“Letters” is a poetic, reflective expression of the filmmaker’s rediscovery of her roots and coming out later in life as a Jewish lesbian. Although this is one person’s story, it poignantly touches the heart of what it means to be Jewish and gay. “Letters” was created as part of the Legacy Video Project, a special multi-generational mentoring program in celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film and Video Festival. Three seniors and four youth journeyed together for five months, learning the skills to create short videos that would both challenge and touch us. Selected Screenings: Inside Out LGBT Festival, 2010; Toronto Jewish Film Festival, 2011
Filter Films
-
A film about seeing and having seen. Completely hand-processed and painstakingly edited, ‘SEE/SAW’ is comprised of a series of iris fades – commonly found in silent films to signal the beginning or end of a scene – re-appropriated as a formal approach that frames the desire to see and to remember. Dichotomies surface in the high contrast images – opening/closing, beginning/ending, light/dark – it is also a deeply personal film that faces the imminence of not being.
SEE/SAW
-
An ultrasound recording of my first-born’s heartbeat…the intensity of childbirth…a family portrait. Form is altered through lens manipulation, optical printing and hand-processing to elicit the polarities and fragility of life.
Family Portrait #2
-

In “Doll House”, Barbara Hammer captures an echo of the militant feminism that informed her earlier work. “Doll House” was released in the U.S. along with four of her other short films as a feature-length package, “Lesbian Humor: The Films of Barbara Hammer, Volume I” (Planet Out).
Doll House
-

It’s 1975 and Toronto horticulture enthusiasts are buzzing with excitement; Dr. Timothy Arbutus, the famous British flower arranger, makes his Canadian début at Toronto’s O’Keefe Centre. Onstage he thrills the audience with his colourful bouquets and delightful banter. But all is not as beautiful in Arbutus’ world as his bouquets would suggest. Backstage in his dressing room, a dark drama unfolds. His devoted manservant, Fitzrooy, has just learned that he has been replaced by Larry, the hot young stage manager – and Arbutus’ latest fling. Distraught, the straitlaced Fitzrooy secretly follows the two lovers into Toronto’s gay underworld, determined to prove his love. But Fitzrooy isn’t the only one on Arbutus’s trail. Mary, an obsessed fan, is also on the scent and armed with her own twisted agenda. In this mystery-comedy, desperate love drives people to desperate acts…
Trailing Arbutus
-
“Shutter” tracks the rising sun, the lengthening shadows and the darkening day of a total solar eclipse. “Shutter” is a formal exploration of the phenomenon of the sun eclipsing objects in the natural world. Inspired by footage of friend and amateur astronomer Andreas Gada’s 16mm recording of the 1980 total solar eclipse, this work captures the beauty, complexity and terror of the shifting light that precedes and accompanies a solar eclipse. Shadow, focal variance and illumination of earth-bound nature conspire along the course to the incomparable moment of totality.
Shutter
-

Live sound performance/installation: “State of Mind” is conceived as an exploration of the mind through the basic elements that constitute the activity of the brain: light and electricity. The performance uses photocells to transform light variations into electrical signals and thus, into sound. It can be shown as a single-channel projection, live performance or installation; it all depends on the context where it is shown as well as the state of mind of the moment. Every time it is shown, the editing changes as well as the approach of the sound/image relationship to convey the natural instability of one’s brain activity. The piece has also been performed with musicians reacting to the visuals in conjunction with the photocells which are output to their set up, insuring a certain synchronization. The preview version on DVD is a simple reconstitution, to give a sense of the project. Technical needs: -1 or 2x 16mm projectors -Sound mixing console -3 guitar cables (1/4 inch)
State of Mind
-
Thirty-two passages from a small path in the woods towards the edge of a lake are layered onto one another.
brouillard #1
-
An optically printed dream of falling, both gorgeous and ominous. The body in mid-air. A canyon of high-rise buildings. Jury Prize for Best Canadian Work, WNDX Festival (Winnipeg, MB), 2010
Ville Marie
-

“A virtuosic use of video sets this burning bush alight with crimson colour and transcendent allusions. “ – TIFF Wavelengths Series, 2010 “In Eastern Orthodoxy’ a tradition exists that the flame Moses saw was God’s Uncreated Energies / Glory , manifested as light, thus explaining why the bush was not consumed. Hence, it is not interpreted as a miracle in the sense of an event, which only temporarily exists, but is instead viewed as Moses being permitted to see these Uncreated Energies / Glory, which are considered to be eternal things; the Orthodox definition of salvation…” – New World Encyclopedia Burning Bush is made from a series of mid-fall shots of a bright “digital” red euonymus both in real time and with video time lapses. Much of the ideas for the piece emerged during post-production. The Euonymus mid-fall “natural” leaves are startling, their colors are so saturated as to appear unreal, their purity so uniform as to appear manufactured. It has long been a fascination of mine to activate shared qualities living in parallel universes; always, that which is present in the make up of the digital cinema image and that of the physical world it is representing. Assumptions we make about the real world, the way it is recorded, or more appropriately translated, are cultural constructs. The biblical references about the Burning Bush are man made poetic as well as insitutional constructs. – VG
Burning Bush
