On Wednesday evening, the block "Places in Transition" presents a diverse range of short films about the cultural production of place, including the film that was awarded honorable mention for Best Short, Addresses (Direcciones), about the absence of street addresses in Costa Rica.

Thursday begins with "Ability and Disability." The screening block includes the film Destiny, which was awarded honorable mention for Best Feature. The day continues with the blocks. "Co-Created," "The Past in the Present," and "Anthropologists at Work." Smile4Kime, which received honorable mention for the Jean Rouch Award, plays in "Co-Created." Filmmakers and participants will be present at the screenings of both Above and Below the Ground (in "Co-Created") and Ichi: Marks in Time (in "Anthropologists at Work").

On Friday, the program includes the blocks "Pilgrimage, Ritual, and Religion," "The Biopolitics of Sport," "Ethnofictions," and "Forests in Transition" and an invited screening of Making Sweet Tea, directed by John L. Jackson, Jr. and Nora Gross. The winner of the Jean Rouch Award, La Tumba Mambi, plays in "Ethnofictions," and the winner of the Best Student Film award, The Memory of Glitch, screens in "Forests in Transition." On Friday evening, John L. Jackson, Jr. will be present to discuss Making Sweet Tea, which chronicles the journey of a southern-born, black gay researcher and performer as he travels home to come to terms with his past and to reconnect with six black gay men he interviewed for the book Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South—An Oral History.

Saturday's program includes the blocks "Ecologies in Transition," "Memento Mori," "Folktales for the Future," "Art in Action," and "Kinship and Marriage in Transition." Among the films are Toang (in "Ecologies in Transition"), which was awarded honorable mention for Best Student Film; Co-Husband (in "Kinship and Marriage in Transition"), winner for Best Short Film; and Sama in the Forest (in "Folktales for the Future"), winner of the Best Feature award, the highest honor in the festival. The film explores the subversive role of women’s folktales in a patriarchal society in Madhubani, Bihar, India. In creative collaboration with local community members, the film highlights the tale of Sama, a princess who wanders into the forest and befriends a young man, only to be slandered by a muckraking confidante of the king, who is also Lord Krishna, and subsequently cursed and banished by her father.