“2 sisters, 1 closet” explores the assumption that there is a default, or normative form of sexuality. It tells the story of two sisters, one straight and one lesbian, who both undertake the process of coming out. Declaring sexual preference is highlighted as something that should not be limited to one group. The film follows two sisters as they discuss their own relationships to the idea and process of coming out. What does it mean for a lesbian or a straight woman to speak a sexual preference? Is it a more salient action for one sister than the other? What happens when assumptions are torn asunder in that process? “2 sisters, 1 closet” engages with these questions through an intimate and personal observation of just how each woman bares her true self to family.
Filter Films
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“Kardia” tells the story of Hope, a pathologist who embarks on an unusual journey of reconciliation. Hope discovers that the experimental heart operation she underwent as a child has mysteriously linked her life with another. To unlock the secret of her past, Hope revisits the curious tale of her childhood, while at the same time, explores the landscape of love, loss and the human heart. “Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize”, Hamptons Film Festival (NY, USA) “Best Narrative Film” SCinema Festival (Sydney, Australia)
Kardia
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Dead Zone (2.5 min.,1985): Images, repetitive in visual completion, combine with a popular music track and self-acknowledging voice-over to form a void of numbed loneliness and dissatisfaction. Part of the triptych “Three Short Films.”
Dead Zone
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“Ville – Quelle Ville?” reflects a satirical view of city life, commonplace and redundant. Urban life is portrayed as a series of rituals: coming of age in an environment shaped by generations, obscured by the constant barrage of everyday life. The film randomly touches upon key events familiar to everyone in North America, a melting pot of human experiences. As in any city there is an aspect of alienation, here displayed through the eyes of a young woman caught in the web of her own daily existence. “Ville – Quelle Ville?” (4 min.,1984): While Onodera’s earlier work explored the possibility of imaging women’s subjective relationship to a world constructed through male-dominated codes of representation, “Ville – Quelle Ville?” moves into the genre of the film-poem, utilizing a voice-over to emphasize the disjunction of the documentary image and the subjective impressions which constitute a woman’s internal reality. Part of the triptych “Three Short Films.”
Ville – Quelle Ville?
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“Images of Houdini bound in chains flicker and spin amid laceration marks created through hand-processing.” – Vanessa O’Neill, San Francisco Int. Film Festival The images of Houdini chained and attempting to free himself: the stop-and-start (interruption-repetition) of his actions; the high-contrast of the images; the stroboscopic effect created by the rhythm of the shutter; the gashes in the emulsion from the hand-processing – combined with the layers of sound, all evoke the violence of a tortured soul in search of escape. NB: View in total darkness to appreciate full flicker effect. Image description: A grainy, sepia-tinted image of Houdini hanging upside down in a straitjacket. Selected screenings: San Francisco International Film Festival, 2011
little prayer (H-E-L-P), a
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“The Not So Subtle Subtext” is a video piece that explores the sub-textual nature of Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship in the television series “Xena: Warrior Princess.” Clips are taken throughout the six seasons of the show and re-edited to create five different segments centred on subtext within the show. Without confirming or denying their relationship, the film addresses metaphor and subtext and creates meaning between the two characters by utilizing looks and words through repetition. Despite the shows neutral stance, the audience’s engagement with the text and passion remains almost ten years after the finale, proving there is more than subtext.
Not So Subtle Subtext, The
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The story of meeting your soul mate in a dream and waking up to find your soul mate in reality.
A Dream
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“These are four individual films which together make an autobiographical travel narrative, question the aesthetic separation of ‘great’ and ‘ordinary’ experience, and propose an aesthetic which might contain, within a single work, a diversity of styles – from complex formal construction, to ‘home movie’, to single framing in a greenhouse. The second of these films presents the sometimes terrifying power and majesty of New York City in a clear precursor to the later ‘Unconscious London Strata’ (1981).” – M.J.
Dream, N.Y.C., The Return, The Flower, The
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A hot day in a working-class neighbourhood. There’s trouble in the air as young and old take to the streets. “Give me your tired, your poor Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free The wretched refuse of your teeming shore Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me I lift my lamp beside the golden door” – Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus, 1883 Selected Screenings: Les Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québécois, 2011; L’Alternativa Festival de Cinema Independent de Barcelona, 2011
Canicule (Summer Day)
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Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. This 5-disc set brings together for the first time the film works of Joyce Wieland (1931-1998), largely regarded as one of Canada’s most influential and important artists. Spanning a period from 1963 to 1985, the collection includes sixteen shorts and two feature films made from new high-definition digital transfers. A multi-disciplinary artist who produced work in a wide variety of media, Wieland’s intelligent and irreverent explorations of female sexuality, domestic life, ecology and Canadian nationalism put her at the forefront of feminist practice. Wieland made her mark in the film underground in New York in the 1960s, where she was associated with structural filmmakers such as Michael Snow and Hollis Frampton. While here films employ materialist formal strategies, the irony and socio-political content of her work sets her apart from her structuralist compatriots, as does her exploration of narrative. The collection is accompanied by critical texts by scholars Kristy Holmes, Anne Low, Allyson Mitchell, Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof, Johanne Sloan and Leila Sujir. It will be of vital interest to film- and art-lovers alike, as well as those involved in the fields of film studies and production, visual arts, art history and women’s studies. Volume 1: Shorts 1963-66 Larry’s Recent Behaviour, Patriotism, Patriotism Part II, Barbara’s Blindness, Peggy’s Blue Skylight, Water Sark Volume 2: Shorts 1967-69 1933, Sailboat, Cat Food, Handtinting, Rat Life & Diet in North America, Dripping Water Volume 3: Shorts 1972-85 Pierre Vallieres, Solidarity, A & B in Ontario, Birds at Sunrise Volume 4: 1969 La raison avant la passion/Reason Over Passion Volume 5: 1976 The Far Shore
Complete Works of Joyce Wieland, The: 1963-1986
