This essay on the passion and predicament of Soviet avant-garde filmmaker Dziga Vertov is constructed with playfully meticulous adherence to the Word of Vertov and the concept of the documentary essay-film. Vertov’s obsession and despair are explored through a montage of diary excerpts and challenging imagery, fully supported by appropriate bibliographical referencing and a comprehensive index.
Filter Films
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We are surrounded by impermanence. A series of images: an erect penis being manipulated, a man walking along a desolate beach, another man in repose on his apartment rooftop, and another man at poolside – all subjects seem to be in pursuit of understanding of their environment, and long-term satisfaction is an impossible state to achieve.
Sperm Whale
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Super 8 gunplay – explosive scratching, amazing stunts and fabulous outfits – experimental artgak at its finest!
Spaghetti 8
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“Memories That Sing” is how filmmaker Isabel Fryszberg captures the unsung stories and songs of her mother, just before her unexpected death. She reveals the songs and stories of her mother’s childhood in Poland just before the Holocaust. At the end Fryszberg becomes the song and story of her mother’s forgotten world.
Memories That Sing
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A Celebration of the Human Spirit. This half-hour documentary takes the viewer on a journey into the lives of individuals of diverse ages, cultures, and occupations who offer their perspectives and experiences of joy. In the midst of their search, both filmmakers suffer within one month the sudden death of both their fathers. They unintentionally become part of the film as they discover through their loss that one cannot experience true joy without responding honestly to pain. “In Search of Joy” is an interweaving of interviews, evocative images, and original music of several traditions, embracing a broad range of the spiritual and everyday, and focusing on the sacredness of life.
In Search of Joy
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“Divas: Love Me Forever” is a 48-minute comic-serious documentary about female impersonation, desire, fantasy, self-acceptance and the search for love. Edimburgo Cabrera, the Cuban-Canadian director and videographer (Latin Queens), follows six black female impersonators through Toronto’s vibrant gay club scene as they search for home, family, and love. The life stories of these six divas become a prism illuminating gay life in the Caribbean and North America from the 1970s to the present. A diva is a female impersonator who stands out amongst her peers because of her superior performance talents, devoted public following and public advocacy on behalf of her gay community. The divas in the documentary are Michelle Ross, Chris Edwards, Jackae Baker, Stephanie Stevens, Matti Dinah and Duchess (deceased).
Divas: Love Me Forever (Broadcast Version)
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Zoe and her city flat-mate Shane have never told their conservative country parents they are lesbian and gay. So when their parents turn up unexpectedly, soon followed by a succession of Zoe and Shane’s weird and wonderful friends, the scene is set for a very queer night.
Invitation
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Highlighting the repetitive nature of oil wells in northern Alberta, this film documents a sighting common to the Canadian prairies.
Oil Wells: Sturgeon Road & 97th Street
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The anxieties and frustrations of McCarthy-era Hollywood are integrated into this reconstruction of an infamous scene from “High Noon.” The struggle between a sheriff and his deputy become one with the film’s emulsion. Considered “un-American” by the House of Un-American Activities Committee, High Noon’s writer and director was blacklisted in the 1950s for alleged Communist sympathies. “They punish each other mercilessly, nothing barred. The horses, becoming nervous, rear and whine in their stalls…”- from “High Noon,” original script by Carl Foreman.
Cooper/Bridges Fight
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“Broken Dreams” is a beautifully filmed, evocative look into and out of the world of depression. Filmed in Super 8 and 16mm with a hand-wind Bolex camera, it captures the essence of darkness and light, hope and despair. Experimental images take us through a series of landscapes including the bleak moon-like setting of White’s Pass in Alaska, the unendingly high office towers of New York City, the eerie facade of the Carlton Hotel all alight for the Cannes Film Festival and then fall beneath the surface of the ocean to the depths of another world filled with undulating sea grass, anemones and eels. “Let me tell you about a time not so long ago … a time when I was chased by demon dogs and fell deep and down for a long hard time. Into a well of darkness so black that few will ever know it. Into a place so timeless that fewer still will ever feel it.” As the camera falls under the surface of the sea, a hypnotic voice-over carries the viewer into a world of dreams and nightmares: “I am walking down a long corridor that faces off into a series of rooms. Each of the rooms contains an animal. In one of the rooms there is a snake. He looks at me and I can see by the look in his eyes that he wants to be inside me. I go into the room and let him enter my body. He goes into my stomach and curls up there. The rest of the day I spend walking around with the snake in my stomach. I go to meet some friends at a bar. “The snake awakens and when I open my mouth to speak the snake tries to come out. He sticks his snake tongue out at my friends. They scream and run away. ‘But you have a snake in your mouth,’ says one of them. ‘Yes’, I say ‘He is my friend he will protect me. He will protect you as well – just let him in.’ ‘No, no,’ they say ‘He is evil. We do not need his protection.’” After moving through a number of dream stories, the film takes us to Paris where a young girl skates alone on a rink. Round and round, she moves like a tiny bird flying across the surface of the ice. The images freezes and holds and we are reminded that even when darkness seems to completely envelope us, there is still hope.
Broken Dreams
