“Something to be holdin, to you: something too beholden to you.” A concrete poem made as a very blue Super 8 film experiment about: “I need a little space.” It’s all the things she never said as she visits the haunts of their urban love and remembers what happened in the Fall.
Filter Films
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A collection of footage from my friends or by my friends and me. It is amazing the number of events recorded by various means around London. “Sowesto” contains the opening of Region Gallery, The First Canadian Happening, Barbara Ann Scott in St. Marys, Nihilist events, etc. (GC)
Sowesto
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A film of an individual looking for himself, looking for inner peace in a world of continual conflict. Due to the fact that I wanted to be in the film, that the subject was me, it was my search, my wife did all the shooting when I was on-screen… The whole thing depends on focusing attention on something. The film is silent and should be run at 24 frames per second. After the film ends the projector bulb should be left on and the reel turning, film flapping against the projector for one minute. (CG) Available on DVD on “Charles Gagnon: 4 Films.”
Sound of Space, The
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This “fantasy documentary” tries to blend Canadian poet bp Nichol’s everyday world with the images of characters in his poetry. Sequences include a section on Plunkett, Saskatchewan, where the poet grew up, and scenes of him discussing “concrete poetry.” In the film bp Nichol performs several sound poems. There are also scenes showing his involvement with Coach House Press and Therafields.
Sons of Captain Poetry
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Filmed in seven countries, “Sons and Daughters” is a sensitive exploration of childhood in the fullness of its imagination, fierceness and wonder. This unconventional documentary consists of a series of precise observations in Canada, Mexico, England, France, Spain, Cyprus, and Isreal. With fluid slow motion cinematography and an evocative soundtrack, the film creates a lyrical and emotional impression of the joys and frustrations of childhood. An impromptu soccer game on a narrow Mexican street, Cypriot children reacting excitedly during a game of tag, and a native girl dancing wearily at a Canadian festival: these are just a few of the images that remain in the viewer’s mind long after screeening “Sons And Daughers.”
Sons and Daughters
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“Song” is laid over two picture rolls, printed together. The first magnifies the grain of the film, filling the screen with the circling constituents of its material base. The second roll draws a succession of figures from a dimly lit nightlife. There is a dance, a house party and a subway turnstile moving toward the most domestic kind of horror, a horror of the commonplace and the mundane, the horrors of toothbrush and comb and electric lamp. “Song” is an image of cinema’s prehistory – before “in the beginning was the word” but also: before the domain of picture took shape in my imagination. First film.
Song for Mixed Choir
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The bus stopped on the Mexican highway, placing us in full view of a young boy, motionless, on the hot pavement. In this film, the incident is revealed through a poetic text, derived from my written journals. The poetry mixes primarily with Mexican streetscapes which compliment the text in a tonal sense. Most images are 28 seconds long, the “breath” of the 16mm Bolex camera. A lone saxophone (Mike Callich) weaves its way through the narrative, blending to make stronger the tones and accentuations of the images. (PH)
Somewhere Between Jalostotitlan and Encarnacion
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A remake of Abram Room’s 1927 silent Russian feature, “Bed and Sofa”. Heralded as a revolutionary feminist film, Room’s version was suppressed for its radical treatment of sexual freedom, women’s rights, and abortion. Armatage’s version shifts the emphasis to the woman’s point of view and stylizes the narrative. A comedy.
Bed and Sofa
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“Somebody’s Kids” is a social documentary that shows three contrasting adolescents, each with a learning disability, their feelings toward the disability and their perceptions of their behaviour. It makes reference to three essential criteria which help to determine the success or failure of the child: the importance of recognizing the disability in the young child; appreciating the fact that each child learns individually; and the significance of family supports. “Somebody’s Kids” is not a technical diagnostic tool. Its aim is to stimulate discussion and to help parents, teachers, and adolescents understand how adolescents with learning disabilities feel.
Somebody’s Kids
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“Sololady” is about a fifteen-year-old Javanese girl from Solo who comes to Jakarta to sell her herbal medicines. Her herbal recipes, from ancient Chinese, Indian, and Indonesian remedies, are passed on through family lore. The healing power of pharmacopia is enhanced by her cultural image as healer for her patients, showing an Eastern or alternative approach to healing.
Sololady
