Film Categories: film studies

  • Basement Girl, The

    Abandoned by her lover, a young woman finds comfort and safety in her basement apartment. Mundane routines, a diet of junk food and the warmth of the television insulate her from the pain and betrayal of her ill-fated relationship. Eventually, The Basement Girl emerges – transformed and ready to “make it on her own.” “The Basement Girl” breaks new cinematic territory by employing multiple formats from traditional 16 mm film to toy cameras including a modified Nintendo Game Boy digital camera and the Intel Mattel computer microscope. “Midi Onodera’s latest film is a witty and wonderful meditation on how women…

  • Praise

    A prologue excerpt from the poem “Try to praise the mutilated world” sets the mood for this film of contained contrasts: black and white, negative and positive, light and dark. Recurring images of trees root the film, unifying its segments, and suggest further twinnings: (knowledge of) good and evil, humanity and nature, ephemeral and eternal – praise and mutilation. “A meditation on mutability and transience in the face of the perduring stone of the canyon.” – Barbara Godard

  • Sequent of Hanna Avenue, The

    The Sequent of Hanna Ave. is the result of my reworkings of some experimental film practices and my enquiries into the phenomena of movement-illusionism in the film form. By combining found footage, hand processing and hi-end digital technology, I propose to elevate a few mundane gestures to a new perceptible wholeness, and give some small fingers and a c-cassette tape all the attention, grace and drama they somehow deserve. (This film was produced partly during my residency at the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto in late 2005.) Selected screenings: Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film, Durham, ON, 2006

  • Seven Secrets to Perfect Porn, The

    In 2001 the law in the UK for gay porn changed forever. Up until then, the only porn gay men in the UK could enjoy would be illegal, bad quality material mainly from Europe and America. Even up until 2003 certain sexual acts were still illegal in gay porn, whilst their straight counterpart movies still enjoyed greater freedom in sexual expression. Now that has all changed and films can be produced and sold freely in the UK and a new industry is starting to emerge. “The Seven Secrets to Perfect Porn” follows the work of Max Lincoln, who took the…

  • Butch or Consequences

    Louise, an old-school butch, falls in love with a pretend TV lesbian and in her desperate need to be with her she participates in a fictional make-over show, Inside Out: Deviant Dyke to Diva. Louise, reveals her new marriage approved look to her local dyke march when suddenly it all starts to go wrong, or, some would say, it all gets right.

  • Artist Spotlight Series: Christina Battle

    Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. Christina Battle’s hand-processed, coloured and manipulated films explore the material and transformative possibilities of the film medium. Using techniques such as cameraless animation and collage, she “paints and sculpts” on film. Her work explores built and natural environments, history and the act of collective remembering, and a fascination with weather and storms. Study guide includes an essay by Janine Marchessault, York University. 1) hysteria (2006 35mm 4 min.) An unstable community leads to accusations and panic. Re-considering the Salem witch trials of 1692. Then doesn’t always seem so far off from now.…

  • Artist Spotlight Series: Philip Hoffman

    Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. Described as Canada’s “pre-eminent diary filmmaker,” Philip Hoffman has been making work since the late 1970s. Expanding the boundaries of the personal documentary, his films explore themes of family, memory and loss while at the same time interrogating the film medium and the authenticity of the photographic image. “Philip Hoffman is a precious resource, one of the few contemporary filmmakers whose work provides a bridge to the classical themes of death, diaspora, memory, and, finally, transcendence.” – Martha Rosler. Study guide includes an essay by Michael Zryd, York University. 1) Somewhere Between…

  • Artist Spotlight Series: Barbara Sternberg

    Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. For more than thirty years, Barbara Sternberg’s filmmaking has considered the mysteries of human existence. Drawing on the creative power of the cinematic medium to make the invisible visible, Sternberg’s films use a resolutely personal approach to explore rhythm, time, space, and the nature of the everyday. Featuring: Opus 40; Transitions; Like a Dream that Vanishes; and Burning. Study guide includes an essay by Barbara Godard, York University. 1) Opus 40 (1979, 16mm, 14:30 min.) “Opus 40” is about repetition: repetition in working and living, repetition through multiplicity and series, repetition to…

  • Artist Spotlight Series: Wrik Mead

    Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. Wrik Mead, Canada’s prolific poet-priest of pervert pixilation, has accumulated an impressive body of animated shorts in his twenty-year career. Known for his play with texture, light and colour, Mead’s films weave queer fantasies, parables, and even documentary, while exploring the relationship between stigma, shame, and sexuality. Study guide includes an essay by Tom Waugh, Concordia University. 1) What Isabelle Wants 2) Warm 3) Haven 4) Homebelly 5) Closet Case 6) frostbite 7) guise 8) stage fright 9) camp 10) Hand Job 11) Manipulator

  • Artist Spotlight Series: Michelle Mohabeer

    Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. In Michelle Mohabeer’s films and videos, form and content are inextricably connected. Re-working the transformational film aesthetics of “third cinema,” Mohabeer’s experimental documentaries blend archival footage with personal memory, infusing each work with a signature pastiche of political consciousness, poetics and performance. Study guide includes an essay by Monika Kin Gagnon, Concordia University. “I recommend these films for researchers working on feminist theory, and the history of feminism, especially those with an interest in Canada and Canadian political identity or Caribbean/South American identity. These films will also be of use in the…