According to the CBC, 130 Palestinian students admitted to Canadian universities cannot enter Canada due to related administrative barriers. Empty Seats includes written testimonies from four out of five Palestinian scholars admitted to McGill but are currently in bureaucratic limbo, unable to enter Canada; as well as testimonies from McGill faculty members and students expressing solidarity with these Palestinian students. It also includes concrete calls to action.

The project was kickstarted by an article written by Calame and Delafoulhouse in October 2025. The piece, which included interviews with McGill’s Palestinian scholars and members of the Palestinian Scholars and Students At Risk (PSSAR) organization, highlighted the bureaucratic barriers that keep admitted Palestinian scholars from attending on-site school in Montreal. The PSSAR identifies Palestinian scholars and connects them to academic opportunities in Canada. Upon the article’s publication, Associate Professor of Anthropology Diana Allan, who is also the acting faculty liaison for PSSAR at McGill, proposed broadening the project scope to better uncover and uplift these students’ circumstances in hopes of changing them. Subsequently, Professor Allan hosted a zine-making workshop in collaboration with media-maker and activist Stefan Christoff as an extra-credit opportunity for her classes, with interested students encouraged to participate in the zine’s creation. Thus, Empty Seats was born.

The zine format, commonly used for social justice, welcomes academic writing while also centering other valuable sources of knowledge like testimonies, interviews, and artworks. It is also remarkably collaborative and approachable, which was imperative for engaging students regardless of their background and experience in organizing and activism. 

“It was a very McGill student-centred project,” says Louise Deroi, one of Empty Seats’ student organizers, in correspondence with The McGill Daily. Voluntary testimonies were collected from McGill students via a Google Form disseminated via social media and word of mouth, with respondents ranging across year groups and faculties. “A common theme expressed in the [student] testimonies was the disillusionment of and anger at attending a university that doesn’t do more for these students who, despite having submitted an excellent application and having been admitted, have the world pitted against them, which prevents them from being here. Putting the testimonies of the Palestinian scholars and other students and activists side by side shows the [Palestinian] students that they’re not alone; that there’s a community backing them up that desperately wants them to make it and is willing to mobilize for that.” 

At the zine launch, the team screened video testimonies by Palestinian scholars Shereen and Majd (last names not given), who were respectively admitted to McGill’s Master’s programs in Neuroscience and Computer Science but remain in Gaza due to multiple barriers preventing them from receiving their visas. Biometrics, a key component of the Canadian visa application, cannot be obtained in Gaza, meaning that individuals seeking them must travel through the Rafah crossing to neighbouring West Bank or Egyptian territories to do so. However, the Rafah crossing has been closed since May 2024, making it extremely difficult for these students to fulfill the necessary steps for their visa application without external intervention.

However, in the last few years, nations like France, the United Kingdom and Ireland have enabled Palestinian students to complete their visa processes through various means, from evacuating them to neighbouring countries like Jordan to creating streamlined bureaucratic pathways. Historically, Canada has also proved itself flexible by making concessions for individuals in extenuating circumstances during the visa application process. For instance, applications for the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) visa, temporary emergency visas which were issued to families and individuals fleeing Ukraine, waived the requirement of medical examinations and COVID-19 vaccinations. 

At the institutional level, McGill belongs to lobbying bodies like U15 with mandates that encourage international talent and scholarship to drive Canada’s innovation. Moreover, McGill, registered as an active in-house lobbyist in Ottawa, meets regularly with Canadian government officials to discuss a host of notable issues including immigration. “It’s hard to access the content of these meetings, but we want to make sure that McGill is using all of its political power to make sure these students make it [to Canada],” states Deroi.

The zine’s launch hopes to spark a larger national movement to bring Palestinian scholars to Canada by pressuring the IRCC to expedite their VISA processes. “This is a Canadian issue, and is much bigger than McGill,” affirms Deroi. “Eventually, it would be amazing if other universities wanted to replicate the zine format and the project.” 

McGill students can follow the Critical Media Lab to receive updates about the Empty Seats project and other follow-up events currently in the works. In addition to staying informed about Empty Seats, Deroi encourages students to get involved in the other various forms of on-campus activism pertaining to the Palestinian genocide. “Seeing these issues as interconnected and knowing that there are many different approaches to activism in support of Palestinians is very important.”

Copies of Empty Seats can be found at Cinema Politica. Any further inquiries can be directed to mcgillemptyseats@gmail.com.

The post Taking Attendance for Empty Seats appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Founded in 2019, the journal published in the spring of that year before taking a hiatus from 2021 to 2024 due to pandemic constraints. However, in the spring of 2025, it was revived with the theme “Beyond The Single Story: Africa’s Diaspora and Diverse Realities.” The 2025 edition includes a gallery-esque exhibition complete with readings of poetry, artworks, and authentic Ghanaian food. This year’s edition of the journal will centre around the theme “Afrofuturism: Envisioning The Futures We Create.”

For our Black History Month issue, The McGill Daily spoke with ASSA President Zahra Hassan Doualeh, ASSA VP Academic Henry Maidoh, and ASSA VP External and UHURU Editor-in-Chief Shanna Coulanges. We discussed UHURU’s role in shifting the needle on African narratives, and their greater hopes for the journal as part of a larger vision of Afrofuturism.

This interview has been edited for conciseness and clarity.

Isabelle Lim for The McGill Daily (MD): Tell me about ASSA and the work you do as an academic student organization.

Henry Maidoh (HM): We are an undergraduate association aiming to elevate the African Studies program and department. We foster connectivity between African Studies students and their professors, and raise general student body awareness of the program and its various curricular and extra-curricular opportunities.

Zahra Hassan Doualeh (ZHD): As members, we sit on committees with the African Studies faculty that inform the faculty members and the administration how the program can be improved and what students want to see more of. That is what we do more on the academic level.

MD: McGill is one of the few universities in Canada with a unique African Studies program. How do you think the African Studies option is valuable, and how do you think current programming could be diversified or improved?

ZHD: I think McGill has this specific advantage of being an English institution in a majority French-speaking province. That linguistic aspect puts it in a very advantageous position, considering that a lot of the African population of Montreal is from North Africa; while a lot of African scholarship focuses on sub-Saharan Africa, which is mostly English-speaking. McGill is informed by both languages as it has bilingual scholars and faculty members with experience in different parts of Africa. Uniting these two creates something that’s never been done before, which is where our strength lies.

Afrofuturism is not just about innovation, technology, and startups. It is also about looking inwards. It’s about historical imagination, and Pan-Africanism is a big part of that. We are a collective. There would never be us without each and every single one of us, you know? That’s why I think the work being done at McGill is unlike any other institution.

HM: In general, we want to give students the ability to engage with African literature and elevate their own experiences with African realities not only localized to the continent, but also pertaining to the African diaspora and relevant global communities. While a lot of the content in the African Studies program is very valuable, I don’t feel like it’s as forward-thinking as it could be. While you can’t know the future without knowing the history, I still believe having more courses centred on the now and the future [would be valuable] for youths to apply that knowledge to the present. The future is Africa, after all.

MD: The theme for UHURU’s 2026 edition is “Afrofuturism: Envisioning the Futures We Create.” What was the thought process behind the theme? Compared to last year’s, which focused on individual narratives, how did you choose to widen the scope from the narrative to the collective?

Shanna Coulanges (SC): I’m especially drawn to the second part of the title: Envisioning the Futures We Create. It carries a deeply mobilizing force, one that calls on all of us to imagine and actively build [into being] what has yet to come. Too often, Africa has been framed through narratives of reduction and constraint, as we explored last year. This year, we open a new conversation, one without limits or restraint. Ultimately, we hope this issue stands as a testament to ambition, boldness, and creativity, an invitation to learn, explore, and give form to futures not yet uncovered.

ZHD: When you look at the themes, they’re sort of a continuation of one another. We started by going against reductive narratives. Now, Afrofuturism is about showing [our] potential and everything that is being done. If you perceive it that way, it is like a timeline. So who knows what next year’s [theme] is going to be?

MD: UHURU uniquely welcomes both research and creative submissions. What narratives do you hope to uplift with this approach?

HM: Well, with a name like UHURU, who do we leave out of freedom?

ZHD: Accepting artworks is part of decolonizing scholarship. There are many kinds of expertise, and many ways of sharing that. A lot of our stories cannot simply be told through the rigid framework of a scholarly article.

SC: It’s about transcending the frontiers of communicating a powerful message. UHURU has, in my opinion, a dual mandate: to provide a space for Afro-descendant voices to be heard, but more importantly, to narrate plural & unapologetic experiences of Africa & Africans. Allowing for creative submissions is not motivated by a simple whim to add colour, but by the desire to provide a new layer of depth, understanding, and ways of perceiving the reality of the African continent.

MD: This year, UHURU is collaborating with other Black and African organizations as part of the journal’s outreach. Tell me more about those collaborations as well as how those tie into your aforementioned mission of elevating Pan-African experiences.

HM: We’re building a lot of partnerships at the moment. We have one with Sayaspora, which works on giving more African women and girls opportunities, which really coincides with UHURU’s project. We’ve also been able to get involved with the Black Law Students’ Association (BLSA) and the IDSSA’s Candid conversations podcast [interviewer’s note: episode still pending] to speak on behalf of UHURU. Notably, the McGill marketing team contacted us for an article, which appeared on their newsletter, which is sent out to everyone, and on their news page. That was huge.

