“Cause and effect… result of thousands of years of looting and pillage… people remained steadfast…” From the banks of the Nile and the pyramids through modern-day Cairo, the film creates a sense of the timelessness of Egypt which climaxes on a tourist boat in the shimmering heat of the Red Sea. Optically printed, a manipulation of image, time, colour, and subtle light. A subtle statement on white, middle-class values.
Filter Films
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The filmmaker, stranded in a motel room, animates texture rubbings of items that are available, such as matchbooks and bathroom tiles – complementing her drawings with the natural sounds of the rubbing process, doors opening, and water dripping. “The audience is treated to rather simple images seen in a new light” (Grand Rapids Press).
Help! I’m Stranded…
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An impressionistic documentary about the Old Order Amish farmers in Waterloo County during the winter months. (35 mm print available)
Hawkesville to Wallenstein
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Animated magazine cutouts of two men having sex lead into appropriated gay porn images, blurred to the point where they become abstract colour and motion. All this is set to pastoral sounds, sex noises, and a reporter’s voice-over about the RCMP’s “fruit box” experiments – official and ludicrous attempts to expose closeted gay men.
Haven
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“EN”? – as the dictionary has it: “made of, of, or belong to” (then) Aquarius/an. This is my first conscious make of a “tone poem” film.
Aquarien
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“One of the few GREAT films of all cinema.” – Stan Brakhage “The Hart of London (1970) extends Chambers concerns with light, time, perception and the relation of the visible to Vision. It is a sprawling work that conjoins the public and the personal, history and memory, man and nature, self and other.” – R. Bruce Elder. Back and forth, between life and death, the film creates a “real” view of the world around, and gradually, as the real world comes in to focus, there develops an almost subliminal theme of the “Hart of London” – a deer which was trapped and killed in downtown London, Ontario in 1954. In the second part of the film, the images become symbolic of the pursuit and death of the deer. This theme is repeated again and again in the real images of everyday life. The Hart of London “is one of those rare films that succeeds precisely because of its sprawl; raw and open-ended almost to the point of anticipating the postmodern rejection of ‘master narratives,’ it cannot be reduced to a simple summary, and changes on you from one viewing to the next.” – Fred Camper
The Hart of London
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“Wild About Ari” concerns Sophie, a young Greek woman, who rejects her family through an academic appreciation of Aristotle, while Tom, a young white romantic, pursues his desire to become black. The Toronto Festival of Festival programmers described the film as a “bent, witty drama… that answers all the big questions” on ethnic identity and cultural appropriation. “Scripted with the style and directed with precision”… “Wild about Ari” hopes to win audiences with its fresh insight, humour and eccentric characters. NOW Magazine cites: “Demas’ deft dialogue, which tweaks cultural stereotypes, makes this movie a treat.”
Wild About Ari
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While at a dinner party with friends in the city, 20-something masculine presenting Logan receives a phone call that her estranged Father has been in a car accident. With encouragement from her Mother, Logan decides to travel back to her rural hometown to care for him. Logan spends the first few days clearing out the house, reconnecting with her childhood, and preparing for her Father’s return from the hospital. While organizing some of his things, she comes across an old Western movie and her Father’s old Western wear from his glory days as a ranch hand. Letting her curiosity get the best of her, she tries it on, discovering a new-found comfort in it. She spends the remainder of her time alone in her father’s house wearing his old cowboy hat around town, unbeknownst to her father. Upon her father’s return, what was meant to be a warm reunion turns sour as Logan’s father’s disgruntled behavior, and discomfort with Logan’s appearance and presence begin to show through the cracks. When Logan and her Father run out to pick up his medication, it all comes to a head when one of her father’s friends misgenders her to him, mistaking Logan for a boy. Logan’s father asks her to leave shortly after the interaction, his discomfort palpable. Logan leaves, feeling more secure in her identity albeit not without realizing that her Father might never truly see her for who she is. Short Description: Logan returns home to help her estranged father to recover from a car accident — only to discover that reconciliation isn’t so easy when identity is at stake.
Greenhorn
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A hand-painted film which has been photographically step-printed to create varieties of tempo in mimic of sparking and molten rock. The recurrent centrality of certain painted forms, and the exploding magma-like flickering of all that surrounds the forms, suggests a harrowing process. Note: Must be rented with “Tryst Haunt.” Rental price includes both films.
Harrowing, The
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In 1996, four young filmmakers graduate from post-secondary studies to find a provincial government that has implemented a “Common Sense Revolution.” This film follows the filmmakers’ personal struggles as they try to complete a low-budget, short documentary about a right wing governmental plan that will forever change the economic landscape of Ontario.
Harris Project, The
