In this short comedy, two Canadian Muslim brothers are sleeping in their home when the barbecue in the backyard blows up. They are immediately suspected of being dangerous Middle Eastern terrorists and their neighbourhood turns against them. This film was inspired by events following the Oklahoma City bombing.
Filter Films
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Photographed through the windshield of a Vancouver city bus and edited according to the rhythms of the bus’ windshield wiper, the film transforms the linear “narrative” of the bus ride into a temporal construction that can be described as cubist. The effect of the cutting strategy on the actual temporal organization of the film is as remarkable as its effect on our sense of time. (R. Bruce Elder – Image and Identity) “[Gallagher’s] film embodies the essence of cinema; movement, rhythm and the poignance of ephemeral gestures.” – J. Hoerman
Seeing in the Rain
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“The action depicted here is simplicity itself; a man (Snow himself) rises from his desk, puts on his coat, says goodbye to a woman typing at a nearby desk, and leaves the room. But what took a mere 30 seconds in ‘real’ time had been recorded with a Super Slo-Mo video camera (developed for sports broadcasting) and further processed before the final transfer to film, being expanded to a full 18 minutes. With the continuous right-to-left pan in smooth and constant motion, taken from a fixed tripod position, the whole image- with arriving and departing frame details- is fully equal in interest and importance to the ‘event’ depicted. “The staged action is intentionally mundane, so the extreme slowness of the change focuses attention on the subtlest of details, to reveal an exceptional grace and beauty, normally hidden. A first viewing for the film can be oddly tension filled, as the viewer wonders what will happen next; slow motion generally portends something. When the brevity and non-drama of the film are confirmed, however, one tends to want to see it again. See You Later and watch for other elements in the image. “…Audio is also integral, consisting only in the sound of the typewriter (slowed, of course, to a deep and mysterious rumble) and the words exchanged by the two protagonists (he: ‘Goodbye,’ she: ‘See You Later’). The film’s credits appear to be the material having been typed on the screen. In this work, Snow continues his study of the cinematic elements: Time and duration are made palpable. For him, film techniques and components are active protagonists, as they have been in ‘One Second in Montreal’ (1969) or with the zoom of ‘Wavelength’ (1967) and pan of ‘La Region Centrale’ (1971). The idea for this film came to Snow as early as 1968, when he saw it complete in his mind, almost as a vision. It was the fortuitous offer of access to the Super Slo-Mo camera in 1990 that finally made its completion possible.” – Peggy Gale
See You Later / Au Revoir
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A film about the relationships between the mind and language. Delivered by an improbable narrator who speaks an extended assortment of nonsense, it is an “imageless” film in which the shifting relationships between voice-over commentary and sub-titled narration constitute a peculiar duet for voice, thought, speech and sound. A kind of comic opera, the film is a dark metaphor for the order and entropy of language. “Secondary Currents” is the subject of a number of articles on the use of language in the arts.
