Film Categories: Architecture

  • The Solitary Life of the Stoic

    The ‘Solitary Life of the Stoic’ is a short documentary project that juxtaposes the formidable life story of a dignified woman in her nineties with imposing architectural structures and expressive imagery. Shot in Central Europe and integrated with portraits of Leah Laufer in Toronto, this film aligns visual poetry with the wisdom of an old friend, candid confessions of life at her stage and the gratitude of a Holocaust survivor.

  • TRANS-LEITMOTIF: A Cinematic Portrait of Toronto + Hamilton

    Following in the tradition of iconic experimental cinema such as Dziga Vertov’s ‘Man With A Movie Camera’ and Godfrey Reggio’s ‘Koyaanisqatsi’, Trans-Leitmotif provides a visual landscape of Toronto and Hamilton at this point in their historical legacy. Drawing on broad themes such as architectural monumentality and formalism, social/historical identities and cultural/traditional extinction, this film is both personal and anthropological in its scope. Filmed over a two-year period, it studies these distinct cities primarily through the lens of a 16mm Bolex camera, lending them a visual archive and subsequently, an inspired aesthetic vision of time encapsulated. With a mesmerizing musical accompaniment…

  • On the Line

    “On the Line” is inspired by Isa Shimoda, a butch gender nonconforming immigrant who served meals to Japanese American tuna cannery workers in her restaurant on the docks of San Diego in the 1930s. She was known for her masculine attire as well as her skills at naginata, a sword-based martial art practiced by Japanese women. Her restaurant was a refuge for the women who endured gruesome hours cleaning fish and lived in meager housing shelters known as “fish camp.” Shimoda has two sets of wartime records from the incarceration camps—one identifying her as female, the other as male. “On the Line” uses…

  • Lift Little Tokyo

    Maps and memories of Little Tokyo’s historical district of Los Angeles are uplifted via scotch tape transfers.

  • The Fenestration of Suburbia

    The Fenestration of Suburbia is a melancholic social documentation of a cold Canadian suburb. Framed behind windows and surveilled from the street, the lives of suburbanites float in the black cinematic frame to form images that are simultaneously sorrowful, mundane, theatrical, and puzzling.

  • IRL

    With assistance of social hockup apps, cruising and converting public spaces into gay sexual playgrounds has become a whole new game.

  • Queer Camp Trilogy

    The Queer Camp Trilogy is a series of experimental films exploring the hidden dimensions of queer Japanese American wartime history. This trilogy, made up of Looking For Jiro (2011), Warning Shot (2016), and On the Line (2018), was inspired by first-generation Japanese Americans who were incarcerated by the US government during World War II. These subjects left subtle yet discernible traces of same-sex intimacy or gender nonconformity in the archive, despite the enormous pressure put upon Japanese Americans to accept their imprisonment quietly, prove their patriotic loyalty, and smile for Ansel Adams during their unlawful imprisonment. I approached their enigmatic…

  • Controller

    A fly compresses time and captures itself on video by triggering a motion-activated surveillance webcam.

  • The Adobe House

    Adobe is a building material made from earth and other organic materials. It is among the earliest building materials, used throughout the world. This film is hand-processed in sage, mint, eucalyptus, and compost. Filmed at Site + Cycle 2018 at Anima Casa Rural, San Isidro Mazatepec, Mexico. Sound by Linus Winstam (aka Dj Bruce Leenus).

  • Cathedral Bluffs

    “Cathedral Bluffs” is a satire about the interrelationships of consumerism, religion, and fine art. Consumers stream en masse through a shopping mall. The action freezes and the title of a Renaissance painting is superimposed on the resulting still. The film then cuts to the actual painting, superimposed with contemporary advertising copy.