Utilizing the poetic voice to give language and meaning to the downtown monuments of Halifax, Nova Scotia, we discover that, if they could, our monuments would destroy the human race rather than face the onward thrust of history.
Filter Films
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“Mont Real” is a satirical view of our western civilization combining aspects of traditional and everyday life in North America. The film deals with our overpowering fantasies and with our enslavement as dependent consumers in a materialistic society. The extremely rapid development of the various visual aspects of the film corresponds with today’s hasty and short-lived deluge of information and stimulation. The film is also meant to counteract the widespread fear of foreign languages and cultures, a fear which seems to be quite common in Canada as well as in many other parts of the world.
Mont Real
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A (re)collection, a (re)ordering of the elements of our external world, filmed during travels in California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. A sort of “topological revue.” Salt flats, deserts, mountains, forests, cityscapes, plus meditation on Christo’s “Running Fence” and Duane Hanson’s figurative sculptures. Fantastic landscapes transmuted/reduced to their distinctive aesthetic qualities. Patterns of symmetry, of pure form emerge. Here shape and texture, colour and light overcome meaning to affect perception on a primary, visceral level. Sensations evoked by certain (sometimes archetypal) images: a profound feeling of peace, a disturbing sense of unease, a tug of nostalgia … “Michael Wallin’s ‘Monitoring the Unstable Earth’ … proceeds from the filmmaker’s intention of modeling a piece whose terms elude narrative fixations …. The eye of the camera embraces the essential surprise of the familiar – in landscapes, recurring human figures, art objects in natural and museum settings – paring away dross and fixing together a moving panorama of perceptual dares. The visuals are bonded together with an intriguing soundtrack.” – Calvin Ahlgren, San Francisco Chronicle
Monitoring the Unstable Earth
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I’m very certain it’s about the 30 km dyke in the north of Holland, the “Afsluitdijk.” I’m sure that the lines, the colours and the horizon figure heavy into grids, squares and rectangles. I’m positive it’s about being on an exquisite land/water edge and I’m assured it involves Rebecca, whom I barely know, and Mondrian, whom I barely know, and windmills. So I’m decided that much that is beautiful of Holland, apart from Rebecca, lies in the instinct that has refined the elements, and has become Science – not the other way around. (JG)
Mondrian Voor Rebecca
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Composition from journals kept during 1976-78. Moving Kodak snapshots taken during travels abroad and while at work back home; random glimpses of sites seen and persons visited, fragments of afternoon reveries and night dream visions with garrulous non-stop descriptions of education – in family, at school, while ill – trying to make sense of it all.”The dark wood encountered in the middle of life’s journey” (Dante). This is the first composition of material from my ongoing film diaries. “A compelling and revealing exploration of one’s person psyche in crisis.” – Linda Gross, Los Angeles Times) “… a tour de force of psychoanalytic autobiography. Shot with a series of multiple images, the three formative influences Nature, Civilization, Self compete for the viewer’s attention.” – Michael Quigley, Hamilton Spectator) “…our (Canadian experimental cinema’s) most sophisticated extrapolation of personal imagery.” – Seth Feldman, Canadian Forum “…a meticulously crafted and acutely troubling document shaped around the tritest topic in the book: the artist’s telling of his personal and intellectual coming-of-age.” – John Bentley Mays, Globe and Mail “… the key new experimental work to be seen in Los Angeles so far this year.” Los Angeles Free Press
Art of Worldly Wisdom, The
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In the beginning were the Sex Pistols. All the ikons of the Punk Movement and more. Anarchistic anti-art calculated to offend. “It’s violent… it scared the shit out of me a couple of times.” – Freddy Pompeii, The Viletones
Mondo Punk
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The poetic story of a butterfly’s life from his beginnings in a meadow, through his metamorphosis and his 3000 mile journey to the enchanted forest where Monarchs have gathered for centuries. The exceptional photography and the ethereal flute music by Paul Horn intensify the rainbow ballet of the Monarch’s life.
Monarch
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“A Moffie Called Simon” is a collage of photographs, letters, TV footage and dramatic sequences presenting the case of Simon Nkodi, a black gay activist and student leader in South Africa, who has been in jail for nearly two years. Based on letters from Nkodi and his lover, Ray, a Canadian gay journalist, “A Moffie Called Simon” also explores connections between anti-apartheid struggles and gay liberation.
Moffie Called Simon, A
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An animated film exploring the myth of Marilyn Monroe. Amusing and sad. “One of the most remarkable and dedicated amateur filmmakers in the world…” – Movie Maker 10 Best, 1986
MM Myth Myth-A Collage
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Typical imagery of a naughty wahine dancing while removing her sarong is looped and superimposed on images associated with Hawaii such as fish, surfers, volcanoes and the Kodak Hula Show. The sound is a loop from the Elvis song “Dreams Come True in Blue Hawaii” and the effect is haunting with a touch of humor. The juxtaposition of these three elements parodies a travel film enticing one to the islands by associating sensuality and sexuality with everything from Kahunas to Pearl Harbor. It is a kind of pop, twisted mantra invoking an exotic space that perhaps only exists in a dream or nightmare.
Mirage
