Film Categories: art & artists

  • WE DON’T TALK LIKE WE USED TO

    “Shot between Hong Kong, Japan, and the US, this short is Joshua Gen Solondz’s most ambitious work to date, a portrait of the home and the world that is dense, textured, creepy, anxious, noisy, silly, and confounding, but always tender.”-TIFF “We Don’t Talk Like We Used To” continues Joshua Gen Solondz’s loose series of addled diary films with a film that is part travelogue, part affective almanac, and part cinematic noise show. With stops in Hong Kong, New Hampshire, Japan, and Brooklyn, the film alloys obscured faces, oozing on-screen text, throbbing abstractions, solarized superimpositions, and the occasional dad joke into…

  • Currents / Perpendicolare Avanti

    Currents / Perpendicolare Avanti is a camera-less, hand-made, 16mm film collage, based on the artist’s autobiographical experience as an immigrant. In three movements, the film explores the dynamics of inhabiting the in-between space of moving between multiple countries and their temporalities, through visual and sound abstraction, interlacing and recycling pre-existing film materials and, using fragments from anonymous orphan films. Utilizing these so-called scraps, Currents is a film of extensive remediation, treated by hand through the use of the emulsion lifting technique, thereby re-imagining, re-constructing, and de-constructing the liminality of immigrant life. The re-writing of the self in Currents is produced…

  • Skyscraper Film

    Can I use the film strip structure as an architectural element? Is it possible to use the celluloid from the film as a cement? Can these skyscrapers be turned into something else? Can solid lines blend into sensual, natural curves? Can I melt skyscrapers? Skyscraper Film was created to try to give a visual answer to these questions, arising from the artist’s relation to urban maps of various locations and their respective skylines, populated by imposing skyscrapers and reinforced concrete panoramas: Quebec, Kingston (Canada), Maryland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore (USA) etc. Cities are presented to us as an abstract handmade camera-less collage,…

  • Negative / Positive Film

    Negative / Positive Film is a hand-made, camera-less collage film composed of layers of erotic 16mm films from the 1920s, 1940s, and 1970s, intermingled with nature documentaries and layers of organic materials. This visual abstraction merges together both positive black-and-white film and its negative black-and-white counterpart – on the same film base. This allows the film to exist in two versions, one positive and, the other negative. The film is an abstract remediation of female bodies dislodged from their original erotic context and ripped away from their male co-protagonists. The man is removed from the picture, while the female body…

  • Positive Transparencies

    ‘Positive Transparencies’ captures the tensions arising from the destruction and reconstruction of 17 individual 35mm analog slides. Using Hornby Island as its focal point, the film explores the methods of observing, transforming, and transmuting the natural world through technology. Employing analog deconstruction, the project repurposes the island’s landscapes, creating dynamic motion sequences that emulate a process of artistic disintegration.

  • Muses

    A dancer wishes to break free from his unfaithful choreographer. In the midst of the deteriorating intimate relationship between a dancer and his older choreographer, the latter finds inspiration in another member of their company. This personal film delves into the intricate dynamics of inspiration, domination, and dependence within the LGBTQ+ dance world. It also depicts the raw experience of betrayal through the visceral and universal language of dance.

  • Scenes from ‘Deseret’

    2-Channel video installation (2x4k, colour) Festival premiere: Ann Arbor Film Festival Designed as a 2-channel video installation for projection at large scale. Both channels are combined here in one widescreen image for streaming purposes. When watching on a computer, headphones are recommended for proper sound reproduction. “Scenes from Deseret” was initially inspired by two sources: the ever-changing landscape of the state of Utah in the US, and James Benning’s film about the state, “Deseret” (1995). The history of Utah recounted in Benning’s film ended in 1992. A lot has happened since that time, and I wanted to capture some of…

  • Kiri and The Girl

    Based on the experiences of Tlingit artist Kiri Geen as she reconnected and reclaimed her Indigenous heritage after her adoption, “Kiri and The Girl” follows young Kiri as she navigates losing her mother and is guided to becoming her true self.

  • Inner Artist

    Toronto-based artist Molly Mackay shares her philosophies on art and creativity in this short documentary.

  • Invincible Spring

    An artist’s lost innocence comes calling. Modified memories of Clara – James’ lost love as a child – are clashed with scenes from his current infatuation with an unfaithful businesswoman. 16mm film, digital video, and CGI are used to illustrate Jame’s fluctuating states of mind, while variations of Ravel’s “Pavane pour une infante défunte” serve as a pulsing connection among them.