Film Categories: Literary/theatre

  • Waterworx (A Clear Day and No Memories)

    The waterworks in the Beaches area of Toronto is the source of an eidetic-like image from early childhood. It was always an enigma to me, and after returning years later to shoot this film, I was still not satisfied it was merely a filtration plant. Its architecture functioned more significantly as some kind of temporal metaphor. Wallace Stevens’ ironic and equally enigmatic poem, “A Clear Day And No Memories,” was sought out to address this phenomenon, and to appear as interruptive graphic for the same reason the editing is interruptive – that is, to both work with the alluring nature…

  • When the Light Grey Man Carries Your Luggage

    Based on the poem of the same name by Joe Rosenblatt (Governor-General Award Winner) and read by the poet in the film. Environmental and electronic sounds, found footage and footage shot for the film combine with the poet’s voice to evoke the eerie landscape of the poem in an original interpretation. The usual poetic questions regarding existence, love, death and bureaucracy are cleverly broached.

  • nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

    ASL is not English: it has a syntax of its own. Remaining true to e.e. cummings’ vision, the poem was transliterated metaphorically into the original syntax of the ASL rather than the SEE (Signed Exact English) to express the poet’s linguistic play in words. The poetic hand movements of the ASL/Art-Sign is to emphasize the dexterous quality of cummings’ perspective, to innovate a different kind of visual interpretation, best suitable for an avant-garde poem. This film, based on e.e. cummings’ poem, presents a penetrating, political-linguistic expression of humanity in a twisting, intertwining multi-choreographed collaboration of the several artists in Art-Sign,…

  • Primiti Too Taa

    The film “Primiti Too Taa” is a playful sound poem, where the text jumps to life through animated typing on paper. Visually the film is a concrete poem in motion: choreography. Aurally the film is a sound poem with a printed text: typography. Constructivist poetry meets literal choreography. Primitive sounds meet their typed representation. The film is based on a 45-minute sound poem “Ur-sonate (Sonata for Primitive Sounds)” by Kurt Schwitters. The film is larva in memory of Kurt Schwitters (Artist Poet 1887-1948), under the influence of Norman McLaren.

  • House Opera (it’s in the mix)

    This documentary is about the theatrical troup House of Pride, which consists of three main performers whose unique style combines both theatre and club cultures. House of Pride’s work transcends the usual boundaries of nightclub entertainment and performance art, bringing a new design of performance to theatrical spaces. The content of the performance smoothly blends together universal issues of gender and sexuality, individualism, spirituality, and the environment in a live theatrical show. House of Pride is a Montreal collective which combines outrageously athletic club-vogue-influenced choreography with searing confessional monologues.

  • Kokoro Is for Heart

    This film features a sound composition and performance by poet Gerry Shikatani, and explores the relationships surrounding language, image and sound, set to the backdrop of a gravel pit. “When I got the footage back from the lab, I was disappointed because of the periodic flipping of the image. After screening the footage several times I realised that the malfunctioning camera rendered the filmed-nature, unnatural… and this poses questions: What is nature? What is natural?” – Phil Hoffman

  • Poem from South Africa

    May 4 1997. The first international poetry festival in South Africa. At the seaport of Durban, Natal province, chaired by Breyten Breytenbach, painter/poet/writer. Thirteen poets came from all over the world to meet, speak with, and listen to their South African counterparts. To see for themselves the “New South Africa” with its freshly-found freedom and its deeply-rooted inequalities. Between readings and excursions, discoveries and exchanges, the film weaves a collective visual journal of a land haunted by painful memories and uncertain of promised future. All the while, a reflection on exile, censorship, unfinished struggles and the absolute necessity of poetic…

  • You Are Watching: A Film on Brecht

    “You Are Watching: A Film on Brecht” is an experimental, documentary-style animation that explores the life and ideas of the German playwright Bertolt Brecht in both a historical and contemporary context. This film/video was shot on Super 8mm film and finished on video.

  • Intrigue of Manners, An

    A short restoration comedic drama set in England’s 17th Century. Loosely adapted from Sir George Etherege’s restoration comedy “Man of Mode,” “An Intrigue” revolves around the grandeur lives and sexual innuendos of the upper classes of England. Our Protagonist, and renowned womanizer, Dorimant (Mahonen) is in pursuit of the fair lady Emilia (Dwyer). Through his scheming, Dorimant learns that “a certain Sir Fopling Flutter has recently arrived from Paris,” the en vogue city of the arts and high fashion, and has “certain designs on the fair Emilia…” Determined to be deemed the more favorable in the lady Emilia’s eyes, Dorimant…

  • Helpless

    Based on a tale from the work of Maritime folklorist Helen Creighton, “Helpless” is set in a fogbound world of superstition and magic. When a strange and terrifying illness befalls Walton Collins’ son Mortimer, the fisherman turns to a mysterious stranger with elemental powers to heal the helpless boy. An unsettling tale from the past, “Helpless” mines the dark realms of sorcery and desire. “Helpless” is conceived as both a cultural film work and an homage to Helen Creighton. The script for “Helpless” comes out of a collaboration with respected visual artist Eric Walker. A native Nova Scotian, Maritime history…