Film Categories: Film Farm

  • Dandelions

    “Lyrical and full of mirth, this filmmaker wonders out loud in her first film: ‘How do I make myself at home in a landscape made foreign to me?’ Wilkinson looks at her self – black – and ponders in the white landscape called Canada how can she ‘enjoy the flowers’ as she cartwheels with great panache through fields of them. What kind of relationship to the land can she have in a place where she sees herself but where others constantly ask: Where are you from? Wilkinson’s existence vis a vis the land seems to lie somewhere in between the…

  • Once

    Poetry. Film. Light. Life. An excerpt from Rilke’s “Ninth Elegy” introduces this silent film which evokes the beauty and brevity of life. Images shimmer in an uncanny light. We catch glimpses only. Silent with sound preface.

  • taking pictures

    A hand-processed diary film about memory, family and loss told through snapshots and landscapes in and around Ontario. Music by Sam Phillips. Screenings include: 2008 Berlin International Film Festival (in Forum Expanded section), 2008 Rotterdam International Film Festival. “nostagia isn’t what it used to be, i can only picture the disappearing world when you touch me”

  • Knowledge of Good and Evil

    “Knowledge of Good and Evil” is an abstract exploration of the tension surrounding women and stereotypical representations of their knowledge. This film was created from footage shot at Phil Hoffman’s independent imaging retreat (aka “the film farm”) in Ontario as well as from footage shot in Vancouver (where I had given myself the challenge of shooting 100 feet of film every month). All of the footage was hand-processed, and some of it was contact printed by hand and treated in baths of potassium ferricyanide. The final film was created through various optical printing techniques.

  • anamnesis

    “anamnesis” is a handmade diary film exploring home, memory, and history through heavily processed painterly sequences. The film was shot at the Independent Imaging Retreat (the Film Farm) in Mount Forest, Ontario. Selected Screenings: Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, 2009 (Montreal, QC); Berlin International Film Festival, Forum Expanded Section, 2009 (Germany)

  • Lot 22, Concession 5

    Hand-processed 16mm film imagery, tinted, toned, and transformed, is combined with memory fragments of a rural past to create a visual poem about family, place, and time. Filmed at Philip Hoffman’s Independent Imaging Retreat in Mount Forest, Ontario in 2008, with sound design by Edmund Eagan. The title refers to the lot and concession number of my great-grandfather’s farm in Westport, Ontario, as recorded in the 1911 census. The voice is a fragment of the past, taken from an old recording of my father, Leonard McCann, who passed away in 1992. Selected screenings: 8th International Festival Signes de Nuit, Paris,…

  • Goodbye

    Incorporating meditations on male sexuality and personal exchanges, “Goodbye” travels through physical memory to reveal the marrow that grows beneath. Placed in a surreal yet pastoral surrounding, “Goodbye” is a letter explored through the journey of agarwood, or jin-koh, a rare oil created by a genus of tree infected with a fungal spore. The piece examines how an intangible object can impress greatly on personal history by relating perfume to memory. Experimenting with the abilities of the Bolex H16 and sound print film stock, this 16mm film was shot and hand-processed at Phil Hoffman’s Independent Imaging Retreat.

  • Nous

    Filmed over a nine-year period, a close look at how we build relationships and how relationships build us. A bi-lingual film in French and English. Optical printing done during an artist residency at Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto in 2005.

  • Crashing Skies

    An ordinary rural landscape is transformed into an enigmatic dreamscape. A farmhouse stands in a copper field of scratched emulsion as solarized flares illuminate the sky. Split toned horses amble dreamlike across the frame into inky underexposed blackness. Copper thistles sway in the wind, looming and strangely monumental. The hand-processed 16mm imagery creates an elliptical inner world of memory and dreams. Filmed at the Independent Imaging Retreat in Mount Forest, Ontario. Atmospheric sound design by Edmund Eagan.

  • Shadow Puppet