Ayo

This Trans Awareness Week, we invite you to learn from the rich stories and lived experiences of trans and gender diverse people in our communities. With the continued threat of unchecked anti-2SLGBTQI hate, rising mis- and disinformation significantly affecting trans and gender diverse folks, and access to gender-affirming care being threatened in Canada – and around the world – now more than ever, we need emboldened voices and allies to come together to challenge stereotypes and deepen public understanding of trans lives. Learn about Egale Canada's 2025 Trans Awareness Campaign at egale.ca/transweek (link in bio)

Atmospheric Arrivals Dir. Ayo Tsalithaba, 5:57 mins, Canada, Experimental, 2023 @ayotsalithaba Presented in partnership with our friends at Trans Image/Trans Experience (TITE) Film Festival. @titefilmfest SATURDAY 14 | 17.45 Shorts Programme BORN ANEW Total Runtime: 95‘ 📍 @irishfilminstitute Tickets + Programme → bio link In a world where forced migration and cultural dislocation fracture identity, this experimental short film reclaims presence through an autopoetic visual language rooted in Black and queer thought. Atmospheric Arrivals, directed by Ayo Tsalithaba, is a deeply evocative experimental film that speaks directly to Queer Spectrum Film Festival 2025’s theme of migration, nostalgia, and transformation. This short work moves beyond linear storytelling, inviting us into a layered, polytemporal space where memory, identity, and imagination coexist. Through a fusion of personal archive and artistic reflection, Tsalithaba crafts a cinematic environment where returning “home” is not a physical journey, but an act of reclamation — of self, of story, and of space across time. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Sylvia Wynter and Christina Sharpe, Tsalithaba explores how the atmospheric — as lived, imagined, and remembered — can become a site of resistance and possibility. The film becomes not just an archive, but an arrival: an artistic space where fragmented selves converge, where diasporic bodies find coherence, and where the impossibility of return is met with the radical act of making oneself whole in the present. @outhouse_dublin @lgbtireland_ie @dublinpride

It’s been a dream of mine to attend the CSAs for a while, little did I know, my first nomination would be for acting! And in my first ever role! Thank you to @thecdnacademy for the honour of being nominated! Next time we bring home the trophy 🙂‍↕️🏆 Thank you as always to @mo.filmms for your trust in me. Never thought I’d say this but, my gender reveal journey has been an absolute pleasure and delight lol @genderreveal_film @colonellefilms

🏆CANADIAN SCREEN AWARDS NOMINEE🏆 Thank you to the @academiecan members and juries! So proud of @ayotsalithaba nomination!❤️😎 Thank you to our brilliant cast 🍿 @keomedy @ladauphine.ou.quoi @laurenlynn19 @alex2393 The best crew 🎬 @christophedalpe @kenny_dvl @casting.taniaarana @catsougs @lehonye @jesscohen____ @jordynateur @myriammagassouba @s.gougoux @joeysimas Samuel Gagnon-Thibodeau Queen producer👑 @leoniehurtubise x @colonellefilms Genius director🤩 @mo.filmms Fire distributor🔥 @travellingdistribution This is such an honor 🥳🏳️‍⚧️

Atmospheric Arrivals (2023) Dir. Ayo Tsalithaba @ayotsalithaba is a visual artist, writer, researcher and award-winning filmmaker, from Ghana and Lesotho and based in Toronto. Their primary mediums include film, photography and illustration. Their work explores questions of home, (in)visibility, liminality and (un)belonging as they relate to Black queer and trans* African diasporic subjectivity. We’re honoured to have Ayo as one of our panelists for our conversation on Black Radical Imagination in Film at our Pre-Festival Fête on November 6th. 🎟️Get tickets at rpff.ca/fete or through the link in bio

I am so so pleased to announce that Mo Matton’s trans comedy “Gender Reveal” is going to TIFF! This film is not for the faint of heart, so get ready to have a TIME! I couldn’t have asked for a more glorious and fun experience for my acting debut. What an honour!(Hint hint I am an actor now so cast me in more stuff)!! Stay tuned for more deets about the screening and if you’re cool, come party after 🤪😈🩵🤍🩷🖤 — GENDER REVEAL A film by Mo Matton With Ayo Tsalithaba, Kẽ Xin Li & Lyraël [Alex] Dauphin Producer Léonie Hurtubise Cinematographer Christophe Dalpé Set designer Kenny Dorvil Costumes designer Catherine Guyot-Sionnest Makeup artist Léonie Lévesque-Robert Hair artist Jess Cohen Sound Jordan Choinière, Samuel Gagnon-Thibodeau & Joey Simas Editor Myriam Magassouba Music composer Samuel Gougoux

In May, I had the wonderful opportunity to screen my film “Atmospheric Arrivals” at the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival. What a delight and honour it was to be welcomed by the thoughtful and caring team at Alchemy. Photo of me by @mimsrey Q&A photo by Sanne Gault for Alchemy Film & Arts. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for allowing me to travel to Hawick :)

A restless spirit returns home through time, space, and memory. Official Selection 2024 | Atmospheric Arrivals | Directed by Ayo Tsalithaba Atmospheric Arrivals Is screening on June 20th at 7:30PM at @paradiseonbloor ! 🎞️ #fofs2024

Good afternoon I am going to Scotland all because of my little film!! Pinch me 🥲 Atmospheric Arrivals was officially selected for the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival!! @alchemyfilmandarts Adding some more laurels to this poster thanks to @cfmdcfilm my wonderful distribution centre 🫶🏾 See you in May Hawick!! 🫡

I love being trans more than I can articulate. I love being trans because in my transness I get to be a fucking bitch, which is so needed to wade through the world. Being trans is lifesaving and life giving, and even when I don’t feel good about myself, the thing keeping me alive is my Blackness and my transness together. Our worlds end many many times but rebuilding is second nature to me because I’m trans. I’ve been sliced and poked and punctured and sewn together and I can’t wait to do it all again. I love being trans, I love being transsexual, I love being transgender, it is one of the most fun things you can do and one of the most loving things you can do for yourself. I love dreaming about trans liberation!!! I love watching my body change. I love seeing this capacious vessel shift and morph. I love to forgive my body and myself for the ways it disappoints me by being enlightened to the ways it shows up for me. I don’t quite fully super duper love MYSELF yet but I love trans people so much* that I know I’ll get there! 🫡🫶🏾 *there are exceptions and terms and conditions to this love tho lol

Making an URGENT PLEA using my art as the cover image for this to get attention! URGENT CALL TO ACTION! OPPOSE GHANA'S ANTI-LGBTQIA+ LEGISLATION! The Coalition for Queer Ghanaian Liberation has written a letter directed to H.E. ANSELM RANSFORD SOWAH, the Ghanaian High Commissioner to Canada to OPPOSE the passage of Ghana's anti-LGBTQIA+ bill. JOIN US TOMORROW MARCH 5TH IN OTTAWA! CALL FOR SUPPORT ON LAST SLIDE!!! LINK TO SIGN THE LETTER IN BIO!

A statement on the presence of my film Atmospheric Arrivals at Berlinale 74. Thank you for reading. Free Palestine. Permanent Ceasefire NOW! #StrikeGermany