Canal

The imagery of “Canal“ captures the activity of freighters, ship’s crews, dock workers and the historical masonry that the original Welland Canal was constructed from… The film is about going into my “own world of youth” and spontaneously documenting the canal environment as an adult. “Through Kerr’s use of both colour and black and white film stocks, selectively chosen to contrast present with past events, and also through his combination of imagery and text, he invokes the canal as a living presence. The canal itself becomes witness to all events that have occurred or will occur along it. Returned to over and over in ‘Canal’ is imagery of the passage of massive forms of freighters and rock formations as they enter the film frame, swell out to its edges, then ’empty out’ the frame in slow, deliberate movements. The film frame itself becomes a ‘lock’ for the flow of present images – particularities of light, texture and rhythm – as they reverberate in the memory of the filmmaker.” – From the program notes for “The Frontier,” PBS Buffalo