Film Categories: body

  • In Our Hands

    Made in the format of a television commercial or public service announcement, the human hand is the primary image throughout the piece. Sequences symbolizing human creativity, nurturing, dexterity, and tenderness are juxtaposed with violence committed by human hands.

  • Keltie’s Beard: A Woman’s Story

    Before Keltie came along, the women in her family removed their facial hair and told no one. Keltie is proud of her beard and tells her story to us in this single-take film.

  • Letters from Home

    Begun with a speech by Vito Russo, “Letters” enjoins a chorus of speakers to sound off on AIDS, love and death. Impelled with a variety of formal procedures, this series of mini-portraits are generously furbished with found footage extracts, hand-processed dilemmas, home movies, super-8 psychodramas, pixilated phantasms, intergalactic warfare and a hot kiss in a cool shower. “Mike Hoolboom has produced an absolutely sensational work, not only by the extreme density and intelligence of the witnesses who appear in the film, but also by the visual quality and inventiveness of his cinematographic language. Each shot, each edit has a message…

  • Menses

    A wry comedy on the disagreeable aspects of menstruation. Women act out their own dramas on a California hillside, in a supermarket, in a red-filtered ritual of mutual bonding. “Menses” combines both the imagery and the politics of menstruation in a fine blend of comedy and drama.

  • Migraine

    The severe pain inflicted during a migraine attack alters the vision of the sufferer often to the point of hallucination. The optical symptoms of this disorder open it up for expressive filmic interpretation. A jumpy and fractured roller-coaster montage is transformed into the comically tortured hallucinations of a migraine sufferer as she loses control of her vision and mental faculties.

  • Mirage

    Typical imagery of a naughty wahine dancing while removing her sarong is looped and superimposed on images associated with Hawaii such as fish, surfers, volcanoes and the Kodak Hula Show. The sound is a loop from the Elvis song “Dreams Come True in Blue Hawaii” and the effect is haunting with a touch of humor. The juxtaposition of these three elements parodies a travel film enticing one to the islands by associating sensuality and sexuality with everything from Kahunas to Pearl Harbor. It is a kind of pop, twisted mantra invoking an exotic space that perhaps only exists in a…

  • Mouthpiece

    The work of art in the age of genetic reproduction. Based on the practice of lip-reading, this short animated film explores the visual “code” of verbal pronunciation by animating pairs of lips cut out from magazines according to the position of the mouth in pronouncing a sound of spoken language. But, beyond a mere demonstration f lip-sync, this film employs the 24 frames per second cinematic “code” of motion to also explore Alexander Calder’s goal of achieving “a sense of motion on sculpture…where just as one can compose colours, or forms, so one can compose motions.”

  • Naosaki

    An aesthetic study of gymnastic movement, emphasizing its visual and lyrical elements, and creating the “feeling” of movement through the use of slow motion, repetition of movement, dissolves, etc. The movement proceeds sequentially through preparation, strength movements, airborne movements and so on to resolution.

  • Nion

    This film shows the odyssey of a baby-like alien, Nion (performed by mime artist Ian Wallace), who lands on earth and discovers fame, fortune, love, and shopping. As a creature from outer space mimicking the behaviour of human beings, Nion conveys the arbitrary nature of gender roles, as well as the dangers of identifying too closely with these models, for instance when Nion explores the personae of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. An inventive film dealing with stereotypes of gender and desire.

  • No Mime Game

    An effective mime-skit showing the perils of drinking and driving. A mixture of mime, camera work, and special effects prepares us to expect the inevitable crash. An excellent film for use in driver and health education or dramatic arts classes.