There’s more to come, for sure. I love the fact that we’re able to engage with multiple like-minded organisations and groups to show that it’s possible to start an initiative that’s focused on Black and African students.

MD: In this sense, do you think that UHURU has transcended its status as a student journal to encompass something larger?

HM: For sure. The journal was a foundation for bringing more awareness to African Studies. In doing so, though, we’ve also been able to create a movement by mobilizing a bunch of people — even outside of the country, let alone just [at] McGill. But there’s still a long way to go, so I wouldn’t say we’re a fully-furnished movement just yet.

ZHD: I mean, I see it as a collective. From the get go, we didn’t want to limit the scope of this journal to simply the African Studies program, because we would have been limiting the impact that we could have. The goal is to create a community that is greater than just the couple of students who produce this journal. Bringing in Sayaspora is a huge thing because it’s well-known within the Black community in Montreal, but it isn’t just limited to Montreal. Frankly, the idea of the collective is so art-based as well, which also makes it more inclusive.

MD: All this: to what effect?

HM: To show that African Studies isn’t just for Africans, it’s for everyone. And that being knowledgeable about it isn’t and shouldn’t be disproportionately attributed to one group of people.

MD: Finally, what does Afrofuturism look like to you in your own life?

HM: Agency.

SC: Afrofuturism to me looks like agency in all its forms and shape. Reclaiming power in spaces where Africa had been treated as passive rather than [the] holder of its own destiny.

ZHD: Once, a journalist asked Senegalese cinematographer Ousmane Sembène, who made films for Africans about Africans, how he felt about how his films were perceived in France, and he said, “Europe is not my centre.” I grew up in a family that never saw the West as the centre, so coming in [to McGill] and meeting people who thought differently was quite a shock. So for me, Afrofuturism gives some people a peek into what my life has been like. Africa has always been my centre.

UHURU Journal’s fifth edition “Afrofuturism: Envisioning The Futures We Create” is accepting academic submissions until February 23, 2026, and creative submissions until March 1, 2026, for launch in April 2026.

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I never thought I would get on the apps, more specifically Hinge. However, seeing an Instagram post about “dating as an anthropological study” during a reading week trip to a city where I knew nobody and nobody knew me made for a little too irresistible of an opportunity. A moment, or a month, of weakness? Probably. But here is the truth: tell the Culture Editor to approach a situation with anthropological curiosity, and you’ve got yourself a perfect storm. 

I won’t bore you with too many details of my time on Hinge, which I deleted after just a couple of weeks. All things considered, the experience was ripe with personal insights. I could go into so many things: the astounding number of men in my DMs proclaiming their adoration for anime and/or K-Pop (I am Chinese-Vietnamese) or the humbling experience of swiping on people to have them not swipe on you, resulting in an ego death by a thousand cuts. All of these are meaningful, and maybe I’ll write about those another time. 

The main point of this piece, however, is the viscerally dehumanizing experience of being on a dating app.

At some point, swiping becomes mindless. You might start out looking through someone’s  entire  profile, pictures and prompts and all, then coming to as holistic of a yes/no as you can given the limited information you have about this person. Hundreds of profiles later, though, you’ve seen enough. Just the first photo, maybe the second, suffices to make a decision. It even becomes a game: my roommate called it “playing Hinge.” We’d sit together, gazes fixed on my phone screen, and swipe through tens of people at a time. It was quite hilarious how our reactions started to sync: “nope”, “next”, “hmm”, “not bad”, “maybe” and only the exceptional  yes, like seeing a unicorn on McTavish. 

Realizing the ridiculousness of this cycle was kickstarted by an experience many dating app users will know too well: chancing upon the Hinge profiles of people I recognized from real life. I found my neighbours, a friend of a friend’s ex, familiar faces from the gym and my walks to and from classes. I stumbled upon the guy I had made out with at Frosh in first year, and the freshman I had turned down at the club a few weeks prior. The sheer dissonance between the persona on their profiles and the people I knew them as was so bizarre. I pushed that strange feeling aside. Maybe it wasn’t that deep. I kept swiping. 

The incongruence between the way people presented themselves online versus in person slowly began to solidify. I realized that somewhere within 20 kilometers of me, likely at that very moment, someone was probably swiping on me. They were also probably forgetting the few details they had learned about me in that very same second, my face blurring into just one of thousands in a continuous, unfeeling swipe. I couldn’t even blame them: I was doing the exact same thing. Each of us equally the perpetrators and victims of our mutual judgement. 

Finally, I happened to walk past one of my failed Hinge talking stages on the street while he was with a friend. In the split second in which I passed him and heard him speaking, I realized that he had a thick European accent that took me by surprise since he had never mentioned it. Not that the accent mattered, but it caused something to suddenly click in my head: how could I have known? Though we’d had a decent back-and-forth in our Hinge chat, and I had seen his profile, there was no way I could have known about his manner of speaking. 

It seems banal, but it truly dawned on me then that all these profiles were those of real people, evidenced by the people I knew who I’d seen on there. They had accents, mannerisms, tics, etc. They had interests, fears, beliefs; pasts and presents and futures. They, like me, were more than just their three best photos and three wittiest prompts – a fact that we had all failed to attend to. At that moment, I felt ashamed. How could I, the anthropologist in this study, have missed the humanity at the core of it all? 

This prompted further introspection on my end: who was I? Was my profile at all representative of who I was, or just a carefully projected image of what I believed to be the most desirable parts of myself? 

Dating apps actively encourage the treatment of oneself like property, then like a business. Our bodies become objects we must nurture to attain peak performance. We see this in self-care culture, “gym bro” culture, the increasing normalization of cosmetic procedures. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with taking care of your body, but the exponential growth of health and beauty industries speak to the value of one’s body as a material possession; whose function is no longer just to keep you alive, but to be “the best it can be” (whatever that may mean). 

Thereafter, we advertise this prescribed standard to others, turning ourselves into “businesses.” Dating apps are a prime platform for this. We peacock the best versions of ourselves – the digicam photos or the nonchalant one-liners – through our profiles, hoping that others will take notice. There is a means-end dynamic at play that leads to our self-objectification, where we strip ourselves and others of the human experiences and character traits that make us, us. When someone matches with the highly manicured version of ourselves, do they really match with us? And is that the kind of connection we even want in the first place?

This is not to say that one cannot find love on the apps. I know loving, long-term couples who have met there. This is also not to sound like an anti-dating app prude; I have, after all, been on them. I take issue not with the apps themselves, but the cultures they perpetuate: ones of disillusionment and boredom with actual people or, rather, their online caricatures whom we take as their wholes when they are merely slivers. Of the disillusionment with genuine connection itself, shown in how we are often encouraged to act in ways otherwise unnatural to how we would usually form close bonds with someone: only responding after x amount of time, playing “hard-to-get”, or “playing the game”, so to speak.

Sure, in our current dystopia of a dating scene, apps expand one’s pool of potential partners. But the way we carry out this social expansion leaves so much to be desired. For why do we treat ourselves like products to be bought, casting our net wider to attract more consumers – I mean, potential partners? Social media and ubiquitous digital connectivities mean that so much choice is available to us at all times. But once again, if we really have so many choices, why do so many of us struggle to get off the apps? Does anyone on the apps really want to be on them? Ultimately, what good is there in scrolling through a thousand faces of eligible singles in our area if it means eventually desensitizing ourselves to the hearts and minds behind them? 

Reflecting on my successful romantic endeavours, I cannot confidently say that, had we come across each other on a dating app, we would have swiped on each other. This is not to mean that attraction is absent, only that it grows; with proximity, with time, in the getting to know. And isn’t that the beauty of connection? Letting someone surprise you? 

So, as obvious as it may sound, be open. Be open to dating outside of your type, perhaps people you might not otherwise think twice about. Be open to being curious, though of course with caution. Free yourself from the limited choices on the apps (which represent, actually, a minority of the single population) and open yourself up to the world around you. Genuinely, try dating as an anthropological study: not in the active pursuit of something, but simply to get to know another person. Join a club, chat up someone in your conference, whatever. Maybe you’ll learn more about yourself in the process. You really never know!

But okay. Even if you are on the apps (absolutely no judgement), it’s a given that you only have so much to work with profile-wise. In that case, fill your profile with things that showcase who you are authentically, not just the parts of yourself that you believe to be the most desirable. More matches don’t necessarily mean better ones. Moreover, at least if you’re looking for genuine connection, approach your interactions with the sincere intention of getting to know the other person. What’s the point of playing games if the goal is to attract someone who doesn’t play them? Be open not just to others, but to being unapologetically yourself, free of the filters. The rest, I believe, will follow. 

It seems cheesy, maybe even dumb; an empty platitude that offers no real help at all. You might even roll your eyes — I get it, I’ve been there. But truly, in the question of how to access the love that seems to be everywhere but also increasingly out of reach, I posit that you, perhaps, are the answer. 

The post Un-Hinge-d appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Directed by the recently-deceased Rob Reiner (also known for rom-com royalty When Harry Met Sally), The Princess Bride is a family-friendly classic filled with adventure, romance, and iconic quotes. Following a fairytale told by a grandfather to his grandson, the film, starring Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, and Robin Wright, portrays the treacherous journey a swash-buckling pirate undertakes to reunite with his one true love, who had been taken captive. If he wanted to, he would, am I right?

