Evocative, passionate and poetic, this film is a compelling and moving exploration of the relationship between a daughter and her father as she matures from childhood to adulthood. On the day of his funeral, she draws on the legacy of his love, understanding, and compassion, and comes to term with her sexual identity.
Filter Films
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A travelogue as catharsis, “i was a strong man until i left home” blends footage from several trips across North America, by plane, train and car. Informed by principles of Imagist Poetry, Kerr turns his camera on familiar imagery of the American travel experience, yet renders the quotidian as abstract, the continuity of perception as fragments. Employing a method he refers to as ‘Digital Sketching,’ “i was a strong man until i left home” possesses the intimacy of a flip through an artist’s sketchbook.
i was a strong man until i left home
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At three o’clock every day, Nia phones Burke at the Appliance Repair Shop (motto: “We Repair Appliances!”) to organize the evening meal. At three o’clock. Exactly. Every day. Burke and Nia live inside safe and comfortable routines that pattern their work, their relationship, and their life together. Their morning bathroom routine is a mechanical ballet, their meals are consumed in precise synchronization. If not exactly joyful, the couple is at least exceedingly stable, until the germ of an idea is planted in Nia’s head by the magazines at the supermarket – her relationship is supposed to have romance! Emotion! “The Gift” is a darkly comic tale about trying to inject passion into a ritualistic relationship… and taxidermy!
Gift, The
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The poetic story of a young man’s struggle to pursue his life’s calling. Damiano is a young Italian American who, in the 1950s, works in his father’s cafe and longs to fulfill his dream of becoming an accomplished actor. By eavesdropping on the various amusing conversations of a diverse spectrum of characters who frequent the cafe, Damiano gains a unique insight on life – he learns that most people in society give up on their dreams by choosing to settle for what is easiest. His experiences in the cafe, along with the ongoing resistance Damiano faces from his father, eventually propel him to “break out of the box” of mediocrity to follow his life-long dream. After all, “a lot transpires over a small cup of coffee.”
Over a Small Cup of Coffee
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“A carefully prepared ‘rush job’ and come-on … Every second counts in ‘Prelude,’ an unblinking wild three-way where most every action (teaser ingredients of sex, violence, music and food) occurs thrice as sound, verbal description and visual event. Though the constituent parts of any event are out of joint and rarely meet in the same incremental ‘time zone,’ perfect synch seems to only occur dead centre within the room. The action occurs within the same camera pan and single take. “Like some of Snow’s greatest work, the seemingly offhand ‘Prelude’ is conceptually meticulous. The film constructs a momentary physical world subject to specific behavioral and cinematic laws that parody the idea of ‘Coming Attractions.’ Taking off on the apparent paradoxes and backhanded clairvoyance of all trailers – how can something prepare a path and trail behind, acting as an appetizer but also spoiling all narrative surprise? Time and tempo are torqued to match the exaggerated metabolism and delivery of such advertisement cum films.” – New York Film Festival In my films, sound-image relations that are structural and have little or nothing to do with reinforcing narrative (this is sad, this is funny, this is exciting, etc) have been one of my main areas of interest for many years.”Prelude” filmically depicts a scene, which is itself a prelude to a film. However, the synch sound of the acted scene has been re-arranged so that it “preludes” (and post-ludes) the visual actions, which produced it. The image and the before modification sound are the result of a single tripod panning shot showing six Torontonians eating, talking etc – in a hell of a hurry in order not to be late for a festival screening. Everything in this film is either early or on time or late. “Prelude” is in some sense a prelude to itself because it’s over just when one “understands,” but by then it’s too late and the film should be seen again (as what was being “preluded”). (Michael Snow)
Prelude
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An evolution on the Pied Piper theme. The child who was left behind in the original story is now able to keep up due to the effort and bravery on his part and the enlightened concern on the part of others. Produced for the United Nations’ Year of the Disabled.
Bridging the Gap
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“my I’s” is a visual journey through time, space, and memories of the filmmaker from her childhood to the present. Not parting with her Super 8 camera for four years, she accumulated a variety of images from different parts of the world and from different times of the year. She then combined these images with home movie footage of herself and her mother. Pruska-Oldenhof’s childhood memories of Sunday afternoon walks with her mother – to a park, a field or a castle – and seeing the world through her mother’s eyes has shaped her mind and even her filmic eye. “my I’s” is about the bond between mother and child, one which continues outside the womb. As a substitute umbilical cord, the film uses light – the source of life, and the essential element of both vision and cinema. This is a film about the learning process of the eye (the child) and the I (the filmmaker), at different stages of life.
my I’s
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In “The Living Room,” objects on the wall one by one explode or burn and disappear one after the other while various acting events takes place nearby. “The Living Room” opens with a wall completely bare, then all these objects return from the dead with the clothes of the standing pregnant woman who then does a striptease.
Living Room, The
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A spoof in which Super 8 filmmaker Irving Speck fights to retain his artistic integrity in the face of the big Hollywood machine.
Dinky Menace
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The story of four children who use their imagination to overcome the people that are trying to crush their creative spirits. “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
Between the Lines
