Film Categories: Work by Women

  • leda & the swan

    “leda & the swan” is an intimate and sensual rendering of the impulses which shape our search for meaning. A filmmaker asks two actors to dramatize a personal story about the end of a traumatic love affair, and quickly finds herself deeply immersed not only in the actors’ complex interpretation of her story, but also in the emotional world of their own evolving relationship. Through the intermingling of the ancient myth of Leda and the Swan, the filmmaker’s personal story, and the intricate dynamics of the young actors, the deeper, poetic and archetypal aspects of all love stories – of…

  • Light Magic

    “Movies arise out of magic.” – Stanley Cavell “Light Magic” utilizes and examines one of the earliest photographic processes, discovered at the birth of the photographic medium: the photogram. This technique combines science and art in order to record the process of transformation. Images created through this technique are traces of light that pass through each object, leaving their mark on the film surface. Photograms bring both the maker and the viewer closer to the object, thus revealing its essence – that neither the naked eye nor the camera lens could see. “Light Magic” was one of the fifteen films…

  • Whites, The

    A dark and comic look at a tortured family and their frenetic daily rituals. The Whites’ existence centres around a mysterious library card catalog, which serves both as a source and repository for traces of family life. The catalog’s system of perfection intersects with the rigid hierarchy of this household. Manipulated voices replace dialogue, and although words are unintelligible, we understand the Whites very well. Highly sylized yet grounded in humanity, this film is a disturbingly funny tale of home and hearth.

  • Contretemps of Christmas

    It’s Christmas day and festivities are underway in the Porkloin household. Mother’s holiday fever runs high, the ill-advised gifts have been opened, but the biggest gift still remains. . . In the spirit of demented fairy tale, this microfilm explores a darker side of the holidays.

  • Daily

    5 am she rises. 7 am she is ready. This film observes one woman’s morning routine. We track this intimate ritual. She is mechanical and efficient. Her morning drill is done with precision, yet her look is vacant. Despite the clockwork, things are not as “together” as they seem. Disconnected editing and sound create an otherworldly space; her apartment is neverneverland. Time is manipulated and actions are exaggerated. Her person is fragmented. She could be a cartoon.

  • Watching Mr.Body

    Once upon a time in a hallway, there was a dead body. Through the lens of the surveillance camera mounted opposite the elevator, we observe the various reactions of people wandering in or out of the building who encounter Mr. Body. His origin is unknown, but based on the reaction of the last man to see him before the police arrive, we know he came to a dramatic and untimely demise.

  • Brothers in Music

    John T. Davis (pianist/organist/vocalist) and Jim Heineman (saxophonist) are two Canadian jazzmen who have had to wage the war between the compulsion and the passion that they feel towards their music and the struggle that is involved with trying to make a living in the field of jazz music in Canada. John T. Davis is a Black musician from a poor rural environment. Jim Heineman is a white musician from a white middle-class urban environment. “Brothers in Music” begins by exploring the personalities, experiences and inspirations of these two very talented and different musicians and then moves on to examine…

  • Death to Everyone

    “Using the drawings of Bruno Schulz, who must be numbered among the great writers of the 20th century for his two slim books of short stories, Torossian builds up a disturbing imagescape of sexual malice and voyeurism. Torossian’s films are characterized as much by her reuse of other artists’ work as they are by her trademark collage techniques.” – Chris Gehman, Images Festival of Independent Film & Video, 2001

  • Awake

    A bedroom (and life) viewed from the horizontal, while wondering whether to join in the race or wake up to the illusion. The soundtrack quotes from Gertrude Stein’s “Making of Americans” on disillusionment.

  • Letter to Margot

    “Letter to Margot” chronicles one woman’s experiences following the abrupt end of a long-term relationship with her lover and partner, Margot.