Film Categories: Culture

  • Officer Tuba Meets Happy Ghost

    soJin Chun combines characters appropriated from two Hong Kong films and digitally rotoscopes them into contemporary Super 8mm film footage shot in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Toronto, Canada. Pulled from their Hong Kong settings, these characters are recast as Koreans, playing with western perceptions of Asian identity. The ruptures and continuity of culture within diasporic communities frame these figures displaced in time, space, language, and culture. The principal characters in this new film are the titular Officer Tuba (of Where’s Officer Tuba 1986) and an actress taken from the Happy Ghost Franchise (five films 1984-1991). Although they never meet, Chun…

  • Waiting (انتظار)

    A young woman journeys to visit her grandmother. What transpires between the unsaid and silence propels into a prolonged moment of tension and desires of connection. Image description: A young woman and her grandmother sit next to each other on a couch. They both look straight ahead with stony-faced expressions, not talking.

  • Opening Day

    a countdown. a gate. a super 8. a finish line. ( Produced as part of Vancouver’s first edition of One Take Super 8)

  • The Spanish Experimentals of Eve A. Ma

    Compilation of Eve A. Ma’s works: 1. Two Streets and Adela 2. Tone Poem with Hang Drum 3. Her (Ella) You are able to click on each title to see the separate film page and to inquire about individual films.

  • Masters of Rhythm the Afro-Peruvian Way

    “…a rare and delightful glimpse….capture(s) the artistry, love and philosophy….” (John Santos, percussionist, seven times Grammy nominee) Masters of Rhythm, of filmmaker Eve A. Ma, has screened in five countries on three continents, and won awards in the USA and Germany. A natural outgrowth of my earlier documentary about Afro-Peruvians, it features percussionists Lalo Izquierdo, Cotito and Huevito. Performancs include two original music compositions and a dance form called Afro-Peruvian zapateo, with fancy footwork similar to tap dance.

  • H2T

    Shot on several types of film (16 mm and Super 8 format), ranging from handmade film emulsion to expired films, H2T takes place in the mighty Hotel2Tango Montreal recording studio. The film is a chemical composition where light meets the effervescence and creativity of the band Land of Kush (Constellation Records) during the making of their latest album, The Big Mango (2013). Filming of the recording session during rehearsals and breaks, the picture is just as ephemeral as the musicians’ movements. H2T reflects on the performative aspect specific to experimental film and musical performance.

  • the medium is the message

    An age of numerology communication : numbers digits : representation algorithms : codecs compression : bitrot : memory what message? THE FUTURE IS THE PRESENT

  • My Gentrification

    “A voice tells us: “a friend of mine drew a circle on a map and said, ‘this is where you wanna live’.” The this refers to a subsection of Toronto between Bathurst and Dufferin streets, but it could just as easily refer to the city as a whole, an area bustling with life. Or, at least it did. Marcos Arriaga’s “My Gentrification,” explores the changes in the ever-gentrifying metropolis through the lens of archival footage they procured through decades of documentation. There’s a real Jonas Mekas vibe to Arriaga’s film, which is replete with voiceover narration and grainy celluloid archival…

  • Jatun LLaxta, Noh Kaah…

    A short experimental film that explores ancient native cities in America. Images of Machu Pichu, Sacsayhuaman, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and Mesa Verde had been blow up from Super 8 to 16 mm, handheld developed and reticulated to create an evocative view of our past.

  • Wash Day

    As they get ready for the day, three young Black women discuss the public perception of their Blackness in relation to their cultivation of a strong sense of self. Wash Day is an intimate exploration into how private, domestic acts such as washing your hair or putting on makeup become a significant re-acquaintance with the body, before and after navigating the politics of one’s outwardly appearance. Image description: A Black woman’s hands cradle long dark braids as water washes over them.