An inventory of lost memories and places, the sun bleached landscape of Saskatchewan serves as a metaphor for displacement, a framing of emptiness and absence. Traveling to forgotten towns and channeled through old family photographs the camera catalogues the haunting remnants of the past, frail monuments and communities laid bare, broken under economic collapse. Under the weight of the prairie skies a visceral, personal encounter is revealed in the solace of open space. Awards: Silver Medal for Best Documentary, Bilbao International Festival of Documentary and Short Films, 2008; one of the Top Ten Canadian Short Films of 2008 by the Toronto International Film Festival Group “Exploring once-settled but now-abandoned areas of the prairies, Mike Rollo uses his keen eye for composition to infuse himself into the ghost towns and vast isolation of southwestern Saskatchewan. With no sign of human existence in sight, except for shadows, relics and photographic remains, Rollo reminds us of the fragility of our communities and how easily these places are forgotten. This is a mesmerizing and reflective ode to a lost era.” – Alex Rogalski, Toronto International Film Festival
Filter Films
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Absurd vignettes populate this tribute to cult films and Dada play. The genre of the musical is stretched and twisted to exhibit a bizarre cast of characters as they struggle against the confines of the film itself.
Exquisite Corpses, The
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“Crushed” is a meditation on media through the eyes of grief. Can Dr. Phil mend a broken heart? This work pays homage to Midi Onodera’s “Basement Girl.” Commissioned for CFMDC ReGeneration.
Crushed
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The intensity of an internal struggle manifests itself externally, as revealed through an intimate, fragmented view of dancer, Peter Trosztmer, as choreographed by Sharon Moore. “The Hunt” explores the anatomy of the hunter and the transformation that occurs inside – calmness, pressure, extreme tension, consequence of the hunt, calling up/manufacturing the condition of enemy in order to justify killing, delirium and gleefulness that denotes insanity, and enjoyment of such experience. This ultimately returns to calm and cascading back into the pleasure moments, attempts to return to sanity.
Hunt, The
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Women in Afghan refugee camps make woven rugs that tell a story of war. The intent of these rugs is unclear. Are they anti-war or an affirmation of military power? Are they made as tourist trinkets for soldiers and “peacekeepers,” or are they somber prayer rugs? The weavers of these rugs are anonymous to Western collectors because the rugs are attained through intricate channels of trade. This kind of silencing of the artists’ voices and the political ambivalence of their intent can be read as a metaphor for the Canadian military presence in Afghanistan. “Canadians don’t know what the Canadian military is doing in Afghanistan.” “Afghanimation” uses stop-motion animation to weave a critique of military/media relations and the complacency of Canadians in smothering, camouflaging and covering up the real stories that come out of the history of occupation and war in Afghanistan. This film is also homage to Canadian filmmaker Joyce Wieland’s evocation of the domestic in order to critique nationalism and foreign policy – which is sadly still relevant and current. “Afghanimation” stands on Wieland’s shoulders to tell this new/old, ancient/contemporary story of war, media, lies and distance. Commissioned for CFMDC’s 40th anniversary project ReGeneration.
Afghanimation
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“Secret Weapons” is an experimental animated filmic essay that tries to work through the emotional and political confusion that has shaped the way I, and many other young Queer Aboriginal artists, relate to the world. After looking at the films of Mike Hoolboom, my thoughts began to centre on the experiences of growing up under the fear of AIDS in the 1990s, and of the cultural loss and grief that has cycled through the Native community since colonization began. I divided the image into four channels to reference Hoolboom’s film “Frank’s Cock,” while also reinterpreting the framework of the four channels as a digital medicine wheel. Each channel represents a different part of the medicine wheel, a different part of life’s journey, a different part of the whole self. The animated channel of “Secret Weapons” gave me an opportunity to move the scope of the film beyond my internal monologue to engage with my network of artists, activists, youth, and allies in the Queer & Aboriginal communities. Each of them manipulated the same set of images in a different way, creating a moving portrait of a community, my own network of “Secret Weapons.” Commissioned for CFMDC ReGeneration.
Secret Weapons
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“‘La vie en pellicule’ is film about a promise I made my son at his birth. He was born at the end of the year 2006 when negatives of family snapshots and precious moments are rare. I promised him that he would grow up with negatives as records of our lives.” – Lise Beaudry Commissioned for CFMDC ReGeneration. Image description: A scratched, blue-tinted archival image of two girls playing in a swimming pool.
La Vie en Pellicule
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“Shelley” draws on the work of Shelley Niro to meditate on the relationships between nature, Western ideals, cultural production, and Native life in Canada. Commissioned for CFMDC ReGeneration.
Shelley
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In “Rostrum Press: Materials Testing”, I use the Oxberry 16mm animation stand as a mechanism to test the response of a variety of objects and materials to the downward pressure of the camera. A professional animation stand is a large, heavy machine, with a powerful motor attached to move the camera up and down. Each shot in “Rostrum Press” is essentially a self-contained little film in which the camera moves inexorably closer to its object, one-eighth of an inch closer between each frame and the next, until contact is made and the object is pressed down towards the rostrum table as nearly flat as possible. The objects placed under pressure range from simple everyday items – an egg, an ice-cream cone, a plastic cup – to “sets” built specially for the purpose. “Rostrum Press: Materials Testing” responds to an isolated aspect of two films by Michael Snow: “Breakfast (Table Top Dolly)” (1972-76) and “Presents” (1980-81), with an additional/incidental nod to Snow’s “Wavelength” (1967). What attracted me to working with “Breakfast” and the final part of the staged middle section of “Presents” as models was the peculiar role of the camera as a destructive presence in these films: a wreaker of havoc. The idea of destruction as an integral part of the creative act. (Given the current situation, we might more accurately speak about the relationship between production and destruction.) “The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.” – Mikhail Bakunin Commissioned for CFMDC ReGeneration.
Rostrum Press: Materials Testing
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“The Garden of Earthly Delights” is visual duet consisting of a 16mm film and a 16mm photogram self-portrait collage. It is inspired by the earthly pleasures and wonders as revealed in the vibrant marvels of Stan Brakhage’s cinema, and in the central panel of the 1504 triptych by Hieronymous Bosch titled “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” Commissioned for CFMDC ReGeneration. Selected Screenings: International Film Festival Rotterdan (2009); WNDX Festival (Manitoba, Canada, 2009); Kunstencentrum Buda (Budapest, 2009); CFMDC ReGeneration Touring Program (Canada, 2008)
Garden of Earthly Delights, The
