Film Format: 16mm

  • Japan: Kesei Line Single Take

    This film is part of an ongoing series of 16mm films simply called “Japan.” “Kesei Line Single Take” is a visual poem; its imagery (of passing Japanese landscape) is at times like that of Abstract Expressionist painting. This entire film is comprised of one take- there are no cuts, no camera moves, no exposure, focus, or shutter adjustments. “Absolutely captivating.” – Tor Lukasik-Foss, Art Gallery of Hamilton

  • Cinema and Visual Pleasure

    The film is constructed upon a short loop, extracted from an old 8mm burlesque film depicting a belly dancer moving against a black background. Her dance consists of little more than a series of languid, circular gestures. Her hips, elbows, wrists and stomach perpetuate endless circles each within their own orbits of motion. The image is black and white, scratched and grainy, and further complicated by the orange bubbles of nitrate decay that speckle the emulsion’s surface. The loop is expanded across the film’s duration through repetition and multiple superimpositions. The film is an exercise in the plastic properties of…

  • Saskatchewan

    Using home movies, vintage memorabilia, and the straight facts about Saskatchewan, the filmmaker creates an eccentric portrait of the first year of his life, and the province that shaped his identity. “Brian Stockton’s bittersweet tribute to the province he was born in perfectly captures the essence of life in the vast and lonely prairies.” – Nicole Cohen, EYE Weekly “Miss at your peril… Stockton’s grounded, deadpan voice-over, combined with the homely seduction of the images, keeps the tether strong between private myth and real life.” – Cameron Bailey, Now Magazine

  • Caress

    April light, naked silvery branches, craggy bark, towering in a blue sky. How do you embrace a tree that has given you four years of pleasure? Two weeks before I moved away, I filmed its portrait with my camera, bending its light in passionate strokes.

  • Nobb, The

    “The Nobb” slaps the face of NFB producers who come to Saskatchewan to teach us here hicks some New Age enlightenment. Colour by Crayola.

  • Shadowy Encounters

    “An extraordinarily provocative film which draws the viewer in with its strange mesmerizing beauty.” – Brothers Quay The film “Shadowy Encounters” is an homage to the work of the Quay Brothers. The film is a synthesis of collaged moving and still images taken directly from the Quay Brothers’ 35mm films and recontextualized in order to metaphorically and responsively capture and reframe the Quay’s films’ qualities. The resultant richly textured and layered imagery delves the labyrinthine and secret realms of the Quay Brothers’ world. In itself, “Shadowy Encounters” is a complete, compelling, mythic and painstaking transcription of an inner journey. It…

  • Filmmaker’s Journey, A

    “A Filmmaker’s Journey” is a feature-length mockumentary which chronicles Gerald L’Ecuyer’s attempt to shoot the movie of his dreams in New York City. With only Canadian grant money to spend, L’Ecuyer faces everything from a funding board that insists on nudity in every scene, to a crew that threatens mutiny from day one. Featuring Bob Balaban, Christopher Durang, Lothaire Bluteau, Ann Magnuson, Dan Futterman, Mary McLaughlin, and Gerald L’Ecuyer. The film was shot over a three-week period in New York City in May of 2002.

  • Poppa (Toxic 2)

    “Poppa” is about the contradictions of fatherhood. On one hand, a man craves the control and predictability of mathematics. This part of the “job” is presented in the form of layered nursery rhymes, sung in numbers. On the other hand, control will always elude those who seek it. When control is lost, the joy of surprise, the essence of fatherhood, can be found. This is demonstrated in “Poppa” through the image, made up of film of my son William when he was 10 months old. The film is processed by hand in a plastic bucket and then chemically tinted and…

  • Final (Toxic 6)

    “Final” is a nihilistic glimpse of a future where our time has finally run out. Civilization is in ruins as storms explode over half-demolished buildings. The clock accelerates in anticipation of our encroaching successor.

  • Cooper/Bridges Fight

    The anxieties and frustrations of McCarthy-era Hollywood are integrated into this reconstruction of an infamous scene from “High Noon.” The struggle between a sheriff and his deputy become one with the film’s emulsion. Considered “un-American” by the House of Un-American Activities Committee, High Noon’s writer and director was blacklisted in the 1950s for alleged Communist sympathies. “They punish each other mercilessly, nothing barred. The horses, becoming nervous, rear and whine in their stalls…”- from “High Noon,” original script by Carl Foreman.