Secondary Currents
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In “Second Impressions” I made a decision to impose on myself, and the film, severe formal limitations in order that I might concentrate on the creation of visual imagery possessing the inherent qualities and natural restrictions of the filmmaking process. The camera was to be fixed for the duration of the film; there was to be no suggestion of direct or implied narrative connections or development. The viewer is locked in the room depicted in the film for a period of nine minutes. The two opening sequences provide autobiographical references to my previous film work. This is followed by the main body of the film that arises out of, and returns to, the empty living room “set.” With the absence of narrative events, the viewer is free to perceive the imagery in an environment more conducive to subjective interpretation. (LM) “…What does second impressions mean? I don’t know from watching the film, but one of the most interesting things about the film is that it creates a mood in which these hazy, ethereal images seem appropriate…it is the film itself which communicates that the audience should not expect some single narrative event to occur… Actually, I do not think that an explanation of the film can be discovered by watching it. Lorne Marin may know what the film means, but my point is that the film succeeds admirably in creating an atmosphere which does not depend on interpretation of the images…” – John Locke, Cinema Canada “…revealing repeated and segmented actions, omissions, absences, appearances, disappearances, reappearances, all gently, unobtrusively fading in and out. These do not merely contribute to the mood of reverie but serve rather to convey the essence of recalled memories, distilled in time. The film briefly arrests and permanently deepens commonplace, immediate experiences to a state beyond the dreamlike.” – Helle Viirlaid
Second Impressions
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“Seated Figures” is built with images which are all variations of eight movements on the screen: moving up, down, to the left or to the right, and the four possible diagonal movements. These movements are occasionally interrupted by holds (freeze frames). All the images move parallel to the ‘picture plane’ (the screen). The film could be considered a history of roads. Starting on asphalt the film moves to gravel, then sand, and gradually onto more and more rocky surfaces, occasionally passing through streams. Vegetation appears, roads become paths until finally the images are fields with flowers. The images were all photographed as ‘trucking’ shots with the camera always the same distance from the subject. The sound is of a hypothetical audience, viewing the film with the projector in the screening room. “In ‘Seated Figures,’ his first movie in over five years, Snow again explores the ground zero of motion pictures – this time literally… ‘Seated Figures’ is a 40-minute consideration of a landscape from the perspective of an exhaust pipe. The artist appears to have bolted his camera, lens down, to a metal arm extending off the back of a truck (or possibly a jeep, given its maneuverability across diverse terrain), then driven over asphalt and dirt roads, out to the beach along a riverbed, and through a field of daisies. Although hypnotic, the movement is not continuous. The vehicle stops, reverses direction, then accelerates to produce a diagonally striated forcefield. “For all his conceptual sophistication, Snow subscribes to a casual, all-encompassing Cage aesthetic. He’s deceptively artless, a master of the visual deadpan. While trafficking in geological abstraction, he arrests the film’s frantic motion, freezing some blurry onrush or a frame of flowing water. A soundtrack of coughs, yawns, and humming projector creates a further displacement. The images are distanced – accompanied by the muffled noises of an audience watching a move. Hence the mysteriously inert title. ‘Seated Figures’ is a about its audience. Not only are we sent flying face down over the earth, but Snow reverses the oldest concept in image-making – he juxtaposes our seated static figures against a constantly moving ground.” – Jim Hoberman, Village Voice
Seated Figures
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“The basic image derives from a shot of women in (Edwardian era ) dresses standing along the edge of the ocean. Within this eight-second loop, [Rimmer] cuts shorter ones. For example, the activity of a central group of three women is cut so that the figures repeat certain motions over and over and over again… “Rimmer also chose to use the forms of surface imperfections, the scratches and dirt patterns, as bases for his loops… Although working in a disciplined style of re-structuring cinematic forms, his highly orchestrated creations have inspired great admiration both from cineastes and the more general public.” – Kristina Nordstrom, The Village Voice
Seashore
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Partially shot in rural Czecho-Slovakia, this film investigates the phenomenon of no longer being rooted to a motherland, yet being tied to one’s origins.
Searching for My Mother’s Garden
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As the only winter port on Canada’s Atlantic coast during WW II, Halifax was an active part of the Allies’ war effort. At the start of the war, thousands of dollars were poured into the construction of concrete embattlements to defend Halifax Harbour against attack, and ultimately, to guard against possible land invasion. The attack never came. The filmmaker presents a striking, ironic contrast between the footage of the batteries as they stand today, crumbling and abandoned with narratives that recall the anxious, sometimes frantic fear of an enemy attack.
Batteries
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“Seadrift” is based on a story “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” by H.P. Lovecraft, and was shot partially in Marblehead Mass. Each section represents a synthesis of the various aspects and moods of the story. The sum total of the fragments expresses the atmosphere of the whole. With Mike Kuchar, Robert Cowan, Donna Kerness, Walter Gutman and others.
Seadrift
