A wintery sun sets on a scene of loss and mourning. The grieving protagonist plummets capriciously from one state of sadness and confusion to another. Battered by forces malevolent and absurd, mirroring his unpredictable emotional states, he repeatedly falls into an avalanche of ice. Down into a barrage of helping hands, down into a winter forest, down into rooms full of memories, and finally down into the place where he must accept the truth.
Filter Films
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RM Vaughan’s love poem of men and their night world of camaraderie is bathed in vivid colours, evocations of the empathy men have for one another, presented with the virile yet sentimental music of the Chinese violin.
Men Together
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An anthem for the disenchanted. When the respectable and desirable activities of modern society have turned to rot and stupidity, one voice calls out for a retreat to that which is supposed to be so disreputable.
I’d Rather Be Looking At Porn
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A hand-drawn animation using various markers, ink, stamps and pens. Susy Raxlen, a professional master printer, tackes clear 16mm leader. Music by Oscar Peterson.
Ciao Sienna, Ciao Bella
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A film about environment, family and justice. “Northland: Long Journey” is an evocative meditation on filmmaker Edie Steiner’s quest for new truths regarding her father’s death from occupational illness three decades prior. The film revisits an early National Film Board of Canada film, where her mining father is posed as a heroic worker. He later died from exposures to workplace toxins, but his death was officially denied to be related to his work environment. A generation later, new scientific evidence amended the original legal and medical judgments, and the process of making the film became an appeal for justice. Filmed in a small mining community in Northwestern Ontario, the film explores how truth is shaped by phenomena over time. Awards: Best Documentary Short, Reno Film Festival, 2008; Final Cut Award, Lake Havasu Film Festival, 2008; People’s Choice Award, Bay Street Film Festival (Thunder Bay), 2007
Northland: Long Journey
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A performance film featuring dancer-choreographer Nana Gleason, whose solo works are an incisive and spellbinding alchemy of modern Western dance forms and Far-Eastern traditions. “Nana Gleason makes of her art an almost monastic exercise that follows its own set of gestural imperatives. Most notable is the way she flirts with a nameless physical otherness, sometimes through the use of physical extensions (a single platform boot, an extra long arm). She is a compelling figure, lovingly revealed in Lariviere’s film.” – Robert Everett-Green, The Globe & Mail “Lariviere, supported by the discreet cinematography of Peter Mettler and Kemp Archibald, has kept his distance, eschewed bravado and made a beautiful work of art.” – Toronto Festival of Festivals, 1986
Divine Solitude
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Contrasts warm colors with black, white and grey. “ON COLOR III: STILL LIFE WITH FRUITS” references the paintings by Jewish-French artist Sonia Delaunay (1885 – 1979) who co-founded the Orphism movement noted for its strong use of color and geometric shapes. STILL LIFE WITH FRUITS also cites the theory of colors by French chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul (1786 – 1889).
ON COLOR III: still life with fruits
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The sentence “Du mußt dein Leben ändern” (“You must change your life”) appears on screen written in the Braille system. Referencing the book by cotemporary German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, “ON COLOR II: BLIND SPOTTING” questions Sloterdijk’s call to change oneself, rather than the world. Oscillating colors contrast in an attempt to translate a message that remains untouchable to the blind, and undecipherable to the sighted.
ON COLOR II: blind spotting
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References the nude subject of Lucretia in the allegorical work by German Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472 – 1553). The distorted visual is juxtaposed with an orthodox choir of monks and the sound of funeral church bells.
ON COLOR I: lukrezia
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The roots of invasive vines threaten the preservation of Casco Antiguo’s declining heritage buildings in the historic district of Panama City. While the area continues to gentrify rapidly, Olga quietly tends to the plants amidst her home of ruins. “THE HOUSE OF OLGA” documents an unorthodox traveler in search of the perfect dwelling. Spanish with English subtitles.
House of Olga, The
