Film Format: 16mm

  • notes in origin

    “Shot in northern Alberta, where the artist grew up, the film consists of ten long-take shots of various lengths divided by black leader bearing a number for each successive shot… ‘notes in origin’ realizes the subtle lyricism that appears in the last image of its predecessor. Here Epp intimates a mysteriously shared and personal complicity of artist and viewer without, however, abandoning that purity and extraordinary elegance that mark Epp as one of the most accomplished of film artist.” – Bart Testa, Art Gallery of Ontario catalogue What I like in film is precision, slightness, economy of means, delight, inference…

  • Notes on the Circus

    It’s the Ringling Brothers – but really it’s the circus of my childhood, with all the phantastic things going on, and colours, and mystery, and the exotic, and dreams and amazement. (JM)

  • Nothing Happened This Morning

    The film shows three levels of reality during the ordinary event of arising in the morning: physical reality – the senses and moods felt by the sleeper; psychological reality – the sleeper’s dreams, fantasies, and memories; and the reality of the sleeper’s surroundings. “Nothing Happened This Morning” attempts to make these levels of reality meaningful in themselves, without the necessity of the usual “dramatic action” which constitutes the content of most films.

  • Now That We Are Persons

    Until 1929, Canadian women were told that they couldn’t be senators. Our Constitution, the British North American Act, (BNA) said that only qualified “persons” could be appointed. The government of the day understood that to mean men only. So, in 1927, five Albertan women challenged this definition of “persons” in court. On October 18, 1929, the British Privy Council, then the highest court of appeal in Canada, ruled that the word “persons” could include both men and women. With this new historical interpretation, women won the right to be eligible for the Canadian senate.

  • Now, Yours

    “Once he has focused our concentration on the screen ahead, Hoolboom’s disembodied voice questions who has access to the privilege of a filmic voice and, once granted, the extent to which this authority is unquestioned by both the filmmaker and the viewing audience. ‘Now, Yours’ investigates this power of control through footage from 1950’s tourism and customer appreciation films/advertisements.” – Pleasure Dome, Toronto

  • Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes

    With his camera, Brakhage enters one of the forbidden, terrific locations of our culture, the autopsy room. “This last is a process that requires a witness; and what ‘idea’ may finally have inserted itself into the sensible world we can scarcely guess, for the camera would seem the perfect eidetic witness, staring with perfect compassion where we can scarcely bear to glance” (Hollis Frampton).

  • August Afternoons

    “The film is a manipulation of time, light, and sound. We see time compressed, as light quickly travels around an empty house, and time frozen, as a boy plays on a swing. Natural sounds – a thunderstorm, birds, crickets, and a bell, are identified with a set of images, and then shifted to another set. These intercut elements come to a sense of conclusion, but the film then shifts, and ends quietly, as it began. ‘August Afternoons’ is a film of oppositions, subtly rendered by a very intelligent use of sound/image dialectics. Visually, the film explores very small interior spaces,…

  • Nukie Takes a Valium

    This latest animation in the Nukie series finds our favourite talking atomic bomb once again seeking to convince the TV public that they need him to further their consumerist dreams. This time he takes on the role of a beautiful woman to demonstrate the glamour of destruction. A film that neatly cuts through both the nuclear and advertising industry.

  • Nukie’s Lullaby

    Imagine… a nuclear bomb called Nukie appears on your TV screen and gives a speech to your children. Nukie is such a nice guy… the problem is he keeps putting his foot in his mouth. Completed when the “Star Wars” plan was announced, Nukie’s message becomes a well-timed reminder of the threat to our existence, both present and future, that the nuclear arms race holds over all of us on this globe. The film utilizes a unique animation technique involving coloured sand.

  • Nukie’s Sermon from the Bottle

    One of the most worrysome aspects of the nuclear issue is the volatile situation in the Middle East, which could spark a confrontation between the superpowers. Out of several Middle East doomsday scenarios, Amitay has chosen one which involves the belief of many Christian and Jewish fundamentalists that Armageddon is inevitable. Moreover, it will happen when the Jewish temple is rebuilt on the ruins of the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s most holy sights. Although the film mocks these beliefs, it is a dire warning of the unthinkable scenario alluded to in the film.