Founder - gabriel canine
gabrielcanine@companionanimalproductions.com
Gabriel Canine (he/they/it) is a multifaceted filmmaker and artist with an agenda to change the mainstream representations of marginalized narratives and to disrupt the hierarchal system that exists within the film industry, to create accessible and authentically inclusive sets.
They create cross- genre projects that act as new fables, legends and mythologies for the twenty - first century. With stories that play with memory, love and loss - his work invites viewers to acknowledge the thin line between romance and grief, humanity and mortality, memory and reality, but ultimately serves as media that unwaveringly and unapologetically centres marginalised narratives and uplifts, provokes and engages audiences in a celluloid conversation that listens and mirrors as well as speaks.
His work is inspired by his own relationships with grief , companionship and spirituality and exists in fantastical versions of urban and sub - urban England as reimagined from his memory growing up in the working class south, a stone's throw from London. Grounded in a study of critical theory with a focus on multiple marginalisation - their work parallels the timelessness of fables and classical literature and the important space in which they sit, with an understanding of the way media controls mainstream narratives and ideologies.
His stories explore surrealist and fantastical landscapes with roots in a liminal, 2000s reality inspired by his own mixed heritage and complicated identity as a British filmmaker navigating an American heavy industry, and his father's identity as an Australian immigrant, inspiring stories of never-quite-home feelings that follow him as a dual citizen and nomad.
Using fiction as a form of collective liberation and a way of making sense of the world, his lifelong relationship with storytelling comes naturally and thrives in an environment where he is always learning.
Looking at memory through the windscreen of your parents’ car in the pouring rain , wriggling in your car seat in a warm itchy knitted jumper. Gabriel creates mythical spaces within which to meditate on the complexities of the universe.
Gabriel’s commitment to creating environments for marginalised people to thrive comes from his frustrations trying to navigate the world and the industry as a multiply marginalised person, finding only respite in his connections with others experiencing the same.
From this came an interest in art and media representation and storytelling as a form of collective liberation. Manifesting in his degree at the University for the Creative Arts in Film and Digital Art, achieving a 90% first class with honours grade for his dissertation “Queer Shadows, Trans Existence, Povos And Crips – An Anti-Assimilation Celluloid Education: An Essay On Representing Intersectional Identities In Fictional, Screen-Based Media”.
From here, he founded art and filmmaking collective BUNNYTEEF, welcoming Trans* and otherwise marginalised folks to have a space to uplift each other, share opportunities and collaborate.
Since then, Gabriel has worked on a number of projects across the film and art industries, continuing to uplift and highlight the talents of other Trans* and marginalised creatives who experience barriers that prevent them from thriving.
As he continues his work, Gabriel holds their ethical practice and application of critical theory at the centre of everything he does. This year he plans to film his long-awaited short film FOLD, and continue to work on his second speculative feature film script.