Film Categories: Families

  • Archaeology of Memory (silent)

    Beginning in scratches of light, this film evolves through colour, rhythm and multiple images tracing a history of cinema from mythical beginnings to the thread of personal memory, peering into the everyday pathology of family, sex and death. “A kind of double history that intertwines autobiography with the development of cinema, it’s a stunning, enormously seductive array of images …” – Cameron Bailey, NOW Magazine

  • Archaeology of Memory (sound)

    Beginning in scratches of light, this film evolves through colour, rhythm and multiple images tracing a history of cinema from mythical beginnings to the thread of personal memory, peering into the everyday pathology of family, sex and death. “A kind of double history that intertwines autobiography with the development of cinema, it’s a stunning, enormously seductive array of images …” – Cameron Bailey, NOW Magazine

  • Me, Mom and Mona

    The women of the Shum family are a force to be reckoned with. Sitting around joking about how they pull the wool over Dad’s eyes, or remembering all the absurdities of growing up Chinese in Vancouver, it’s clear they’ve hit on a strategy that can handle both Chinese tradition and Canadian custom – humour. The laughter resonates throughout “Me, Mom and Mona” to touch off much deeper responses.

  • Mother Marilyn

    This film is animated in the rough collage style that James MacSwain has made his own. Utilizing a series of vignettes, the film traces the story of the child born to Marilyn Monroe and President Kennedy. As the satire unfolds, the story becomes a metaphor for the collapse of the American Empirre due to mysticism and drugs. Also available on DVD on the compilation “James MacSwain Retrospective.”

  • No Choice

    “No Choice” is a short documentary that deals with the abortion issue and how it relates to women living in poverty. Five women, ranging in age from twenty to forty-five, speak about the lack of choice available to poor people and how, because of their poverty, their reproductive capabilities are often controlled by extraneous factors. Part of “Five Feminist Minutes.”

  • Nursing History

    “Nursing History” began as an inquiry into the nature of woman’s work, specifically the relationship between woman’s work as wives and mothers, and woman’s work as nurses. Having worked as a nurse for ten years, I decided to locate this inquiry historically, within my own past as represented in the home movies that, for the most part, my father had made and that stand as a record of our family’s collective history. From 1968-1984, 60 minutes worth of history, on Super 8 film, were recorded. Out of this footage there were forty minutes of weddings and in each case it…

  • Oh Dad!

    Using a unique animation technique, “Oh Dad!” is a boy’s account of a heated confrontation with his father over the issues of the nuclear arms race and various forms of pollution. The boy tells of his mistrust of adults and his frustration with the world that grown-ups are leaving his generation.

  • Oh Dad 1&2

    Oh Dad! Using a unique animation technique, “Oh Dad!” is a boy’s account of a heated confrontation with his father over the issues of the nuclear arms race and various forms of pollution. The boy tells of his mistrust of adults and his frustration with the world that grown-ups are leaving his generation. Oh Dad II In this continuation of “Oh Dad!,” a young boy expresses his deep concern about environmental issues in his diary. Arguing with his father, the boy tries to convince him that although he is younger, he has serious opinions. He talks about national security, militarization,…

  • Oh Dad II

    In this continuation of “Oh Dad!,” a young boy expresses his deep concern about environmental issues in his diary. Arguing with his father, the boy tries to convince him that although he is younger, he has serious opinions. He talks about national security, militarization, and acid rain. The boy grapples with what he sees as the collective responsibility of the adult world as a whole, and the responsibility of his own father, a scientist, for the damaged environment and the resulting disease, hunger and pollution. Despite the seriousness of the issues addressed, “Oh Dad II” is as warmly humorous as…

  • On the Pond

    Essential to the making of the film was an examination of still photographs. Stills were used as clues to the past. Clues that would bring order and meaning to significant memories. (PH) “Hoffman’s film is in the experimental film tradition of the personal diary, although in this case a beautifully paced mixture of family photographs and dramatic reconstruction interwoven into a narrative creates an objective distance. ‘On the Pond’ reveals skills of editing, sound and story telling which evoke in ten minutes a complex and emotional study of a family, its past and present, its young dreams and its affections.…