In addition to memorable characters and complex storylines, music has been a key part of film since the dawn of sound cinema. After all, we can’t all claim to have watched the Harry Potter or Star Wars franchises in their entirety, but I’m sure most of us can recognize their musical leitmotifs once played. Unsurprisingly, this public consciousness and instant recognition of cinematic soundtracks has led to a soaring popularity of the film-in-concert format over the past few years. All over Canada and the world, films like La La Land and Jurassic Park (among many others) and their legendary soundtracks have been adapted into this performance format. 

“It takes the best elements of the theatrical experience and adds live elements through the orchestra,” says Evan Mitchell in an interview with the Daily. Mitchell is the musical director of the Kingston Symphony, a professional orchestra. Humans, he muses, are hard-wired for connection and shared experiences. Live performance and music thus heighten the usual cinema-going experience by connecting attendees via their common multi-sensory immersion into a fantasy world through film and music. “It’s the most exciting format for a popular orchestra that I’ve ever encountered in my career.”

The process of putting together the film-in-concert experience as a symphony’s musical director is complex. “It takes several dozen viewings of the musical parts of the film [for me] to become familiar with it, and I have a monitor so I can see what the audience sees,” recounts Michell. “It requires a lot of coordination because the orchestra has to be in perfect sync with the film. With a concerto or opera, the artists can react to changes, but movies will continue playing with or without you. It doesn’t matter how good [the music] sounds if it isn’t in time with the movie.” 

Nevertheless, according to Mitchell, the orchestra, made up of local, Montreal-based musicians, will only be conducting one singular rehearsal for the showings of The Princess Bride In Concert, which speaks volumes about the mastery and brilliance of its members.

The Princess Bride In Concert is set to be a treat for the eyes and the ears. Originally, the score was played on a synthesizer known as the Synclavier, an early digital synthesizer and music workstation produced in various forms from the late 1970s into the early 1990s. However, transposed into a live orchestral score, Mitchell declares that the musical experience of the film in concert will be “an improvement” from the original. “Artistry is incredibly important. You will be more connected to the music than ever before, so much so that you might forget the orchestra is even there.”

So, what are you waiting for? Sharpen your swords, hold onto your hats, and book tickets for you and your knight/jester/princess (or even just yourself) for The Princess Bride In Concert today. Tickets start at $54.98. Missing out would be… inconceivable!

The post The Princess Bride Swings into Concert this Valentines’ Day appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The open-air winter music festival, held at Place Jacques-Cartier in quite literally freezing weather, has been anticipated with ever-increasing fervour every January and February for almost two decades. Premiering in Montreal this year on January 15, the 19th edition of Igloofest promises to bring heat and adrenaline to the deep Montreal freeze. 

According to numbers provided to the Daily by the Igloofest team, Igloofest attendance is on an exponentially upward trend, with ballpark numbers leaping from 85,000 attendees in 2023 to over 118,000 in 2024. Evidently, the novelty of the festival’s trademark outdoor format, especially in the winter season, lends itself to great interest of both locals and tourists alike. But why would one, or thousands, subject themselves to a night out in temperatures akin to those of Antarctica? 

The answer to this, besides the promise of being able to drink copious amounts of alcohol with the excuse of keeping oneself warm, lies in the line-up of artists that Igloofest promises. Each artist promises a night of music that leaves no person stiff and awkward on the dance floor. This year is no different: opening with Disco Lines (of “No Broke Boys” notoriety), peppered with global household names including DJ Snake (2016 summer, anyone?), Sofi Tukker and Hamza, then closing with Max Styler, there is truly something for everybody.

Constance told the Daily that Igloofest contacts performers anywhere from a year to a few months in advance. While artists’ availability and schedules are constantly in flux, one indisputable element among them is their interest in performing at Igloofest. “One of the big pluses of organizing Igloofest is that it’s so unique,” notes Constance. “When we approach artists, they’re mesmerized by the fact that anybody is producing this kind of event, and generally really intrigued in participating.”

That being said, Igloofest is all about bringing in the most exciting names in dance and electronic music. This includes not just big international names, but also up-and-coming artists who are breaking into the industry. As live dance music genres have seen a surge in popularity in the last few years, Constance emphasizes the importance of appealing to as many generational and music demographics as possible to keep festivals like Igloofest relevant.“Being able to foster the new generation of Montreal talent and give them an opportunity to play at an event of this scale has been one of Igloofest’s primary objectives since the beginning.” 

At the forefront of this is No Police, a techno and trance DJ who is also part of T.I.T.S. Collective, a rising all-female DJ collective based here in Montreal. No Police performed on Igloofest’s Videotron stage on January 16 alongside her fellow collective member Cori. Igloofest, she writes in correspondence with the Daily, is her “favourite festival ever” and one that she has attended regularly over the last 12 years. Hence, the opportunity to attend from the other side of the stage was exhilarating. “I love being able to experiment and play new sub-genres of music that I’ve never played before,” she writes. “Having that platform is extremely important as a female artist, and I’m really grateful.”

While I wouldn’t call myself a rave or techno expert, I can say with conviction that No Police’s Igloofest set was absolutely electrifying. The Videotron stage, accessible through a side entrance, is not one to be underestimated. While smaller than the Sapporo stage and bereft of its SFX screens and psychedelic visuals, it provided the perfect platform for a distraction-free immersion into No Police’s set, which featured strong basslines and hard-hitting kicks that brought an infectious dynamism to the dancefloor. Accompanied by flashing blue lights and complete with songs dedicated to her family, who were also on the dance floor, No Police’s three-deck performance was certainly not something to be missed. The energy only continued as she passed the decks along to Cori, who played her own effusive, entrancing set into the wee hours of the morning.

Amid concerns of Montreal’s dying nightlife despite an ever-growing demand for new configurations of live performance and music by way of experiential formats, Igloofest’s large-scale occupies a limbo-like position. While the noise restrictions specific to Igloofest are confidential, Constance remarks that they are nonetheless a concern, and stresses the need for open dialogue and discourse between all involved actors, and not just those with the loudest voices. “With venues closing and certain laws changing or not changing, the city is definitely hitting a turning point,” he voices. “I think that the key is to be able to listen, and dedicate certain spaces to things that will be tolerated or allowed.” 

The Montreal nightlife crowd, evidently, is not one to be dismissed or stifled. No Police describes this demographic  as “very open minded [and] receptive,” with their vocal feedback after impactful moments in the set being one of most special contributions to shows. Given how the attendees continue to show up year after year in larger groups in spite of Canada’s frigid winter, Igloofest is a testament to the durability and enthusiasm of Montreal’s thriving nightlife community. Constance believes that anyone who attends, no matter their age, familiarity with the artists, or experience with music festivals, can discover something new. 

“It’s really important to come and to leave with the most open mind possible,” he states, “whether that’s musically, because you don’t know what you’re getting into; or just discovering new relationships with new people and new music…
I think that’s probably [how you have] the most fun that you can have at these kinds of events. When we go back to the history of clubbing culture, that’s where [the fun] comes from, so being able to continue and respect that [is crucial].” 


Igloofest is a cultural fixture that is undoubtedly here to stay. Since its initial conception in Montreal, Igloofest has expanded into Quebec City, Gatineau, and this year, marking its first foray into Western Canada: Edmonton. Anecdotally, I saw far too many people I knew on the nights I was there, and know for a fact that more of them will be in attendance at upcoming sets, which I will also be present at. At minus twenty degrees Celsius (let’s not even talk about the “feels like” figures), it seems that the heat is only just starting to build.

The post One Hundred Per Cent in Minus Twenty appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The next twenty minutes would snap me out of my mildly sleep-addled reverie. 

Directed by Canadian auteur Gavin Michael Booth, Island Life is a drama between neighbours. One neighbour plays deafening house music, which drones on in the background throughout the short film’s entire 23-minute runtime; and its organized crime unit neighbours, our protagonists, struggle to lay low in contention with the noise. Shot in one take à la Birdman in a single apartment, the constant tension in Island Life can be attributed not just to the booming background music, but to the volatile frontman of the organized crime unit. Played expertly by local Montreal talent Ben Peters, our protagonist swings wildly between authoritative pack leader and straight-up psychological dictator. Island Life has been admitted into renowned film festivals such as Festival Regard and Fantasia Festival, and has won awards for Best Actor (Ben Peters) and Best Original Screenplay at the Terror in the Bay Film Festival. 

Island Life has been in the works since 2019, when it was first conceptualized by Andres Cabrera Rucks, the film’s co-producer and writer, when he was still a McGill student. “I woke up in the middle of the night because my neighbour was playing music, and the whole story just came to mind over the next couple of days,” recalls Rucks in an interview with the Daily. At the time, the short film had been slated to be produced in conjunction with TVM, McGill’s resident student production house, which Rucks had been a producer at. However, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic shut down any possibility of the project’s execution, which would subsequently be delayed. However, Island Life remained in Rucks’s mind, and he would approach Copti, whom he had met at TVM’s training programme, to help produce the film at the end of 2021. The two are now part of PanArt Productions, a production company founded by Copti which helped to produce Island Life.

