Both, Instrument and Sound

In this intimate portrait of queer life and intergenerational friendship, 80-year-old Tony describes his political activism since the 1970s, after moving from Calcutta, India to Toronto, Canada. Translated through sonic and filmic experiments, his stories and observations express the tensions inherent in solidarity and collectivity under neoliberalism.

The film’s score, co-written with musicians and the film’s cast and crew, remixes and meditates on the concept of tension, and its manifestations in sex, identity, music, touch and political struggle.

In the face of a growing politics and language of individualism, the film interrogates discourses and practices of solidarity and their enmeshment with friendship and love. Fragments of phone calls, conversations over shared meals, and tender moments captured on 16mm film portray the complexity of building community, and the hazards of reducing shared experiences of oppression to individual expressions of identity.