Film Categories: Work by Women

  • Closer to Heaven

    Using the weather as a metaphor for the stages of grief, “Closer to Heaven” is a good-bye poem and homage to my Dad. Shot on Super 8 and optically printed. “Who can really distinguish between the sea and what’s reflected in it, or tell the difference between falling rain and loneliness?” – Haruki Murakami

  • Dear Mom

    “Dear Mom” is a story of the formation of a girl’s identity in relation to her powerful mother, her matriarchal family, and domestic fantasies created by melodramas of the 40s and 50s. When the young girl’s fantasy of matricide comes true with the untimely death of her Mother, she finds herself at a crossroads. She is left to reconstruct her own identity and find out that her Mother is more complex than she imagines.

  • Central Character, The

    “A woman’s attempt to keep chaos at bay by naming, classifying, and ordering her domestic environment. This ultimately results in a total loss of ego and verbal capacity. Through the innovative juxtaposition of printed text, graphics, step printing, and disintegrating soundtrack, Gruben constructs a narrative breakdown that parallels the unconscious patterning of her character’s mind.” – Richard Stanford, National Gallery of Canada

  • Coil

    A fisherman sits in his boat in the middle of a northern Quebec lake. What he draws from the lake is a synthesis of two worlds.

  • Xerces Blue

    A young woman arrives at a rural Ontario farmhouse looking for her genetics professor. There she encounters not the professor, but his two daughters. She begins to suspect that the children are the results of the professors research into cloning. The Xerces Blue was the first North American species of butterfly to become extinct because of human activity.

  • Past Perfect

    “Past Perfect” is a spirited meditation on the elusiveness and inaccessibility of (Jewish) history as conveyed through sightseeing tours of “Jewish” Poland, a grandmother’s recollection of life in America during War II, and memoir-like “last moments” of a great aunt believed to have died in Treblinka. Shot almost entirely in contemporary Poland, “Past Perfect” lyrically portrays the relentless yet ultimately futile attempt to resuscitate a history literally gone up in smoke. “It is not entirely out of line to call ‘Past Perfect’- filmmaker Cynthia Madansky’s meditation on Jewish history, notably the Shoah – spirited and darkly amusing. After all, Madansky’s…

  • Stalkers

    After being left at the altar, Madelyn (Dawn Herriott) decides she must take control of her own destiny. She convinces her best friend, Lydia (Brigitta Dau), to help her “gather information” on a potential mate. The film begins as the two venture out on a weekend stakeout, living out of a tiny Chevy Sprint. The novice “stalkers” must make do with their limited resources: binoculars, headphones, and baby monitors serving as a bugging system. With everything in place, they stumble upon a startling discovery which changes their whole plan… Director: Jesse Weathington Jr.

  • her carnal longings

    “her carnal longings” is a beautiful meditation on the human body and the film medium at a time when the futures of both are in question. Using the “emulsion lift” technique on 16mm film, sections of emulsion were lifted off, torn up or smudged, and then re-adhered. In combination with digital video technology, the filmmaker creates an intricate analogue/digital weave which explores both the body’s and the film’s surface. The film emulsion wrinkles, rips and dissolves – reminding us that it, like human flesh, is fragile and perishable.

  • Buoyant

    “Buoyant” is a charming experimental documentary which interweaves the stories of the Padded Lilies – a troupe of fat synchronized swimmers – and Archimedes – the Greek mathematician obsessed with floating bodies and inventor of the “Drystroke Swimulator.” It leaves us with the exuberant possibility of a fat body that literally and culturally rises, like cream, to the top. Please note: “Buoyant” can also be presented with live musical accompaniment. Contact the CFMDC for more information.

  • You Fake

    In this hilarious short, two women bet on how many lesbians fake orgasms.