This documentary spotlights the lives of four young refugees from Somalia. Faiza, Ifreah, Fuaad and Yusuf are not yet twenty, but they have already lived through a bitter civil war, suffered exile, and seen their families scattered far and wide. Now residing in Toronto, these four young people- Black, Muslim and French- speaking- are just completing their high school education. After several years on Canadian soil, how have they adapted? Do they feel impelled to alter their values and habits in order to survive? What do they think of their country of adoption? Their testimony, interlaced with sequences from a theatrical presentation performed with tremendous feeling, touches our hearts and shakes many of the lingering prejudices still faced by immigrants.
Filter Films
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“Forgotten Mother” is a personal and sensitive exploration of the relationship between Alice, a black domestic worker, and Adrienne, the white child she raised. This half -hour documentary follows Adrienne’s return to her birthplace, now Zimbabwe, where she is reunited with Alice. In what was formerly white-ruled Rhodesia, it was common for black women to leave their families in rural areas to seek jobs as domestic workers in the city. These women would live on the premises of their white employers and take care of the children. Although they worked for the same family for long periods of time they were excluded from white family life. Despite the imposed racial and cultural segregation, a strong and unique bond often developed between domestic workers and the children they cared for. There was, however, little acknowledgment of the significance of this relationship. “Forgotten Mother” bears witness to the strength of this relationship and its ability to rise above the constraints of the system from which it was born.
Forgotten Mother
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This film which has no title – only a dedication – won’t be burdened with more description other than that it is the longest hand-painted work to date. Note: Those films designated by 18 fps may also be shown at 24 fps: I am in all cases designating a preference, not an absolute. (Stan Brakhage)
For Marilyn (Original IV)
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Claudina Calderon, pregnant, with a small son, disappeared in San Salvador, abducted by government security forces. Her plight generates this filmic meditation, creating the voice of her mother through poetry, music, and murals to dramatize the story of one woman who stands for many. This film was made for the Women’s Association of El Salvador (AMES). With Susan Freundlich, sign artist, and the voices of Carolyn Forche and Yanira Chacon.
For a Woman in El Salvador, Speaking
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Elaine Pain has been drawing stylized birds for many years. To her, they are a universal “bird of hope.” Bright and colourful birds, with a life of their own, move to percussion music by Gordon Parsons, giving them a primitive power.
Fly My Spirits
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This animated film seeks to rediscover a positive, joyful reunion with the earth via the medium of flowers. Using different animation techniques, the filmmaker exploits myths surrounding flowers to examine the way to a peaceful civilization. Also available on DVD on the compilatiion “James MacSwain Retrospective.”
Flower
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Pun on “light” intended – that short preceding expulsion of breath perhaps the “subject matter” of this film which centers in consideration of death. It is the third tone poem film and did much surprise me by thus completing a trilogy of the “4 classical Elements.” (SB)
Flight
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“A beatific vision of the imaginary landscape of paradise, inspired by the poetry of… Blake.” – Pacific Cinematheque “The latest image technology and exotic new computer mathematics like fractals and cellular automata rhym[ed]… with Dante’s medieval cosmology…. A heady blend of the high-tech and the antique… that dazzles the eye.” – Bart Testa
Flesh Angels
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A portrait of “Flamingo”, an elderly Flemish emigré who has constructed an elaborate wonder-world of painted and recontextualized junk-objects on the grounds of his apartment building in Toronto. In taking a contemplative “tour”, the film emphasizes the continual process of metamorphosis and revision that animates the garden under the care of its energetic founder.
Flamingo’s Bigi Wonderland
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A frame-by-frame collage of everything imaginable. First shown in a New York production of K. Stockhausen’s Originale Track from these performances. “Breer…contemplates and manipulates ‘still’ images from his past in what is apparently a moving family album. Black-and-white photographs of his wife as a girl, of himself at his work table… are scrambled together with fragments of cartoons, a handwritten letter passing too fast to be legible, fingers, a bare foot, a mouse in a cartoon trying to turn on a lamp, and a real mouse falling through space – to isolate a few of the more striking images.” – P. Adams Sitney, Visionary Film
Fist Fight
