Film Categories: art & artists

  • THINK BEFORE YOU THINK: A PORTRAIT OF RICK RAXLEN

    Think Before You Think is a portrait of film poet, animator and artist Rick Raxlen. Shot on 16mm film and digital video at his Victoria, BC home and studio over the course of a year, the film follows Raxlen’s daily practice, uncovering the rituals and gestures of a creative process. Mining the highly specific and personal nature of this life-sized project, excerpts from Raxlen’s films, drawings, paintings and mark-making from a 50+ year art practice combine with hand-processed and manipulated film materials to play off the rites and relaxed rigour of his unique approach to making a life. “Perfectly captures…

  • A to Z

    A cross-hatched family fantasy about nocturnal furniture love. Two chairs fuck.

  • The North Sea

    “As Benjamin had predicted, nothing brings the promise of happiness encoded at the birth of a technological form to light as effectively as the fall into obsolescence of its final stages of development.” – Rosalind Krauss Supported by the City of the Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council.

  • Toad, Leaf, Grass, Rock

    A 16mm hybrid visual poem, at the crossroad between intertextuality and documentary. This film “plays” with images in an enigmatic way. Weaving, in the words of Eugenio Montale, a disappearing and deserted suburban landscape into the fabric of images, sounds, and textures of two far away lovers yearning for each other.

  • Fluid Bound

    An experimental gender fluid, mestize-Indigenous film that uses text, sound design, crude animation, and bondage rope to meditate on the complex, generations-old relationships and battles between our skin and our souls.

  • 7FF on¢idia

    In ancient China the skin of the tiger was the representation of “continuous changing”; in Mayan world through the path of Bolom Chon (Jaguar) they could read constellations: the dance of cosmos. Fluxes are grouped in the film; spotted-jaguar, “7 pancadas”, speckled plants, ounce (oz), “golden spider”. Matter-energy-information varies. Side by side communication, surplus value of code. Commodities, bit coins, mountains of data. 7FF on¢idia: real impossibilia of capital life.

  • Petal to the Metal

    This hand-processed 16mm film reflects on botanical animism. It is a song written for night-crawlers, compost, and shadows, inspired by human flower-lust. Water, fire, earth and air are interwoven with the garden’s creature crew. The work draws a parallel between the photographic alchemy of cinematic experiments and the photosynthetic processes of plants. Honourable mention, Top Canadian Short Jury Award, GIRAF 17 (2021).

  • From Tanzania, With Love

    After appearing in a remake of the Macklemore & Ryan Lewis hit single “Same Love”, Dayon Monson is forced to flee her home in Tanzania. Facing extreme persecution for identifying as trans and promoting LGBTQ human rights, Dayon connects with Rainbow Railroad in hopes of seeking asylum in Canada. This is her story.

  • Ruthless

    Ruthless (2019) Go back in time and witness a ruthless tale of unrequited love. The black and white film was shot on 16mm Bolex film camera using a KODAK 7222 Double-X Negative film, and processed by Niagara Film Lab in Toronto. Filmed in a few hours and is inspired by the Dogme 95 cinema movement. Thank you to The Marías, The Independent Filmmakers Co-operative of Ottawa (IFCO), Kodak, Pudgyboy’s, Marie-Hélène Villeneuve, Justin Pariat, and Warwick Walton. Screenings: September 2019 – The Independent Filmmakers Cooperative of Ottawa at Headquarters (Ottawa, Canada) November 2019 – A Night of Misfit Films at Onyx…

  • I’m a fag 4 U

    Inspired by the cinematography of “Truth or Dare” and “Paris is Burning,” this video is an homage to late 80s/early 90s gay culture and aesthetic. Shot in 16mm, it features co-director Vivek Shraya and two other queer dancers (Rodney Diverlus and Phil Villeneuve) reclaiming streets and sidewalks, common sites of homophobic violence, and the word “fag.” Also a creative response to the loss of queer spaces during the pandemic, we hope that this video will remind queer viewers that they aren’t alone, even when we can only connect virtually, and that our queerness–and faggotry–is beautiful and alive. Image description: A…