To Refrain from Embracing

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>From the backdrop of an impoverished steel-working community in working-class Hamilton Ontario in the 1970s To Refrain From Embracing follows the trials faced by a small family after suicide-attempt results in 33-year-old veteran Ted being checked into the Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital. His wife Gloria struggles with family finances and growing worries related to the well-being of their 10-year-old son Josh while also re-embracing her Indigenous identity through encounters with a local steelworker and remembrances of her mother. Josh meanwhile struggles with his nascent sexuality lack of acceptance from his peers and fears about his father's mental health all while entering into a friendship with a troubled neighbourhood teen.</span></p><p><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>To Refrain From Embracing</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> is an immersive naturalistic and darkly comedic exploration of a family pushed up against personal and societal precepts of class race and sexuality. </span></p><p><br></p>