Film Format: Super 8

  • Penetration

    There has never been a better medium/content match in the entire history of art. Video and porn were made for each other. Sick of all the documentaries about the making of porn movies, Harmsen gets down to the folks who actually use it. Guest voices include Belle Isabelle and her boyfriend Sam, sex columnist and performer Sasha, UK performance artist Charlie Pulford, playwright and poet Sky Gilbert, and Super 8 master Peggy Anne Burton. Made at Trinity Square Video as part of the Tranz Sex Tech residency.

  • I Believe (In the Good Life)

    “I Believe” is made of Super 8 stills of people in my community, shot one frame at a time, and gay folk church music by local musician Joel Gibb and his band the Hidden Cameras. Up to 3,600 portraits can fit onto one roll of Super 8. Many are shot at night with a flash. I set out to capture a social atmosphere on film. The experiment proved to me that despite our many flaws, I do believe in the good of life. (LH)

  • Wawashkesh

    In loving memory of Rob Johnston (1959-2003), whose anarchistic upstart opulence will always be a major source of inspiration and happiness.

  • Beat Truths: A Portrait of Graeme Kirkland

    Based on autobiographical writings, “Beat Truths: A Portrait of Graeme Kirkland” is a 3-minute film that aims to capture the dynamics of the artist’s street performance. It is a marriage of spoken word, street samples and drumming to cinema verite-style filming, creating a collage of sound and vision which builds to a cacophony that captures the essence and honesty of the artist and his art. Never subtle nor sugar-coated, and always in your face.

  • Slice of Primal Pie

    “Slice of Primal Pie” takes on the challenge of capturing the excitement and spirituality of the percussion group Primal Rhythm in film. Using mixed mediums (Super 8mm, 16mm, animated 35mm stills, colour, b&w, infrared) the images were first shot and edited, then Primal Rhythm composed live to them in the recording studio. As a result this “visual rhythm film” has a very organic feel, as opposed to the traditional slick approach to music videos. “Slice of Primal Pie” is as much about the universal appeal of their music as it is about these self-proclaimed “urban primates.”

  • No Soy un Oso (I Am Not a Bear)

    An interview and a debate over what makes the man a bear and why he would resist belonging to a group of big hairy men.

  • 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

  • Doppeljogger

    Can’t stop the jog.

  • Wads and Wads

    Produced for the “Money” program at Splice This!, Toronto’s Super 8 film festival, “Wads and Wads” traces the attempt of two young men to have sex through a partition of clear vinyl. Toronto’s craft-couture sewing club The Westside Stitchers helped design the vinyl partition through which the young men play at lovemaking. The action of the film was improvised by the performers and shot and edited entirely in-camera by Robert Kennedy.

  • John Porter Sampler

    John Porter uses film as visual art, much like painting or sculpture,. Most of his 300 films are silent, very short and made in series, such aas landscapes, cityscapes, popular rituals, crowd documentaries, local histories, toy stories and “Camera Dances” in which he performs for the camera. Unlike most filmmakers, John shows his original films (no copies) and incorporates performance into the exhibition by miming in front of the screen, moving a hand-held projector around the room, and talking with the audience during the his films. He has been invited to many university film production classes to demonstrate a different…