“It’s hard to meet people who are as crazy about something as you are,” comments Rucks. “If not for that training session, neither this movie nor our friendship would have existed.”

According to Anya Kasuri, President of TVM, the TVM training programme is a mandatory facet of TVM membership, teaching basic technical and camera skills. “Besides taking service requests from other clubs at McGill, part of our mandate is to help students carry out their creative projects,” she explained in an interview with the Daily. “A student can come to us with any script or idea, and from there revise it and put together a production team of our members to help realize their vision. We build a community where we get to make films together, and it’s great.”

The leap from making a student film to an independently-produced one is no smooth path. The film industry is notoriously one of the hardest to break into, especially without prior connections. For one, making a film is expensive. Despite The Brutalist’s critical success last year, director Brady Corbet reportedly made zero profit from it, even with the three-and-a-half-hour-long film’s impressively low budget. Moreover, the film industry is rife with nepotism and labour shortages. These, along with spikes in production costs and growing concerns of artificial intelligence (AI) replacing key jobs in screenwriting and violating intellectual property regulations, has led to many professionals leaving the industry altogether. 

Copti and Rucks’s tenacity thus becomes all the more laudable. “We were basically starting from scratch, without many connections in the industry considering how we are both not professionals,” says Copti. “This was our first time making a movie with a real budget and really playing by all the conventions of the film industry.” Facebook groups became their go-to resource for finding art directors, assistant camera operators, and even their director Booth. In 2022, casting began, and upon reaching out to the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), the team screened 158 auditioning actors from Montreal and the wider Quebec area for five roles, narrowing them down through a two-step process entailing an online demo and an in-person audition involving chemistry reads. 

Casting and employment was only the first hurdle. More onerously, there was the matter of costs. The team applied for grants from the Quebec Arts Council and, towards the end of 2022, launched a crowd-funding campaign, which raised slightly over $16,000. All in all, the budget came up to a cool $40,000 consisting of crowd funds and investments from the crew’s own pockets.

“It was really about learning at every stage,” muses Copti. “This whole process has taught us a lot about the independent cinema industry in Canada, and now we’re much better equipped to handle future projects.”

“We were the most ambitious that we could be with this project, especially as two non-professionals,” expresses Rucks. “Having that much money to work with, creating a one-take short film and submitting it to festivals with no guarantee of success. We probably should have started smaller, on a smaller scale with a smaller budget and team, but we just didn’t.” 

At McGill, TVM boosts aspiring filmmakers or those simply interested in visual communications by imparting both technical and industry knowledge. “I know many TVM alumni who aren’t currently working in film, but continue to use skills they learned from TVM in their careers,” asserts Nicolas McGuire, former Executive Producer at TVM from 2024-2025. “As a marketing major myself, I feel that TVM has taught me a lot of things about the marketing industry that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.”

TVM also provides numerous resources for students interested in honing specific applied skills, or just learning about film in general. As the film industry faces a shortage of technically specialized workers, these tools become all the more valuable for aspiring filmmakers. Kasuri, who hopes to work in film, expressed how TVM has familiarized her with the technical and practical side of filmmaking, supplementing the more theoretical approaches of her World Cinemas courses at McGill. 

“The best thing about TVM is that it’s really easy to become a part of it. You just need to want to learn,” states Sascha Siddiqui, TVM’s Graphics Coordinator, who joined TVM specifically to learn how to edit despite not having much prior experience. “We have camera cheat sheets, instruction sheets for editing software, and so much more. Any member who wants to brush up on their technical knowhow can also attend our monthly training sessions or tech director’s office hours.” 

On the note of student filmmaking, Rucks and Copti encourage student filmmakers to be bold in their work and artistic passions, but to be pragmatic about it too. “It all boils down to whether you want to make films as a hobby or as a career,” declares Rucks, whose goal is to live off his work as a full-time screenwriter and producer. “It’s the best time in history to make films as a hobby because you have all the equipment you could ever need and the ability to find like-minded people through the Internet; but arguably the worst time to make films as a career because the market is just so saturated. When it comes to that, you want to make sure that you’re telling a really good story that shows off your abilities in whatever role.” 

“I started out making films with my friends in high school, which gradually expanded into starting PanArt Productions and making advertisements for companies,” recounts Copti. “At the time, I wanted to make a living from production. However, when I started working for a public relations agency, I realized the similarities in both of them — you know, Excel sheets, lots of calls and emails — and I realized I could make meaningful films without necessarily having them be my bread and butter. Now, I mostly make films as an activist; not to make money, but to raise awareness of social issues.”

Film is a visual medium. If a picture speaks a thousand words, then a film, surely, speaks at least a million, and only a small portion of it in dialogue. Despite the pressing concerns that surround film and cinema, there remains a sense of optimism in both Rucks and Copti, as well as the students from TVM. “Art will always have a place in the world,” Kasuri avers, “and I think people are really beginning to appreciate the authenticity that comes with independent filmmaking.” 

And, perhaps they are. Anora, an independent film, swept the Oscars and brought home Best Picture in March 2025. More recently, Materialists, distributed and produced by indie collective A24, surpassed $100 million in global box office revenue. Good films, especially with the appeal of being shown in IMAX, are evidently bringing audiences back to the theatres.

When asked about their hopes for Island Life by way of awards, the PanArt duo are more concerned with the film’s impact on its viewers and staff. “This is the first official film I’ve made that hasn’t had an element of social activism in it,” Copti remarks. “I hope people are entertained, but I also hope to show them that they too can do awesome stuff.” As he puts it, they took many “daring steps” in making Island Life, which created a great deal of uncertainty. However, these also led to many unprecedented, fulfilling outcomes: going to festivals, meeting new people. “This creativity is part of the movie industry, but even beyond that, I hope to inspire people to take steps out of their comfort zones.”

Meanwhile, Rucks just shrugs. “To be completely honest, I’ve never really even cared about an award,” he says. “I just hope that it helps us, the actors and the crew involved gain some credibility in the industry.” As an afterthought: “Selfishly, I hope people think it’s well-written too.”

Island Life is available on YouTube from 22 December on The Film Shortage channel.

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This decisive calm characterises Currents of Care, the newest exhibition in conjunction with McGill’s Critical Media Lab. Ideated and curated by Saskia Morgan, Ava Williams and Hannah Marder-MacPherson — the bright-eyed trio behind Fleeting Form Studio — Currents of Care magnifies water’s role as a key lifesource, inextricably connected to all other life forms on Earth. Fleeting Form aims to fill a gap in fine arts programming at McGill, creating a space for students who are passionate about the intersections between environmental action and art but lack the outlets to materialise those interests.

Currents of Care marks the collective’s most ambitious endeavour yet. The exhibition, which was set in motion last fall, marries works from Fleeting Form’s artist workshop series last year and fresh ideas informed by the three curators’ experiences with water in their unique academic domains. It unites artists across creative disciplines and backgrounds through a common vision: expressing narratives of hope and desire about the global water crisis through visual, auditory, and tactile art.

“A multi-media exhibition allows people to consider water from where they currently are, which is what we want for our exhibition: to multiply the often singular understanding of water as a particular thing,” Hannah expressed in an interview with the Daily.

As the viewer first steps into the Currents of Care space, they are met most strikingly by three small pools at the centre of the room: an interactive format designed by the three curators themselves. Even up close, the pools look like abysses stretching far below the Critical Media Lab’s checkered tile floors. In each pool, which is lined by canvas from Fleeting Form’s workshop series, poems by Erin Robinsong lay printed on laminated sheets and floating on the water’s surface. Viewers are not only permitted but encouraged to touch and interact with the water, sourced from the St. Lawrence river. 

“Even if you live in Montreal, chances are you haven’t had the chance to actually touch or swim in the St. Lawrence, especially now during the winter,” recounted Ava. “We wanted our viewers to think about water’s availability to us, and the ways we come in contact with it in our everyday lives. Having water physically present in the room was really important to us to make the space feel alive.”

“In interacting with the water, the people who come into the exhibition aren’t just static observers but participants leaving physical traces,” continued Hannah. “In a small way, they then become part of the piece, which reproduces the cyclical ways in which we affect water and it affects us.”

The pools of water allow viewers to think deeply about their interactions with water and reflect on its weight in their lives. This sentiment is echoed by Robinsong’s three poems, which explore water’s ties with colonialism, movement and growth. The motif of water acts as a lens through which one can re-imagine the everyday motions of life and thus notice the tributaries that weave through so many of them.

As the viewer walks around the room, their thoughts (or perhaps the blissful lack thereof) is accompanied by a soundscape of water and nature composed by Lina Choi. Mixing sound recordings from natural spaces and bodies of water in Montreal and Quebec, the fifteen-minute soundscape is faintly audible even when one puts on the headphones placed on wooden benches around the pools to listen to readings of Robinsong’s poems, narrated by a lilting voice. The soundscape further immerses the viewer in the exhibition’s peaceful ambience: as if they were drifting, unbidden, on the ripples of a calm lake. 

At the back of the room are sculptures by Montreal artist Nina Vroemen, whose works centre water as an active element of each piece. Be it dripping from a conch shell or expelled as a gentle stream of vapour, each work amplifies the subtle give-and-take dynamics between the viewers and the medium they are observing. Emphasized is the status of water not only as a resource we can exploit, but an age-old entity. 

