Doors Open: What a Buzz Kill!
The 401 Commons Film Curation

One weekend a year, dozens of sites open their doors for Doors Open Toronto, a city-wide celebration recognized as one of Toronto’s most culturally significant events. The City of Toronto is excited to work with the community to showcase their sites to residents and visitors.

FADO, imagineNATIVE, Reel Asian, SAVAC, and Vtape, collectively known as The Commons @ 401, are pleased to present the film curation What a Buzz Kill! for this year’s city-wide Doors Open event reflecting on the prompt “the world in a city”. We invite drop-in visitors into the Bachir Yerex Presentation Space to view a rotation of short films hand-picked by leading curators, Kelly Lui and Kaitlynn Tomaselli.

Who and what can exist within the city? Through the comings and goings of these five short films, we encounter anxieties, loss, and disconnection in a constantly changing world. In searching for strategies to find belonging, we find guidance from the interconnectedness between the nonhuman and human complexities.  How can we disregard the street-level buzz and listen more closely and intimately to the world around us?

Sat, May 23, 2026
Bachir/Yerex Presentation Space
The Commons @ 401 Richmond (4th Floor)
10AM–5PM

The Commons @ 401 is a shared-space initiative of five non-profit arts organizations: FADO Performance Art Centre; imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival; SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Centre); Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival; and Vtape. Occupying the west end of 401 Richmond’s fourth floor, The Commons represents the largest tenant-led renovation in the building’s history. It contains offices for each organization, as well as shared, publicly accessible multipurpose spaces, including The Bachir/Yerex Presentation Space, a research centre, a meeting room, and a social and reception area.