Film Categories: Work by Women

  • Menders

    What story do the marks of time tell? “Menders” is a three-minute animation following a female art conservator restoring Velázquez’s “Rokeby Venus.” Using creative methods that reveal imperfections and embrace fragmentation, she navigates the tension between a polished ideal and an unvarnished history. As she reflects on both the artwork’s past and her own identity, she asks: Can the beauty of art be found in its scars? This film invites viewers to see restoration as a dynamic process of making, unmaking, and remaking.

  • A Canadian Ghost Story: The Quilt for Joyce Wieland

    A Canadian Ghost Story: The Quilt for Joyce Wieland is a tribute to the films and other artwork of the late Joyce Wieland. It comprises a series of vignettes, each referencing the title of one of her films and picking up themes and motifs from her work. Two characters, A and B, are engaged in a somewhat mysterious and arduous endeavour surrounding Wieland’s films. Their memories of Wieland are stitched into a tale that is being told in a time of uncertainty and looming danger. The piece explores artistic legacy, particularly in a feminist and Canadian context, with some of…

  • Be Careful With Hope

    A poetry film based on Carol Barbour’s poem “Be Careful with Hope”, which was inspired by the Emily Dickinson poem “‘Hope’ is the Thing with Feathers.” The camera follows a woman moving through an urban nature site. She is mourning a loss and seeking to find hope again. She settles on a bench with a wide view of the surrounding landscape and opens a book that reveals a magical outcome.

  • Fluss

    A journey down the Danube River is transformed into a dream space of half-seen images and flickering shorelines. Though at times abstract, the river remains certain, always moving towards the sea. Filmed in black and white 16mm and hand-processed, Fluss is a companion to River (2023), a study of the Ottawa River in winter. Commissioned by Ottawa’s Lightproof Film Collective.

  • SIX

    My daughter, Emma, dances on the beach and talks about wanting to be six years old… forever. A short film about never wanting to grow up.

  • A Flame the Colour of Air

    Medieval Catholic mystic Hildegard von Bingen reconciles the virgin/whore dichotomy in a psychedelic, erotic vision. Hildegard was known for her waking visions of the divine, her musical compositions, and her extensive medical encyclopedias. The animated imagery in this film is inspired by her surviving transcriptions, which suggest a departure from the mainstream views of her culture. In this speculative fictional tale, Hildegard has a vision in which erotic dancers appear to her as embodiments of the divine. The narration is strategically selected and collaged from Hildegard’s texts.

  • Hedge-Rider

    The Hedge-Rider sits at the boundary between the garden and the wild. She uses flying ointments to transcend her body and take flight during the night. The film attempts to capture themes around European witchcraft and altered states of consciousness.

  • Psychoterra

    Two scientists from the Technomystic Ecology Lab develop technology that processes the ecological grief contained within a database of audio testimonials. In their lab, located deep inside a cave, they alchemize these feelings into a seed archive for an unknown future.

  • Husbandry

    Mary Imrie (1918 – 1988) and Jean Wallbridge (1912 – 1979) operated their architecture firm—the first run by women in Canada—at Six Acres, the home they built for their work and life together overlooking the North Saskatchewan River in west Edmonton. When Mary Imrie passed away, she bequeathed the records of their remarkable architectural practice and adventurous life, along with their home, to the province of Alberta. With a title borrowed from a telegram in the collection, GLAD YOU CLOSER HOME / NEW WHITE WHISKER MARY is Cait McKinney and Hazel Meyer’s immersive exhibition that playfully imagines and speculates in…

  • Blood Like Water

    Shadi embarks on a secret adventure, and accidentally drags his family into a trap where they only have two choices; either collaborate with the Israeli occupation, or be shamed and humiliated by their own people.