Film Categories: art & artists

  • Garden in Khorkhom

    “Garden in Khorkhom” is an impressionistic documentary inspired by the works of Armenian-American painter Arshile Gorky. The film is a tapestry of footage provided by Atom Egoyan’s “Ararat” and footage shot by Torossian. It is an homage to Arshile Gorky, focusing on his relationship to Armenian art and his mother.

  • Cat Food

    “A cat eats its methodical way through a polymorphous fish. The projector devours the ribbon of film at the same rate, methodically. The lay of Grimnir mentions a wild boar whose magical flesh was nightly devoured by the heroes of Valhalla, and miraculously regenerated next morning in the kitchen. The fish in Wieland’s film, and the miraculous flesh of the film itself, are reconstructed on the rewinds to be devoured again. Here is a dionysian metaphor, old as the West, of immense strength. Once we see that the fish is the protagonist of the action, this metaphor reverberates to incandescence…

  • Term, The

    A lovely and spare animated film illustrating the poem, “The Term,” by William Carlos Williams. The film is an homage to the work of Williams and to the school of Imagist Poetry, which he founded and best exemplifies. The filmmaker chose this particular poem because of the power of the imagery, the constant metamorphosis, the musicality of the words and the gentle humanistic quality of the message. All these things lend themselves well to film: particularly to the style of animation she has developed. The animation is hand-drawn pencil on paper, fully animated twelve drawings per second. The drawings illustrate…

  • Chambers: Tracks and Gestures

    An intimate portrait of Jack Chambers, a major figure in the Canadian cultural landscape, a man who has been called Canada’s finest painter. Within a carefully constructed narrative of the artist’s life, this visually lyrical film includes the full range of his work from the age of thirteen until his death. The story is told in Chamber’s own words and in narration, and these voices are balanced by interviews with several of the people who were close to Chambers at different times in his life. “Chambers: Tracks and Gestures” combines new footage evoking the artist’s youth in London, Ontario, his…

  • Christo in Paris

    Since the days of King Henry IV, Paris’s Pont Neuf has inspired artists. Now it is the focus of the environmental sculptor Christo – and the millions of Parisians who watch him create an astounding architectural poem from the oldest bridge in their city. Rich in political intrigue and artistic debate, “Christo in Paris” charts the fulfillment of the artist’s ten-year obsession: the wrapping of the Pont Nuef, the same bridge where he courted his wife, Jeanne-Claude. The result is a ravishingly beautiful tapestry of art and romance.

  • Christo’s Valley Curtain

    In 1974, Christo built a valley curtain across a mountain pass in the southern United States. This is a record of his struggle and stunning achievement. “‘Valley Curtain’ is by far the finest film I have ever seen about an artist and his work. Technically brilliant, beautifully paced, with not an image wasted or held too long, the film somehow makes it possible for the viewer to become involved at a deep and personal level with the whole marvelous epic. ‘Christo’s Valley Curtain’ is never didactic; it neither explains nor describes and this is its great strength . On its…

  • Saddle: The Making of a Western Saddle

    This film is a lyrical journey that captures the major stages of making a western saddle. Beautifully filmed, it follows renowned saddlemaker Chuck Stormes as he transforms wood, leather and silver into an elegant balance of form and function. Shot on location at Stormes Saddlery in Calgary and Longview, Alberta, “Saddle” is a slice of Canada’s western culture and heritage. Honorable Mention, Columbus International Film and Video Festival “Chris Awards,” 1995

  • Cigarette Blues

    “Cigarette Blues” is a little film with a big message – that smoking cigarettes causes cancer and cancer will kill you. The pain and sorrow of this fact is demonstrated through the work of two very different artists. A sculpture, composed entirely of cigarerette butts smoked by prominent West Coast artist Louis Bunce, completed shortly before his death of lung cancer, opens the film. Oakland Blues singer Sonny Rhodes follows, singing the title song, a mournful tale of his lover whose refusal to stop smoking led to her death. “‘Cigarette Blues’ is a beaut!… you take people right up to…

  • tangly wood

    “Tangly wood” is the story of Loupe, a young puppet artist who spends her days collecting found objects to create her art. One day, she finds something that brings back a memory and drives her into a frenzy of painting and creation.

  • Walnut Grove, mon amour

    After the death of his mentally ill father, artist RM Vaughan attempts to come to terms with the event by reconstructing his father’s emotional responses to the maudlin 70’s television program “Little House on the Prairie.” A blackly humourous meditation on death and grief, punctuated by crying scenes from the famously teary, famously cheesy television classic.