Throughout one’s visit to the exhibition, a stunningly shot short film by Innu filmmaker Uapukun Mestokosho plays on a loop on a large projector screen in front of the door. Entitled “Nipi utaiamun” (The Voice of Water), the film depicts the personal relationship between the filmmaker and water. It further explores the element’s capacity to relieve pain and smooth over trauma through wide shots of women interacting with water: from a girl playfully blowing bubbles underwater, to a woman playing a drum on the shore with the tide flowing quietly onto the sand beneath her feet. Mestokosho’s voice, accompanied by drumming and the rush of rivers, delivers her poetic essay in both Innu-aimun and French through the set of headphones offered before the screen.

“Our dominant understanding of water as a resource is deeply influenced by colonial ways of thinking,” remarked Saskia. “In curating our exhibition, we were deeply inspired by the works of Indigenous thinkers like Leanne Betasamosake Simpson that resisted these colonial understandings and exploitations of water — conceiving of water not as a resource, but as kin and co-creator of worlds.” 

As a whole, Fleeting Form Studio, through and beyond Currents of Care, are passionate activists for art as a form of resistance, and as a critical means of reframing ecological crises. “The emotional response it can evoke in people as they personally reconsider dominant ideas becomes one they can materialise through action in their own lives,” mused Ava. 

“Change has to be something everyone can participate in,” stated Hannah.

The team is confident in the transformative potential of art not just for individuals, but for large-scale structural change. “Rethinking our current structures cannot be done without art, where you can tangibly realise the emotional, the beautiful. What we do attempts to bring people’s imagined futures into a space of action,” asserted Saskia. “Engaging in practice that allows for continual change, growth and movement is where we will start to see the seeds of change.”

Currents of Care is being shown at the Critical Media Lab at Peterson Hall 108 from 11-20 December from 12 – 6 p.m. Entry is free.

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Since its founding in 1944, the ICAO has been a specialized UN agency dedicated to helping its 193 member states diplomatically and technically realize a dependable, shared network of global air mobility. Every three years, ICAO delegations from all over the world convene in Montreal, the site of ICAO’s Head Quarters. There, they re-elect the ICAO Council, made up of 36 States selected to speak for all 193 member states in triannual Council sessions. The members of Council are chosen from three criteria:

• Part I: States of chief importance in air transport.
• Part II: States which make the largest contribution to the provision of facilities for international civil air navigation.
• Part III: States ensuring geographic representation.

Next year marks the official start of the ICAO 2026-2050 Strategic Plan, under the theme “Safe Skies, Sustainable Future”. The Strategic Plan for the next 25 years has three main aspirations: to achieve net-zero carbon pathways; to have zero fatalities from aviation accidents and acts of unlawful interference; and to position aviation as part of an accessible, inclusive, and affordable global transport network, ensuring that no country is left behind. The ICAO aims to attain these goals by 2050.

All these objectives have been wholly supported and furthered by Singapore, a small island- state in South-East Asia. Singapore has been a member of the ICAO Council since it was first elected following the council’s three-seat expansion in 2003, and has been fully committed to serving the aviation space ever since. The nation serves the ICAO Council under Part II of its criteria. Compared to its larger counterparts on the ICAO Council, Singapore is a much smaller state, but it is nonetheless considered to have made some of the largest contributions to civil aviation. Singapore’s Changi Airport, which was voted the world’s best airport in 2025, saw 67.7 million visitors in 2024 — more than ten times the Singapore population of 6.11 million. The Civil Aviation Authority Singapore (CAAS) also participates actively in regional and international working groups beyond the ICAO, such as the ASEAN Air Transport Working Group, and the recently established Asia Pacific Sustainable Aviation Centre (APSAC), among many others.

In pursuit of ICAO’s net-zero emissions goal, Singapore launched the Singapore Sustainable Air Hub Blueprint in February 2024. The Blueprint outlines 12 initiatives in an effort to decarbonize the aviation space in Singapore, with an emphasis on promoting the use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) through self- imposed levies, aiming for a one per cent target in 2026 and growing to between three and five per cent by 2030. The use of SAFs is thought to be able to contribute to 65 per cent of reduced carbon emissions by 2050.

Regarding matters of inclusivity and in alignment with the ICAO’s “No Country Left Behind (NCLB)” initiative, Singapore established the Singapore-ICAO Developing Countries Training Programme (DCTP) in 2001, which sponsors 330 fellowships and ten scholarships yearly to aviation specialists from eligible developing ICAO member nations. These include room and board, as well as exclusive on-the-ground training and mentorship opportunities with the Singapore Aviation Academy (SAA). In the last year, the CAAS has also signed Memorandums of Understanding with the Arab Civil Aviation Organization (ACAO) and the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC), which represent 22 and 54 member states respectively, to deepen and augment collaboration in civil aviation training. These underpin objectives of supporting growing aviation markets and meeting global demands for air travel, through not only the aforementioned fellowships, but also in-region training across key fields like aviation safety and security, accident investigation, and sustainability, among others.

Considering Singapore’s accomplishments in civil aviation and air travel sustainability, it comes as no surprise that this year, Singapore was re-elected to the council as a Part II nation with a record 176 of 184 votes. “We were anticipating a particular number of votes and I think it exceeded our expectations,” says Tavis Tan, Technical Expert for the Permanent Mission of Singapore to the ICAO, during an online interview with the Daily. “It was quite a euphoric moment.”

Tan, who graciously extended me an invitation to Singapore’s Reception, is adamant that a nation’s size does not determine its destiny. When asked about Singapore’s position as a smaller state within the intricate nexus of international diplomacy, he says: “It’s a common theory in International Relations that bigger states will do what they want and smaller states will suffer what they must. However, in today’s international geopolitical environment, there’s a bit more room for smaller states to navigate … The better question is: how [does a nation] define [its] role in the larger international ecosystem?”

As an example, he cites Singapore’s establishment of the Forum Of Small States (FOSS) in 1992, which now comprises 108 countries. The FOSS is a voluntary, non-ideological group of small states that convene to discuss respective issues of concern, which are sometimes overshadowed by the interests of their larger counterparts. “When you speak as one, you might be considered small, but when you speak as a hundred: wow, suddenly your collective voice is much louder.”

International diplomacy is an extremely delicate affair — especially in today’s increasingly polarized political climate, where intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) like the UN come under fire for their lack of concrete action and inability to keep international peace.

“[When] I was a political science and international affairs student, I remember feeling the same way [about the effectiveness of IGOs],” ponders Tan, “but I think it’s very easy to make these remarks from the outside. When I joined the UN, [I realized that] people worked very hard and spent weeks trying to amend, replace, or omit one word in a paper to ensure there was consensus. This was important because if the paper didn’t go through, then there would be no progress … The UN is complex, and I think ‘complex’ is already simplifying it.”

It is precisely these growing rifts and dichotomies in world politics that make the job of UN diplomats that much harder, especially when questions of morality hang so precariously in the balance of international diplomacy and competing national priorities.

“As a practitioner of international relations and international diplomacy,” Tan continues, “I can begin to appreciate how difficult it is, managing [the] different interests of different countries but also managing interpersonal relationships. […] When we play this role on the international stage, we navigate these conversations very carefully. There are many things happening that we don’t see.”

When asked about Singapore’s future in the ICAO, Tan emphasizes the idea of Singapore “earning its place.” “Every day, we try to show that we are on it. We pore over papers, spend many hours [in the office]; we collaborate, and we nitpick over things. It’s important to show that we care enough because we don’t take our seat lightly, and we need to be a deserving member of the Council.”

Permanent Secretary of the Singapore Ministry of Transport, Peet Meng Lau, puts it best in a Linkedin post shared on September 28: “[Singapore] may have only one major international airport and one airline on [its] tiny island, but [it] can still do [its] bit for the world.” When one takes into account Singapore’s immense contributions to and involvement in the global aviation space, its small size begins to mean little. In fact, it serves to make its achievements all the more impressive. For Singapore, it seems the sky is the limit from here on out.

The post Flying High: Global Aviation Endeavours From Singapore to Montreal appeared first on The McGill Daily.

According to their website, the MEM “place[s] citizens’ voices at the heart of their actions.” They aim to “share authentic local histories” and “reflect Montreal’s diverse realities” in order to “facilitate responsible, sustainable cohabitation.” This is done through innovative exhibitions, which include first-hand accounts and artifacts from various time periods and communities. 

Said communities, of course, include the First Nations people, who have lived on the island of Montreal and in Canada at large for hundreds of years. According to the MEM’s permanent exhibit, “Montréal” the Greater Montreal area was home to an Indigenous population of over 4 million in 2016. Through its mission, the MEM plays a role in preserving the memories of the Indigenous, who have been here longer than anyone else, and thus have the richest history in Montreal, even if much of it remains buried, undocumented, or even neglected.

Indigenous memory is layered with stories of loving community, as well as immense trauma. Many Indigenous people carry the weight of intergenerational suffering on their backs, with family members having faced discrimination at best and unimaginable abuse at worst. In the temporary exhibition that ended on September 21 titled “A Mile In My Shoes” a collaboration between the MEM and the Empathy Museum, visitors are given a pair of shoes belonging to a storyteller with the same shoe size, which they are encouraged, but not forced, to wear, along with a pair of headphones and an audio device to listen to the owner’s story. The exhibit is designed to instill empathy in the visitor by being given a tangible symbol of the storyteller’s real existence. This exhibit included shoes and stories from Montrealers of various demographics, including those of Indigenous background.

