Keith Lock is a filmmaker working across experimental, dramatic, and documentary forms. He is regarded as the first Chinese Canadian filmmakers in Canada. Rather than relying on conventional narrative structures, Lock frequently uses fragmented editing, layered sound, archival materials, and contemplative imagery to create works that challenge dominant historical perspectives and invite reflection on power, history, and collective memory.

His high school film, Flights of Frenzy (1969), won Best Super 8 at the UNESCO Muse International Festival in Amsterdam. After, he worked as an assistant to Claude Jutra and served as cinematographer for Michael Snow on several projects, including Two Sides to Every Story (1974), selected as one of TIFF’s 150 Essential Works of Canadian Cinema. He was a founding member and the first Chair of the Toronto Filmmakers Co-op, Canada’s first film co-op, which later became LIFT. He also founded New Films, one of the first regular screening series for independent and experimental film in Toronto, which later evolved into The Funnel. His experimental feature Everything Everywhere Again Alive (1975) was included in TIFF’s 1984 retrospective of Canadian cinema and was later named one of the “100 Best Canadian Films of All Time” in 2020 by AGO Film Curator Jim Shedden.

More recently, Lock was a featured artist at 8Fest Toronto (2016) and created the 360 VR prototype The Secret for the NFB in 2017. He served as executive producer on the feature film Café Daughter (2023), which won the Audience Choice Award at imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. His most recent documentary, Relics of Love and War (2023), explores a lesser-known chapter of Chinese Canadian history and has screened internationally at festivals and independent venues.

Synopsis

A word from Tënk