Film Categories: Work by Women

  • As Above So Below

    Simard’s lovely animation explores the tensions between the extraordinary and the ordinary, and the search to transcend everyday experience. Inspired by the art of Alexandra Luke. Part of the TAIS Eleven in Motion program. Selected screenings: London International Animation Festival, 2011; Melbourne International Animation Festival, 2011; Anima Mundi, 2010; Animafest Zagreb, 2010.

  • Dream of Naming , A

    Colliding visions of woman as the Venus, the child, the grotesque, the rebel, the victim and the poet defy us to examine our own contradictions. This expressionistic film is a visual interpretation of the poem “a dream of naming,” written and performed by Judy Radul. “An extraordinarily beautiful, endlessly confrontational film.” – Toronto Festival of Festivals

  • Holding Hands

    Craig and Shane were holding hands when they fell victim to a brutal hate crime. Through speaking out about the lack of police investigation, their courage led to important changes at their local police station. ‘Holding Hands’ follows a challenging year in this inspiring couples’ life: triumphantly leading the Sydney Mardi Gras Parade as community heroes, struggling to recover from the physical, financial and psychological costs of a hate crime, and ultimately revealing the healing power of love. At its heart, Craig and Shane’s story reveals that even in the worst circumstances, we can all create positive change.

  • Tourist of memory

    In this journey through time and place – an Ottawa snowstorm, Niagara Falls, and the filmmaker’s childhood home – recollections come unbidden and half-articulated, of trains, marshes and wind turbines, resolving at the inexpressible place where memory lies. A stand-alone chapter of the video essay, “In Between (remembering and forgetting),” “Tourist of memory” was filmed in 16mm, Super 8 and video, with sound design by Edmund Eagan.

  • Importance of Hortense, The

    Hortense Gordon was a teacher as well as an artist, and studied abstract painting under one of the great teachers of that movement, Hans Hoffman. As an artist who makes figurative images, even in what is known as “experimental” animation, I had to do some research not only on Hortense, but on abstract painting. Also, researching Hortense turned up as much about her teachings (and, by extension, Hoffman’s) and philosophies as her work, so in the end I felt I was working through the film as a pupil. These are my exercises. Part of the TAIS Eleven in Motion program.

  • STROKE

    Action painter, Olympic paddler, bon vivant of the highest order: these are words that exemplify Tom Hodgson, a man of many seemingly contradictory parts. This film explores the connective tissue that held his life together. Vivid, rhythmic imagery pulls the viewer into a world where the mighty sweep of a paddler’s arm becomes the abstracted sweep of paint across a page becomes the primordial, sexual stroke of a life fully lived. Part of the TAIS Eleven in Motion program.

  • In Between (remembering and forgetting)

    Composed of nine film and video chapters made between 2004 and 2010, “In Between (remembering and forgetting)” journeys through an abstract landscape marked by half-glimpsed memories and fragments of the past. Using multiple formats and a fluid episodic structure, the work expands beyond the personal to create an enigmatic piece where the viewer’s own experiences and memories resonate. The result is a sustained poetic meditation on family, place and time.

  • Hokees

    “Hokees” is about Anahida, a contemporary Armenian woman, pregnant with the child of her Turkish lover who is haunted by the past. An artistic blending of the real and unreal, the past and present are tightly woven into emotionally visual experience. In Armenian, Hokees literally means “soul” or “spirit.” Writer: Aaron Martin | Producer: Brent Barclay | Editor: Mark Baxter Cinematographer: Kim Derko | Cast: Arsinée Khanjian, John Mighton and Linda Gizirian Awards: Gold Prize for Experimental Drama, Houston Film Festival, 2000; Best Short Film, AFFMA Film Festival, 2001

  • Come Around

    Poem by Louise Bak. Music by Peter Scherer.

  • Find Your Holy Self: Scenes from an Unfinished Film