As one of the storytellers in “A Mile in my Shoes,” Innu poet Maya Cousineau Mollen, represented by an eclectic pair of boots, speaks on the trauma she faced as an Indigenous child raised by her adoptive white parents, and the uneasy feeling of never being enough for either side. These themes of cultural upset, echoed by bead artist and seller Oskenontona Philip Deering, his story represented in this exhibit by a pair of brown sneakers, who discusses the abandonment of his Indigenous name in his youth, are representative of the grey area Indigenous people often occupy between their native identity and the colonised world we live in. 

This cultural dissonance persists to this day. Montreal and McGill University continue to occupy unceded Indigenous territory, the landscape of which has been and continues to be drastically altered by urbanisation. Another exhibit, “Detours – Urban Experiences,” is an immersive experience featuring short video clips of various Montrealers sharing their life experiences. In one of these videos, Indigenous radio host and activist Melissa Mollen Dupuis brings a cameraman around Mont-Royal, which she describes in the footage as “Montreal’s lung.” As development projects encroach on natural spaces worldwide, Dupuis illustrates the importance of preserving Mont-Royal not just for environmental reasons, but to maintain the enduring connection between Indigenous people and nature, especially considering Mont-Royal’s status as an important green space.

In the hustle and bustle of globalisation, where the frontiers between cultures and continents grow increasingly blurred, we cannot afford to neglect Indigenous narratives, which extend far beyond our collective consciousness. Cousineau Mollen states, in the English dub of her recording in the exhibit, that she would like people to “find a way to be happy in society together.” 

As inhabitants of their land, we must make an effort to uplift the sorrows and joys of Indigenous people, ensuring that they are seen not only as victims but as fighters. In historically resisting and continuing to rally against systems that continually oppress them, their experiences are powerful markers of the importance of community and resistance, which we must seek to uplift. After all, the Indigenous people are not just memories — they are still here.

Find out more about the MEM at their website. Tickets for students are $10.90.

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Lower field: bell-like peals of laughter, the faint aroma of grilled burger patties, and a snaking queue of students stretching around the perimeter of what looks like an outdoor party with an endless waitlist. Friends separated over the summer reunite with shrieks and hugs to the exhilarating soundtrack of musicians playing just steps away. It’s no surprise some McGill students, and the event itself, call Open Air Pub (OAP) the “Best Place on Earth”.

Since 1987, OAP’s legacy has resonated across generations of McGill students as the stage for golden memories. Ivan Zhang, one half of the Head Management duo for the most recent edition of OAP, tells us he found the first documented mention of OAP in the 1980 McGill Yearbook, which at the time was a gathering of engineers at Three Bares Park for Welcome Week 1980. Now organised by the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS), OAP has grown exponentially in scale, taking up half of McGill’s Lower Field and attracting thousands of McGill students, alumni, and their external plus- ones alike.

The COVID-19 pandemic halted OAP for a few years, which was enough to weaken the event’s influence and place in the collective McGill consciousness. “We saw a few years of not-great profitability and lower capacities post-COVID,” says Zhang. “Right after COVID, there was a bit of a lull where McGill students didn’t even know what OAP was, especially the new ones coming in.” Now, after some time and vested publicity efforts, it’s back and bigger than ever, renowned for its cheap (though warm) alcohol, good food, and overall vibrant ambience.

As one of the few large inter-cohort McGill social events, organizing OAP is, naturally, a massive endeavour. From supplying various food and beverage options to recruiting managers, bands, and artists to spray the iconic OAP stage graffiti, the 13-member team works tirelessly both on and off the ground to ensure the event runs smoothly. Most recently, the OAP team has implemented new environmental initiatives which have, according to Nicole Shen, OAP’s food manager, earned them a Gold certification from the McGill Sustainability Office. These developments include the introduction of new mats to protect the grass on Lower Field, the recycling of cans (rather than giving out plastic cups), and the use of propane rather than charcoal grills for food, among others.

Providing the soundtrack to this one-of-a-kind student festival are a variety of bands, singers and DJs. This year, OAP hosted 26 amazing acts. From soulful harmonies and acoustic covers to head-banging rock tunes and DJ sets, there was truly something for everyone. A few of the acts actually found their
start at McGill, despite the predominantly academic environment. DJ Clément Gabriel, who describes his music as “dark and euphoric,” learned how to mix in an hour before a party at his former fraternity. In addition, rock band Dollhouse recruited their bassist Sacha when drummer Emilio spotted him walking around with his bass at Activities Night last year.

In fact, the significance of OAP within the McGill community means that many performers had already attended the event from below the stage. Of course, this means that they are or were McGill students themselves, lovingly carving out time between tutorials and lectures to hone their craft. Still, the process of becoming an OAP act is complex and multilayered, with the OAP team having to sift through a substantial number of applications and music samples.

OAP has provided a platform for students to test the boundaries of expression and find their own unique voices. Experimental DJ trio Dance Engine describes OAP as “a really nice musician[‘s] playground” where they can showcase “what they really want to do” because of the “easy to win” receptiveness of McGill students to novel ideas and new music. Similarly, DJ Nina Baby closed this year’s OAP Boiler with “music that [she’s] rarely had the chance to play”, sharing her infectious electronic sound with the McGill masses.

OAP has even pushed new voices to the forefront. The common pursuit of a good time across all involved parties fuels OAP’s lively and accepting atmosphere. Compared to other festivals, the beauty of OAP is that the person on stage could also be your friend, which makes it all the more exciting. Acoustic folk duo Dave and Sarah (whose names are neither Dave nor Sarah) describe the sensation of performing at OAP as “not even comparable” to their previous gigs, not just because of OAP’s sheer scale but also because “everyone knew [them], which made it scarier but also so much fun.”

The added layer of thrill as a result of being surrounded by familiar company rings true not just for OAP’s performing artists, but for their patrons, who get to commemorate the end of summer (or winter, depending on when you go) by letting loose amidst a crowd of friendly faces. “As a student, I love that I get to hang out [at OAP] with my friends, and also play there as an artist,” house-inspired DJ Dante says. By playing for the community he is part of, he feels like he can stay true to the sound he loves. “You can kind of tell when you’re in the that the positive feeling people experience kind of rubs off on each other.”

Moreover, OAP’s relatively relaxed format extends music and performance not only to those who practice it professionally, but to anyone with love and respect for the craft. “We are engineers, but we have hobbies,” jokes Nella Craft, one of OAP’s music managers. As mentioned, many of the acts are McGill students or alumni from various faculties and disciplines.

GarageMDs, for instance, is a band made up of McGill medical students – not your usual candidates for a school band, given the rigour of their program. Moreover, Gianni, founding member of dream rock band Flying Dream, is a post-doctoral fellow in the McGill Faculty of Engineering. “Academia and research are fascinating, but they’re very rigid […] Music is more free, and you [have room to] explore.”

That being said, OAP’s free-flow is also calculated. As one of the main goals is to keep the audience entertained, the event’s management must curate cohesive sets throughout the event. Niney, a Montreal-based DJ, says he enjoys this aspect of the festival. “The goal is to bring it from zero to on the way to the tech house,” he shares, “so I had to get [the crowd] dancing, to sing songs they may or may not know.” Niney describes himself as an avid dancer, and changing up his style to get a crowd warmed up and grooving is one of his favourite things to do. OAP allows for this part of him to shine. “As a DJ, you can never have too many styles.”

However, music serves many more functions than just inducing hype in a crowd. It provides the soundtrack for our morning commutes and gym sessions, sets the mood at our local cafes and bars — it surrounds us, giving it immense and intrinsic power. Mica, a disco music DJ says, “Music exists in many forms in every aspect of my life. Study nights, kickin’ it with friends, football games, preparing food — no matter what I’m doing, there’s always a perfect soundtrack.” With the growth of streaming services and subsequent increased accessibility of music, it has become so integrated into our daily lives that we might not fully appreciate its special quality. Music has the capacity to influence our thoughts and emotions, not only stimulating our senses but acting as a mode of idiosyncratic expression.

This is no different amongst the performers of OAP, to whom music is a multi-functional tool that holds a special place in their hearts. When asked how music has enriched his life, Owen, founding member and lead guitarist of Montreal indie rock band Willy Nilly, joked, “My depression now has a musical twist to it,” referencing songwriting’s critical role in conveying his personal realities. Dollhouse’s genre-bending songs, composed and arranged by the entire group, also tackle a plethora of issues like mental health and activism, among others. “It’s just like, we hear you,” says Nikita, the band’s singer, “‘cause we all have our own kind of struggle. It translates into our music.”

And isn’t that what all this music and all this partying is about? It’s all to be heard, to be seen. While it might sound a little corny, the tunes and the booze and the (very good) corn on the cobs at OAP are all designed and calibrated for a specific purpose: connection. This is the crux of OAP, the secret sauce that makes it as celebrated and anticipated as it is by the McGill student body.

