Artist Spotlight Series: Christina Battle
2007
44 min
English
Published by Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre
$50
Formats Available:
- DVD
License
- Personal
- Educational
Christina Battle’s hand-processed, coloured and manipulated films explore the material and transformative possibilities of the film medium. Using techniques such as cameraless animation and collage, she “paints and sculpts” on film. Her work explores built and natural environments, history and the act of collective remembering, and a fascination with weather and storms.
Study guide includes an essay by Janine Marchessault, York University.
DISC DESCRIPTION
Hysteria (2006 / 35mm / 4 min.)
An unstable community leads to accusations and panic. Re-considering the Salem witch trials of 1692. Then doesn’t always seem so far off from now.
Traveling thru with eyes closed tight
(map #2 – january 03 thru january 06) (2006 / 35mm / 4 min.)
a yellow field meets clear blue skies. a mist of water over bright green grass. a well worn sidewalk in grey and white. a lone black crow on a sandy beach. a lowering sun fades into the sea.
Migration (2005 / 16mm / 5.5 min.)
A late summer prairie storm as heard from above… someplace between this atmosphere and the next…
Nostalgia (april 2001 to present) (2005 / 16mm / 4 min.)
“The picture of the world that’s presented to the public has only the remotest relation to reality…” – Noam Chomsky
The distance between here and there (2005 / 16mm / 8 min.)
Traveling through an invented landscape… the space between here and there.
Fall Storm (California 2003) (2004 16mm 3min.)
Sitting in a quiet room; listening to a storm out the window.
Following the line of the web (2004 / 16mm / 2.5min)
Creating an intricate visual map, photograms provide an opportunity to travel through the space of a spider’s web.
Buffalo Lifts (2004 / 16mm / 3min)
Awash in sumptuous colour, a herd of buffalo desperately try to hold on as they struggle to cross the film frame.
Paradise Falls, Mew Mexico (2004 / 16mm / dual-projection / 4min.)
“The desert wind from America’s Southwestern ghost towns blows through the film’s emulsion, stripping away the myth behind the imagery of shoot-outs, outlaws and the lone gunmen from Hollywood Westerns.” – Images Festival, Toronto, 2004
Oil Wells: Sturgeon Road & 97th Street (2002 / 16mm / 3min.)
Highlighting the repetitive nature of oil wells in northern Alberta, this film documents a sighting common to the Canadian prairies.
Cooper/Bridges Fight (2002 / 16mm / 3min.)
The anxieties and frustrations of McCarthy-era Hollywood are integrated into this reconstruction of an infamous scene from “High Noon.” The struggle between a sheriff and his deputy become one with the film’s emulsion.