Mannequin

Tunde, a Nigerian craftsman at a mannequin shop, finds solace in creating mannequin art but faces discrimination from his boss, Jane, who steals his designs. Frustrated, he confronts her and is given a demeaning diversity commission. Tunde completes it with his unique Afro-inspired touch, but Jane forces him to destroy it. Devastated, Tunde repaints his mannequins plain and transforms himself into a mannequin as a final artistic statement. Jane finds his act compelling and uses it as the shop's marquee display.

July 8, 2025
4-6:30 PM

Court Square Theater
44-02 23rd St, Long Island City

Buy Tickets

Ramgopal Rajagopalan

A man with short brown hair and glasses wearing a blue T-shirt, standing outdoors with a landscape of hills and a cloudy sky in the background.

Ram Rajagopalan is a Vancouver-based filmmaker and founder of RAMAR Productions Ltd., a boutique production company dedicated to bold, socially resonant storytelling. He has independently produced several short films with budgets ranging from CAD 4K to 40K. Thematically wide-ranging, these projects explore subjects such as childhood trauma, passive racism, teenage suicide prevention, and cultural hybridity.

An award-winning filmmaker who transitioned into cinema in 2023 after a two-decade career in tech, where he led large-scale product and software teams at Amazon—heading the Alexa organization in Toronto—and BlackBerry. Driven by a lifelong passion for storytelling, he brings to filmmaking the same leadership skills that once built global tech teams, now applied to assembling high-caliber creative collaborators.

As a producer, Ram has worked with notable talents including director Vivek Elangovan (Alia), cinematographer Mikah Sharkey, and production designer Shivangi Singh; TIFF and CFC alum Connor Gaston (Bagman); and Hiromu Yamawaki (Sandai), with stunts by John Wick 4’s Naoki Tasaki. His directorial debut Mannequin (2024, horror) won Best Emerging Director at Bleeding Tree International and Best Horror Short at ConCarolinas, screened at over ten festivals worldwide including the Canadian Screen Award–qualifying Silver Wave Film Festival, and was a semi-finalist at the BAFTA- and Oscar®-qualifying Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival. Ram’s other projects (Sandai, Oh My Cow) have also been recognized in the Top 40 at major competitions like Crazy8s and Run N Gun.

A 2023 graduate of Vancouver Film School, with additional training in screenwriting and performance at Toronto Metropolitan University and The Second City, Ram gained hands-on experience across multiple production roles—including 1st AD, Script Supervisor, and DOP—before stepping into the director’s chair.

Rooted in Indian street theatre and lived experience, Ram’s work champions BIPOC voices, Tamil-Canadian narratives, and intergenerational stories told with authenticity, cultural nuance, and heart.

A man and a young girl holding hands walk down a city sidewalk past a storefront with a red awning, parked cars, and trees lining the street.
A woman wearing red high heels standing on a beige carpet, holding a red pen, in a room with a table, a bookcase, and nearby furniture.
Woman painting a mannequin torso in an art studio with paintings and sketches displayed on the wall behind her.
A person drawing a humanoid robot and anatomical sketches of a human head and body on paper, holding a small wooden mannequin in their left hand.
A young man with curly hair and a shaved side hairstyle looks up while a woman touches his face. The scene appears to be in a room with wooden beams.
An artist paints blue and white designs on a black robot sculpture of a woman, working at a wooden table in a well-lit room.
A person with a mohawk hairstyle leaning over a mannequin holding a clock to its face in a dark room illuminated by red light.
A woman standing in a dark room with red lighting, surrounded by mannequin torsos.
An art studio with mannequins and artwork, including a woman in a black suit and red high heels sitting on a stool, and a man sitting on the floor looking up, with several mannequins and paintings in the background.