This sentiment was echoed by almost everyone we talked to about OAP’s impact and legacy. “In the back of my mind, OAP was a sort of dream,” contemplates Gabriel Jon, a folk and R&B singer and McGill Engineering student. “It was a big step towards my goal of not overthinking things too much and just going for things that I want to do.” Similarly, GarageMDs comments, “There’s something special about seeing your friends and classmates cheering you on, creating moments that remind you we’re all in this journey together […] that make this experience so meaningful.”

“Seeing the impact that [our performance] can have on people who come to the shows means the world to us,” relates The Howlin’ Gales, a country rock band from Toronto. In an increasingly divided world plagued by individualistic ideals, to be seen by your community and to have your voice not just heard but uplifted is perhaps what we all yearn for. The bond between a performer and their audience, therefore, is made all the more sacred, as the effort and love invested by a performer into their craft is rewarded by the energy they receive from their audience. “What I hope to gain is a deeper connection with that crowd, because they’re the true supporters, the ones who come alive no matter the circumstances,” puts Clément Gabriel.

Beyond this, there are also the little points of connection between patrons, which all OAP attendees can attest to. “It’s the one place where I’ll actually see all of my friends, who you can never really combine in one room all together at McGill,” explains Claire Levasseur, VP Services for the EUS. From chatting with strangers in the (more often than not) hours-long line to bumping into dear friends scattered across the field, the spatial configuration of OAP is one built for interaction. “I hope OAP is remembered like that, where you can meet new people from so many different types of programs, so many different places.”

And not just students! Karl, a security guard from OAP, recalls feeling heartened by the warmth students showed him in their brief interactions entering and exiting the venue. When checking McGill IDs, he recounts seeing a string of 6 people with the same birthday as him — Valentines’ Day, which he says is rare. “At events, people usually try to avoid talking to security,” he says, “but here, I get to interact with cool people, young people.”

Love it or hate it, OAP is a McGill cultural staple that is here to stay. While seemingly just a superficial student festival on the surface, OAP’s purpose is much deeper than that. As a critical facet of McGill culture, it weaves a golden tie between decades of McGill alumni all the way to the present, strengthening an already formidable bond that exists between us students. It promotes local and student artists, ensuring a steady stream of art in a world where creative expression is unfortunately deemed less productive and therefore less valuable. OAP also fosters inter-faculty and inter-cohort interaction and connection, ensuring that people get the opportunity to form new bonds and strengthen old ones. “We take a lot of pride in being able to put OAP on and create a space that so many people can enjoy, that connects everybody,” expresses Josh Negenman, the other half of OAP’s head management duo.

So, OAP. You may or may not have attended, but you sure as hell have heard of it. In any case, it’s energetic and lively, with an atmosphere best described as electric – a buzz on your skin, a welcome high.

Is it really “The Best Place On Earth”? Nothing’s perfect, of course, but we’d say it comes pretty damn close.

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Over the course of the acting season, both Moore and Madison had taken home neck-and-neck victories for their work: the former secured the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice Award, and Screen Actors’ Guild Award for Best Actress, while the latter won at the BAFTAs and the Independent Choice Awards. Still, when Madison edged out Moore for Best Actress at the Oscars, many took to social media to voice their opinions on Madison’s unprecedented win, with The Substance supporters vehemently claiming that Moore had been “robbed” or “snubbed.”

The Substance was undoubtedly one of the most unique films in this year’s Oscars line-up, featuring
substantial shares of body horror, female rage, and a mysterious substance known as — you guessed it! — The Substance. Coralie Fargeat’s second feature film sees Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle, a television personality who resorts to sinister measures to regain her previous relevance upon being dropped from her long-held television host role. Demi Moore delivers a visceral performance teeming with the deep-seated jealousy of watching the “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of herself, Sue (played by Margaret Qualley), flourish where she once did. The intensity of her anguish mounts as the movie builds towards its unforgettable climax, featuring 36,000 gallons of fake blood and a grotesque, inhuman amalgamation of both Elisabeth and Sue’s characters, that was met with audible gasps when I watched it in theatres. Moore reportedly endured four to five hour stints in hair and makeup donning prosthetics for various scenes in the film, which secured the Oscar for Best Makeup & Hairstyling.

In comparison, Anora’s plot seems far less complicated, though no less layered. Mikey Madison plays the eponymous Anora (or Ani), a sex worker who finds herself in a fairytale-turned-disaster when her husband’s Russian oligarch family catches wind of their elopement. Madison spent six months learning to pole dance for her role (which is much harder than it looks). She recalls being “covered head to toe in bruises” to the point that they incorporated a line about it into the script. Moreover, she had to learn Russian for the film, as well as work with a dialect coach and move to Brighton Bay before filming to match her accent to those of its inhabitants.

The main argument posited by The Substance diehards is that Moore’s performance in The Substance was more outwardly complex and impressive than Madison’s in Anora. Admittedly, the physicality of Anora is less pronounced than that of The Substance, which required intense physical acting to solidify its genre-typical body horror elements. That being said, this stance diminishes the physical efforts Madison did invest into her role. In fact, the fact that she underwent so much training for small nuances in her role exemplifies her meticulous characterisation and performance. It also speaks volumes about the often unsung physical labour required of exotic dancers.

Beyond the quality of their performances, a rampant sentiment regarding Madison’s victory was that it “proved the point of The Substance,” which was that older women would always lose to fresher faces on the scene. Additionally, some expressed that Moore deserved the award “because Madison would have more opportunities to win it in future,” while Moore was less likely to because of her age.

Firstly, this sentiment is categorically untrue, considering the fact that the average age of the last 20 Best Actress winners is 43 years old, and the Academy has historically favoured older actresses. Secondly, such a viewpoint is reductive of both Moore and Madison’s impressive performances. It inherently shoehorns Moore into the box of the “old” woman, discrediting her performance, all the while belittling Madison’s win into one she took home simply because she is a younger actress. There is nothing wrong with thinking that Moore gave a better performance. However, the idea that Madison’s win reinforces The Substance’s message swings so far left that it goes right in terms of its anti-ageism stance. To say that Moore was more deserving of the title of Best Actress because of her age is more patronising than empowering.

All interpretations of art hold value. Engaging in film discourse is all well and good and in fact encouraged — however, it still has to be done critically. Much of the hate directed to Moore and Madison focused on comparing them in terms of their age and looks (misogynistic precepts of a woman’s worth, by the way, what a coincidence) rather than their actual acting ability, which needlessly pit them against one another despite both actresses’ mutual recognitions of each other’s work. It only makes for a shallow and cheap argument to degrade one party and diminish their efforts in support of another, whether or not you agree with the outcome.

There needs to be a reframing in our perception of these awards. The Academy Awards are not the Olympics, where there is a clear definition of “winner” and “loser,” or first and second place. The Best Actress title was not a competition between Moore and Madison alone — there were other equally deserving candidates. Fernanda Torres also delivered an emotionally rich and phenomenal performance in I’m Still Here (2024); in fact, she was slated by the New York Times to win Best Actress. Thus, one’s attainment of an Oscar, unlike, say, the 100-metre sprint, is not determined by any clear metric other than a majority vote. Moore and Torres, and every other nominee in the Best Actress category, didn’t “lose” in the sense that their performances were definitely worse than Madison’s; Madison just happened to win the Academy’s majority vote.

Personally, I would have been happy with any result, though I had my official bets placed on Madison (after oscillating back and forth between options, might I add). In the end, the Academy works in mysterious ways. They’ve made good decisions, bad decisions, and everything in between — ultimately, they are beyond our control as mere viewers. What we all can do is sit back and enjoy the movies that come out year after year for what they are, rather than what they win. And no matter what people say, you don’t have to agree with the Oscars. Create a Letterboxd account or something. Leave your own review.

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Picture your hardest midterm. Now picture waking up one morning and realizing that said midterm, which you thought was a week away and thus hadn’t really studied for, was actually that morning – an hour before you woke up. You sprint to the exam hall and slide into your seat, panting, somehow freezing cold and burning hot at the same time. Your senses are in overdrive. Then, you look down and realize your midterm is written entirely in the Wingdings font, which seems to be legible to everybody except you. Oh, and you’re still in your pyjamas. And there’s only 30 minutes left to complete the exam.

From there, you’ve got a pretty good idea of how the events in One Of Them Days (2025) feel.

Hitting cinemas in mid-January with a bang, the Issa Rae-produced film injects nightmare-fuel scenarios like the one above with dazzling humour and charm. One Of Them Days features two best friends, Dreux (Keke Palmer) and Alyssa (Solána Rowe), and the obstacles they face in a race against the clock to avoid eviction after Alyssa’s boyfriend spends their rent money on a foregone T-shirt business. Solána Rowe, better known as SZA, makes her acting debut (though you’d never guess it) alongside the multi-talented veteran Keke Palmer. A ray of sunlight in the general malaise of winter, the duo’s impeccable comedic timing and hilarious dynamic make it easy to root for them as they stomp and stumble through their day.

Set in the heart of Los Angeles, Black culture is highlighted and celebrated in every facet of the film. Dreux and Alyssa live in Baldwin Village, a majority-Black working-class neighbourhood affectionately nicknamed “The Jungles.” Behind the film is an all-Black core team of directors, producers, and writers, guaranteeing an “authenticity” that underpins the film’s comedy and protects its cultural integrity. Ergo, One Of Them Days does more than just represent Black people – it ensures that Black people are not the butts of jokes but the ones making them, as well as the ones receiving credit for the laughter they elicit.

