Petra Totten

Petra Totten is a Vanier Scholar working in film and video currently based in Toronto, Ontario. Her work has won awards at the Emmys and InsideOut, and has been screened across Europe, Asia, and North America. Her research-creation dissertation seeks to find new pathways between  nonfiction film theory and trans+ studies in order to reinvigorate the formal tactics used to tell trans+ stories.

Petra’s work is exploratory in nature, seeking to highlight the beauty in lived experience; utilizing the essay film form and research-creation methodologies to collaborate in ways grounded in care and mutual respect. Her research interests include nonfiction film, trans* studies, and how the two connect and inform one another, and are especially focused on moving beyond the benchmarks of visibility and representation to a more holistic view of marginalized experience. Trans+ peoples' autonomy is systematically being taken away across Canada, thanks in part to historic notions of respectability, which Petra's work repeatedly rejects in order to change the material well being of trans+ communities.

Selected Work

• As We Gather 'Round the Giant Stone Peacock, publication forthcoming 2024
• visitations, publication forthcoming 2026
• Movement Through Space: Deleuze's Theories on the Movement-Image and Documentary, Mise en Scene 6.1
• my body is a place, just like any other
• Selected Video Work
• Selected Installation Work