Film Categories: Memory

  • Luna e Santur

    “Originally commissioned as a short for Ben Coonley’s My First 3D Part 2 at Microscope Gallery, I expanded this project into what it currently is: hooded figures, violent passion, and stroboscopic tenderness brought on by a paranormal encounter I had in the summer of 2015.” –JGS ‘‘A visually assaultive threnody for losses never fully revealed and composed for monstrous times, LUNA E SANTUR mingles sex and death with the supernatural and subnaturalistic.’-Colin Beckett “Moon and sun are elliptically and stroboscopically conjured in Joshua Gen Solondz’s cloistered yet operatic Luna e Santur. In milky, hand-processed images, hooded figures recalling Magritte’s The Lovers enact a…

  • Whitewash

    “Whitewash” examines slavery in Canada and its omission from the national narrative. The country prides itself as being the benevolent refuge where enslaved Africans who were brought to United States gained their freedom via the Underground Railroad. That powerful image overshadows the fact that slavery was legal in Canada for over 200 years under both French and British rule. “Whitewash” brings to light some of the slave families that were brought to Prince Edward Island by Loyalists and looks at how nine generations of descendants have assimilated to the point of leaving very few visible traces of their origin.

  • Every Day 1, 2, 3

    “Every Day 1, 2, 3″ is a set of three small artist zines about the relation between film and life, living and filmmaking as Sternberg sees it. The books reference different experiences of time respectively: 1. Daily, repetitive; 2. Random, contingent; 3. Cumulative. Book 3’s images document Sternberg’s studio: film strips, cans of film, editing equipment, optical printer, and Bolex camera. Price: $15.00 + applicable taxes & shipping CREDITS: Text and Photographs: Barbara Sternberg Size: 5″ x 5 1/4” Pages: 28 p. per booklet Year of Production: 2016 Designer: Ann O’Callaghan Production: Shawn Samson Country of Production: Canada Edition Size:…

  • Watergazing

    Watergazing is as old as humanity. It is the practise of calmly and peacefully studying the water, its motion and its shimmerings in order to experience images rising from our own depths. The flowing water becomes a metaphor for time, which assists the practised watergazer in seeing into the past and the future.

  • Centre of the Cyclone

    In the province of the mind there are no limits. However, in the province of the body there are definite limits not to be transcended.” John C Lilly An invocation for the transcendence between the corporal and metaphysical, the passage is guided by marooned sailors, a moment of celestial chance, demolition derbies, and a slipping into the ether

  • I Am a Spy

    It was only in the twentieth century we needed papers to have an identity. Kafka’s Joseph K scrabbled in his pocket for something better than a bicycle license to prove who he was in the brave new world where official documents separate those who belong from those who are not allowed to belong. The borders of the new nation state offered frames for subterfuge. What happened on one side of the border had to be understood on the other. In the century when we invented aviation, when we invented cinema, in an age when we can move more and see…

  • Three Minute Warning

    The parallel histories of cinema and aviation re-shaped the twentieth century, generating irresistible fantasies of freedom and control. Three Minute Warning is a fast-forward history of the real impact of blue-sky thinking. You’ve had your three minute warning: now is it time to resist?

  • Burning Mountains That Spew Flame (Montañas ardientes que vomitan fuego)

    The interior of the earth became a refuge from the threat that moved closer and closer to the island. The volcanic tubes served as communication vessels between time and space. This was where they experimented their resistance.

  • A Celebration of Darkness

    A woman with a tortured past is triggered to take an unexpected walk down memory lane, she finds herself face-to- face with her inner child. Giving her a chance to make peace with her past. Does she find a way to celebrate darkness or does she become engulfed forever by it? In 2015, Jaene turned 40. This lead her to become introspective about her unusual life history. From a childhood of severe abuse, neglect, psychiatric institutionalization and being in care, she grew to become a street involved sex worker by 20. She met Elder, Isaac Day from Serpent River First…

  • Somnium Lapidum (Dream Stones)

    This stop-motion 16mm film offers an audiovisual meditation on the material animation of stones. The concept is inspired by Camillo Leonardi’s “Speculum Lapidum”, published in 1533, which describes the magical healing virtues of a variety of stones, categorized by colour. The character-based animated vignettes are inspired by the woodcuts in “De Hortus Sanitatis”, a natural history encyclopedia published in 1485, which details various methods of harnessing the power of gems. It was believed at the time that a given gem’s powers could be absorbed through focused viewing. Proposing an analogy between this belief and attraction to cinema, this film offers…