Up until recently, Black actresses in comedy played roles that made punchlines at the expense of their Blackness – perhaps the token best friend or the disempowered worker. Even as more and more Black women found prominence in the acting world, there remained a stark gap in comedies that spotlighted Black women and culture. One Of Them Days seeks to remedy this. The last buddy-comedy with two Black female protagonists was B*A*P*S (1997), which director Lawrence Lamont cites as one of the sources of his primary motivation: the pride he feels in seeing Black women in leading roles. As the first of its kind in close to 30 years, the box-office success of One Of Them Days sparks hope for widened avenues for Black actresses to showcase their comedic chops in cinema.

In a way, One Of Them Days is a gender-swapped version of Friday (1995), a cornerstone film in Black cinema that underlines not just the strife faced by Black communities but the joys shared amongst them, too. One Of Them Days pays tribute to its predecessor in many ways. The opening shot of a pair of sneakers hanging by their laces from a phone line in Friday becomes a central plot point in One Of Them Days, and both films feature the shenanigans of a pair of best friends (played by Ice Cube and Chris Tucker in Friday) over the course of a day-long mad dash against time.

Most importantly, like Friday, One Of Them Days is more than just a comedy. Beyond giving Black women the screen time they deserve, the film illuminates the harsh circumstances of Black neighbourhoods and communities in California. There, displacement is at a record high. The proliferation of development projects in Los Angeles has denied residents access to and gentrified various public spaces, infringing on already historically disenfranchised Black communities who have lived in the region since the 1940s. Moreover, skyrocketing real estate prices have forced many from their long-time homes, either into the growing urban sprawl on the outskirts of Los Angeles or onto the streets. Los Angeles had a homeless population of at least 75,000 in 2024, with this figure rising in tandem with the recent wildfires. Dreux and Alyssa’s fight to keep their apartment, while portrayed in a series of messy yet amusing events, is a sobering indictment of the very real issue of homelessness in California – and the desperation to avoid it.

In the same vein, One Of Them Days reawakens another classic comedy genre: the working-class comedy. Like Friday, One Of Them Days pokes fun at the struggles of the working class while simultaneously elevating them into public awareness. Amidst her and Alyssa’s haphazard attempts to make rent, Dreux contends with the anxiety of a make-or-break job interview; as well as a disastrously low credit score, which a clerk laughs uncontrollably and unabashedly at. While tonally humourous, these scenes engage the working-class majority in their relatability. More people can relate to self-doubt and instability than they can to the far-fetched plots that populate the comedy scene.

This, on top of its talented cast and stellar script, is perhaps what makes One Of Them Days so good. Its humour resonates with and reflects the realities of a demographic widely underrepresented in the glamour of Hollywood, reassuring them that they are not alone in their frustrations and upset. This solidarity extends beyond the screen: in an Instagram post, Lamont wished for One Of Them Days to “provide a moment of escape and joy when the time is right” for those affected by the destructive Los Angeles wildfires.

To those puzzled about how such a thematically serious film can be considered a comedy: fret not. While underscored by consequential Black issues, One Of Them Days highlights Black sisterhood and community through universal laugh-out-loud moments. The family-like bonds between the characters in The Jungles ameliorate seemingly insurmountable challenges, as seen in how the whole neighbourhood comes together to set up Alyssa’s last-minute art exhibition in the heart of the estate itself. While some of these portrayed solutions can feel contrived at times, the immense heart put into them is nevertheless unmistakable.

Back to the midterm at the start of the article. Let’s be real: you bomb it. Oh well. Anyway, there’s nothing you can do besides pick yourself up and tell yourself you’ll do better next time. Maybe grab a beer, or a Hot Cheeto Martini, the way Dreux and Alyssa do – whatever works to take the edge off. After all, it’s just one of them days.

The post Black Comedy for Dark Days appeared first on The McGill Daily.

What’s the first thing one thinks of when they think of a cougar? Perhaps the animal, but now more than ever, the personality associated with it: an older woman who engages in relations with younger men.

The term has its origins in female degradation. Coined here in Canada, it was first derogatorily used to refer to older women who hung out at bars to go home with whatever men lingered at the end of the night. Over time, it has become progressively more neutral, with the relationship between older women and younger men becoming popularized through celebrity couples like Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, who were 43 and 28 years old, respectively, when they married (though they have since divorced).

Once the butt of the joke in media like American Pie (1999), or the perverted villain in films like May December (2023), the MILF character has been revamped in the last year or so – think A24’s recent box office hit Babygirl (2024) or The Idea Of You (2024), which became Amazon MGM’s No. 1 romcom debut of all time. According to articles from The Guardian and Vogue, these films turn prevalent cougar stereotypes on their heads by framing the film as a typical thriller or romcom, thereby removing the taboo imposed on them. This compels us to ponder the societal shifts in the perceptions of MILFs and the older woman-younger man relationship.

The transgressiveness of cougars is rooted in traditional values of sex as a purely biological process and sexuality as merely a means to facilitate it. Ergo, open sexual expression has historically been heavily frowned upon especially in women, no matter their age. Once women age “past their biological prime,” they are often thrust to the wayside. Meanwhile, men’s appeal seems to remain constant, if not rise as they age, construed as accruing maturity and experience. This hypocrisy is explored in The Idea Of You, where Anne Hathaway’s character laments her ex-husband divorcing her for a younger woman and the double standard between his perceived attractiveness increasing and hers decreasing “as if time were paced differently for each of [them].”

Cougar cinema upends this notion, rendering the older woman the central character of interest in both the relationship and the film – in other words, making her a MILF. This empowers women by illustrating how they are desirable, not in spite of, but because of their age. In a world where women juggle competing expectations of purity and promiscuity, the foregrounding of women’s beauty and sexuality de-stigmatizes and prompts conversations about them. Halina Reijn, the director of Babygirl, describes the film in interviews with The New Yorker and ELLE as a “role-playing […] fairy tale” that juxtaposes notions of women being “clean” and “virgin”, which Reijn (and most other women) grew up feeling the pressure to embody.

Moreover, considering MILF leads often already possess wealth and an established career, traditional gendered relations that give men financial power over women are challenged, reinforcing female independence. Nicole Kidman’s character in Babygirl is a high-flying CEO in a torrid affair with her intern (Harris Dickinson), and her character in A Family Affair (2024) is a Pulitzer-winning writer who finds herself attracted to her daughter’s celebrity boss (Zac Efron).

The positive impacts of these films extend beyond the screen. A study found that men represented 64 per cent of older characters in film – almost twice as many as women’s 33 per cent. Worse still, male characters were often active contributors to the plot, while women were more likely to be side characters. Cougar cinema is thus an option for older actresses to maintain their relevance in the film industry – symptomatic of the perennial issue of a lack of diverse film roles for older women, which dramatically shortens their career lifespans.

This is all well and good. However, this also provokes the question: to what extent is cougar cinema a truly transgressive representation of women?

It is true that in cougar cinema, the female lead is given more attention and influence in her characterization, script, role, and so on. Sure, she is no longer a damsel in distress whose life revolves around a man. However, her characterization as a MILF still leaves something to be desired. Despite being given more lines and screen time, women are ultimately still reduced to objects of sexual pleasure. Realistically, the focus on their sexuality does more than just facilitate post-viewing dialogue – it also creates shock value, which drives the film’s advertising. Therefore, it’s hard to say that audiences tune in for the films’ feminist messaging and not the virality and “scandal” of it all. The novelty that tinges portrayals of women’s sexuality intrinsically commodifies it, reversing its intended de-stigmatization.

Jess Carbino, a former sociology researcher for Tinder and Bumble, investigated this phenomenon. “Why do film and television need to portray women’s liberation and empowerment as involving something transgressive?” she asks. She raises a salient point: amidst the sizable portfolio of movies where older men find themselves through broody reflection or far-off journeys, why should women have to commit social faux-pas to be deemed interesting?

The belief that cougar cinema is the primary solution to a lack of diverse roles for older actresses is patronizing and diminishing of women’s complexities and multi-dimensionalities. This is not to say that the currently popular depiction of women’s sexuality is not important. However, there are many other avenues to explore that do not have to involve sex, which, while an important tenet, is not the only aspect worth examining about older women. For example, Michelle Yeoh’s character in the Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) not only allowed Yeoh to transcend her previous roles in Chinese action films, but also portrayed the emotional, personal journey of an older woman finding her way in the world (or multiple worlds – if you know you know). The Substance (2024), which won Demi Moore her first-ever acting award (a Golden Globe, go figure) surrealistically depicts the immense pressures older women feel in losing their perceived desirability and relevance. These are universal issues that deserve more screen time to be illuminated rather than sensationalized.

The commercial success of these films indicates that cougar cinema is likely here to stay. It is unconventional, sexy, and breathes new life into an age-old trope by giving it a modern, feminist reframing. Classic favourites like Anne Hathaway and Nicole Kidman lead its foray into the cultural zeitgeist. Overall, it marks a step towards greater representation for older women in film. However, it is imperative that we also comprehend the fine line between shifting the status quo and underpinning its foundations. MILFism might be what sells, but surely, we can still do better.

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