A short personal documentary disguised as meta-music video. A sugar rush of sex, politics and rock’n’roll as seen through the eyes of a ten year-old boy at the fair. Featuring appearances by members of Shout Out Out Out Out, The Wet Secrets, and the music of the Vertical Struts (r.i.p.). Awards: Inaugural Lindalee Tracey Award at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival
Filter Films
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A visual journal or diary, an experimental “travelogue,” where the signposts of interest are equally elements of architecture and plant life as people and events. Imposition of formal compositional strategies vies with the revelation of off-hand personal gesture to continually regenerate interest and belie expectation. Both a reminiscence and an ongoing investigation, the intent is to communicate the essential quality of “place,” which is always an amalgam of the visual and emotional. Friends who populate the images provide personal anecdotes for the soundtrack. Powerful (and painful) events in my life during the period of the film’s completion certainly influenced its emotional tone. It seems at times an elegy to my relationship with a lover. (Michael Wallin) “Things are as they are – they are not like anything.” – Robert Creeley “No ideas but in things.” – William Carlos Williams “We’ve traveled on together / Through the dark sunny days / And may we always be together / Just my Lord and I along the way.” – John Duffey, “Along the Way” (as recorded by the Country Gentleman)
Along the Way
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Combines the Mambo and Tibetan sound effects with Jordan animation and clips of silent film stars, including Eric Von Stroheim, Greta Garbo, Gary Cooper, Buster Keaton, Lilian Gish, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Lon Chaney, Joan Crawford, Marie Dressler, Charlie Chaplin and others. Selected screenings: Images Festival, Toronto, 2006
Blue Skies Beyond the Looking Glass
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In 1896, William Heise photographed the first 35mm motion picture images of Canada at Niagara Falls. The four-perforation camera system he used was designed and built by Thomas Edison and William K. Dickson, and the stock was manufactured by George Eastman to Edison’s specifications. This film was photographed using the same essential technology and is dedicated to the visionary ideas of those pioneers. Commissioned by The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers Toronto for its Film is Dead – Long Live Film omnibus project. Selected Screenings: International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2007; Media City, Windsor, ON, 2007
View of the Falls from the Canadian Side
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A boy’s phantasmagoric world of heroes is captured in layers of light and hues. This video, humorously and poetically juggles ideas about make believe and representation of the everyday. “Here plays as some form of synthetic/organic haiku or renga (Japanese linked poetry) linking semblance to semblance working with the primal power and suggestiveness of transient colors.. A shift in hue argues for motion or cessation –stop and go. Migrant juices of color change aspect –blood, fire, rain, red leaves living and dead.Green plastic soldiers float lifelessly in autumnal pools of septic yellow. Simple magic. Simple prophesy. Child’s play augurs global events and as in Rimbaud’s Le Bateau Ivre a patch of backyard here becomes a primeval forest of decaying moss a beachhead and the abandoned frontline, a field of fire as a tableaux mort.-” Mark McElhatten, Turino Film Festival Screening Notes.
Here
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The story of Pepere’s Chairs was conceived by my mother, visual artist Maryse Maynard. It is a playful tale about a group of chairs that once belonged to her ancestors. Once the film had been recorded and edited, it was projected onto hand-embroidered canvases which served as the screen. Maryse had embroidered the canvases with chairs, and every once in a while, an embroidered chair could be glimpsed floating in the background of the film.
Pepere’s Chairs
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The footage for “Berlin Zoo” was taken in Germany while I was travelling there in the winter of 2003. This is an anecdotal film, set to an original song by the filmmaker.
Berlin Zoo
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The film is a reaction to the obsession a seven-year-old girl has with her many Barbie Dolls. The world of Barbie is pushed to its innocuous and tragic conclusions. Ann Knutson plays the role of the mother. “Shut Up Barbie” was pixilated in Tiburon, Ca.
Shut Up Barbie
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Changes of directions, in the wind, the edges, the shapes, a joyous and mesmerizing intrigue. Perhaps an other way to put it is to describe this piece as a humorous digital cine take on the long cultural history of the lessons left by the great Chinese painters of the 13th century for whom shapes and edges where often all one and the same. Selected screenings: Media City, Windsor, ON, 2007
North Southernly
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A simple pairing of fire footage and a photograph from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Her name was Violet” pays homage to a girl who once had her whole life in front of her. This short piece reflects on the act of photographing to remember, the fragile nature of life, and the power of the earth’s elements. Commissioned by LIFT (Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto) for their 25th anniversary program, “Film is Dead! Long Live Film!” Selected screenings: Cinematheque Ontario, Toronto, ON, 2007; Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival, 2007
Her name was Violet
