Film Categories: Portraits

  • Lunch with Fela

    “Lunch with Fela” is the filmmaker’s response to the passing of his last parent, Fela Ravett. Utilizing a combination of DV footage shot during her stay at a nearby nursing facility, excerpts from previously made 16mm films, animation sequences, plus remaining family memorabilia, the film renders the presence and absence of a much loved parent. “Lunch with Fela” is the eighth film in a series that addresses the complexities of family history and Jewish cultural identity.

  • Hello, My Name Is Herman

    “Hello, My Name Is Herman” poignantly and humorously describes the relationship between a 91-year-old Jewish man, his lesbian granddaughter and her girlfriend. This ten-minute documentary explores intergenerational and interracial relationships, coming out, aging, and the process of accepting difference and love. Awards: Audience Award for Best Short Film (Tie), Fairy Tales Festival, Calgary, AB, 2009; Mikey/Schmkey Award for Best Short Film or Video at the 2007 Toronto Inside Out Film Festival. Honourable Mention for Best Up-and-Coming Toronto Film or Video Maker Award at the 2007 Inside Out Film Festival. Special Mention at the Iris Prize Festival 2007 in Wales.

  • 3 X 16

    These three short films consist of perceptive depictions of a public square in Lima, the view from his mother’s rooftop, and work at the Toronto Film Festival revision department. The filmmaker used 16 mm as documentary format. Each film in this series is almost three-minutes long, which is the length of one roll of 16 mm film. The entire film uses in-camera editing, therefore all the editing decisions were made on location.

  • Shit Storm

    Based on a notorious ‘art scandal’ from 2007, writer/artist RM Vaughan recounts how rich and powerful members of the art world turned on him when he wrote his true thoughts about the mundane work proffered by the so-called Vancouver School. Art doesn’t have to be pretty, but does the art world have to be so ugly?

  • Moose Jaw: There’s a Future in Our Past (DVD Release)

    Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. “Appropriate to a context of Canadian de-confederation, MOOSE JAW is at once a statement of the filmmaker’s own maturation; a regionalist dirge on the fatality of economic dependency; an excavation of our ever-vanishing collective past; and the ironic deconstruction of all the above.” – Michael Dorland, Art Gallery of Ontario Moose Jaw was a frontier boom-town flourishing on the Canadian Pacific rail line forging Canada as a “Dominion” in the late 1800s. But as rail gave way to the jet age, Moose Jaw began to decline. Now, museums dot the landscape (along…

  • Diane Bonder Compilation

    A compilation of works by the late American filmmaker Diane Bonder. Shot in Super 8 and 16mm in documentary, poetic and semi-narrative styles, Bonder’s work explores issues of belonging, landscape and loss. Her work has screened internationally at festivals including Ann Arbor (Michigan), Images (Toronto), European Media Arts Festival, Pacific Film Archive (San Francisco), Museum of Modern Art (NY), Brooklyn Museum of Art, and The Whitney Museum. Please see individual titles for descriptions. 1. I Remember Now, We Never Danced, I Miss You, Good-Bye (16mm, 8 min., 2006) 2. You Are Not From Here (Super 8 on video, 10 min.,…

  • Regret

    When presented with the opportunity to tell the girl of his dreams that he loves her, a young man flashes through a visual expansion of that single moment, during which he relives associative memories of their relationship.

  • RH Factor

    A short film about crossing bridges, crossing the positive and the negative, and the unpredictability of love and new lives.

  • Bonne mère

    Alfred leaves the north of France to find his estranged mother who’s become a prostitute in Marseille. He changes his identity and begins hooking in order to be close to her. “Bonne Mère” is a nostalgic poem of longing. Selected Screenings: 2008 Berlin International Film Festival

  • Tell Us The Truth Josephine – A Bitter Immigrant Story

    “Tell Us the Truth Josephine” is a 15-minute experimental drama about a Maltese woman’s search for “home.” Josephine struts across Canada on stilts. And for Josephine to find home she must accept the Truth. And once she does she can come off her stilts and land. Her journey is haunted by fragmented voices and images of her bloodline – bitter immigrant stories.