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  • Jim and Muggins Tour Toronto

    While leading us on a very personal tour of Toronto, Jim gradually reveals his unfortunate life, optimistic outlook, and friendly manner – all of which are mirrored somewhat in his pitbull’s determination and innocence. Labelled by the police as a troublemaker and by his employers as incompetent, Jim will be seen by the audience as someone to be laughed at, someone to be pitied, and finally, as a very friendly and unique personality. The film gives us a sadly cruel yet hilarious perspective on life’s absurdities.

    Jim and Muggins Tour Toronto

  • Jill Johnston: October 1975

    Jill Johnston is the author of “Marmalade Me,” “Gullible’s Travels,” “Lesbian Nation’,” and “Motherbound.” This cinema verité documentary is a portrait of Johnston at work and a feminist author at a transitional point in the women’s movement and in her own career.

    Jill Johnston: October 1975

  • Jesus Saves

    The political emotions of the butcher shop are discussed within the codes of Catholicism. Purging Catholic guilt, sins of the flesh, and flesh eating. The confessions of a butcher gone astray. An ambiguous layering of images, one is not sure whether the confessor is human or a pig, or if the priest is a butcher.

    Jesus Saves

  • Arabic Numeral Series – Arabic 19

    This series of films, each extraordinarily unique from every other (except “0 + 10” going together) is inspired and governed by strata of the mind’s moving-visual-thinking different from that of the “Roman Numeral Series” or perhaps one should say that the Arabic Numerals come to fruition thru some tree-of nerves separate from that which gave birth to the Romans (as it is physiologically deceptive to think of thought as existing in “layers”). The Arabics range in length from approximately 5 min. to 32 min. and may be projected at 24 fps as well as 18, tho’ the latter speed seems preferable for starts. I think each film’s integrity of rhythm would allow viewing at a greater variety of speeds, were there the 16mm projectors to allow that exercise. So far as I can tell, they defy verbal interpretation (even more than their Roman equivalents) and would, thus, seem to be closer to Music than any previous work given me to do; but if that be true, it is (as composer James Tenney put it to me) that they relate to that relatively small area of musical composition which resists Song and Dance and exists more purely in terms of Sound Events in Time/Space. Finally, then, the inspiration of all those modern (and a few ancient) composers I’ve most loved since my teens overwhelms the easier, and comfortably lovely, habits of jig and do-re-mi AND creates a visual correlative OF music’s eventuality – i.e. each Arabic is formed by the intrinsic grammar of the most inner (perhaps pre-natal) structure of thought itself.

    Arabic Numeral Series – Arabic 19

  • Jazz Film

    One day at the corner of Spadina Avenue and College Street, two musicians (Isaac Applebaum and Lorne Fromer) begin to play the sax and the clarinet in front of the Crest Grill. It’s cool early winter and people are off to work. A teller was killed the day before at the nearby corner bank; a memoriam to her is a series of reactions from the crowd in the jumpy erratic style of an edgy killer/bank robber. A poetic exorcism of violence on the streets.

    Jazz Film

  • Jardin (du Paradis) the Garden, Le

    “‘Le Jardin’ works through a number of experimental film ‘genres.’ It contains elements of the structural film, diary, autobiography, and the new narrative. It presents the viewer with a simple through-line (story), but its means are at tangent to the core of the film’s incidents. Apparently arbitrary choices of sound and image elements later resolve into a strong, effective coincidence – only to dissolve as the film moves forward. The arbitrary becoming meaningful might well be the theme of ‘Le Jardin.’” – P. Chapman, Opsis “Le film se veut une reflexion sur la vie et la mort. C’est une longue recherché d’identite a travers le passé et le present. C’est la difficulte d’etre un immigrant dans un pays qui se cherche, un questionnement sur le bonheur et surtout un besoin evident de tendresse… S’experimant tantot en anglais, tantot en francais, le narrateur se tourne vers son passé pour mieux saisir le present… c’est un film qui s’addresse avant-tout a l’intelligence et a la sensibilite. Pas etonnant qu’on en sorte profondement touché…” – Denis Lapante, Plein Cadre

    Jardin (du Paradis) the Garden, Le

  • January 15, 1991: Gulf War Diary

    “A personal register of the passing deadline, fashioned entirely in camera. Toward midnight, a trip to a demonstration at the U.S. consulate in Toronto vies for frame with the swirling super-impositions of clocks and newscasts.” – Pleasure Dome, “War and Cinema” program notes, January 15, 1991

    January 15, 1991: Gulf War Diary

  • J’ai Ete Au Bal

    The definitive film on the history of the toe-tapping, foot-stomping music of French Southwest Louisiana. Includes many Cajun and Zydeco greats, featuring Michael Doucet and Beausoleil, Clifton Chenier, Marc and Ann Savoy, D.L. Menard, and many others. DVD includes 30 minutes of bonus footage plus special features.

    J’ai Ete Au Bal

  • It’s Me, Again

    “‘It’s Me, Again’ is an elaborate experimental ‘mockumentary’ on the phenomenon of the identical genome, commonly known as twins. Fleming presents interview after interview with an astounding array of twins as she examines the ancient mythologies of twins as a sign of evil vs. a sign of divinity, the molecular and genetic underpinnings of twins, the psychic connections between them and the problem of split personality. No stone is left unturned in this hilariously trumped up search for the complete, and completely crazy, taxonomy of the human.” – Toronto Festival of Festivals

    It’s Me, Again

  • It’s a Party!

    “It’s a Party!” was shot with a stationary camera facing the hallway and living room of a small apartment. Actors continually move in and out of the frame, while three sound units capture every word of deathless dialogue about those perennial party topics: art, politics, and sex. Chaos begins with the arrival of the first guest just as the hostess finishes washing her hair; subsequent guests crowd into any room but the living room, and a riotous conga line attempts to incorporate an irate neighbour. As the party winds down, some uninvited guests arrive and chaos reigns again.

    It’s a Party!