Film Format: Super 8

  • Les Nanas

    Shot on one reel of Super 8mm and edited in camera, “Les Nanas” is a visual interpretation of a piece of music by avant-garde musicians, the Artie Smudges Trio, which follows a day in the lives of three doll-like women.

  • Dream, N.Y.C., The Return, The Flower, The

    “These are four individual films which together make an autobiographical travel narrative, question the aesthetic separation of ‘great’ and ‘ordinary’ experience, and propose an aesthetic which might contain, within a single work, a diversity of styles – from complex formal construction, to ‘home movie’, to single framing in a greenhouse. The second of these films presents the sometimes terrifying power and majesty of New York City in a clear precursor to the later ‘Unconscious London Strata’ (1981).” – M.J.

  • Ville – Quelle Ville?

    “Ville – Quelle Ville?” reflects a satirical view of city life, commonplace and redundant. Urban life is portrayed as a series of rituals: coming of age in an environment shaped by generations, obscured by the constant barrage of everyday life. The film randomly touches upon key events familiar to everyone in North America, a melting pot of human experiences. As in any city there is an aspect of alienation, here displayed through the eyes of a young woman caught in the web of her own daily existence. “Ville – Quelle Ville?” (4 min.,1984): While Onodera’s earlier work explored the possibility…

  • Dead Zone

    Dead Zone (2.5 min.,1985): Images, repetitive in visual completion, combine with a popular music track and self-acknowledging voice-over to form a void of numbed loneliness and dissatisfaction. Part of the triptych “Three Short Films.”

  • Dyketactics

    A popular lesbian “commercial,” 110 images of sensual touching montages in A,B,C,D rolls of “kinaesthetic” editing. ” “The images are varied and very quickly presented in the early part of the film, introducing the characters, if you will. The second half of the film slows down measurably and all of a sudden I found myself holding my breath as I watched the images of lovemaking sensually and artistically captured.” – Elizabeth Lay, Plexus

  • Daybreak

    Inverted Super 8 and video footage paints a hauntingly beautiful portrait of Saskatchewan’s northern forests. “Daybreak” is an attempt to strip different images down to their basic elements, to examine their photographic possibilities, and their connection to a larger “Canadian” identity. Original score by Jason Moberg. Selected screenings: Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival (Toronto, ON), 2011; Antimatter Film Festival (Victoria, BC), 2011

  • Phantoms

    “A study of the incongruous and iconic suspended monorail in Wuppertal Germany. Shot on super 8 and finished on 35mm film, ‘Phantoms’ expertly employs the exaggerated grainy texture of the emulsion to suggest a netherworld out of time, both science fiction and ancient history, while an accompanying text muses on the vanity and folly suggested by the mysterious structure.” – Kate MacKay, Images Festival Text by Ryan Kamstra. Financial assistance provided by the Ontario Arts Council.

  • Sex On Wheels (short)

    “Sex On Wheels” tells the secret history of San Francisco’s sex workers. Interweaving Super 8 footage of a living history bike tour/theater piece (think Colonial Williamsburg, with whores) with archival film and photographs, the film tells the story of a city’s forgotten residents: an ex-slave who became a wealthy procuress, a cross-dressing 1940s lesbian gigolo, a madam who became mayor, a gang of transgender teen hustlers who rioted for their rights, a radical feminist hooker/assassin, and a posse of anarchist strippers who took over a peep-show. 38-minute version also available, see “Sex on Wheels (demi-feature)”

  • Sex On Wheels (demi-feature)

    “Sex On Wheels” tells the secret history of San Francisco’s sex workers. Interweaving Super 8 footage of a living history bike tour/theater piece (think Colonial Williamsburg, with whores) with archival film and photographs, the film tells the story of a city’s forgotten residents: an ex-slave who became a wealthy procuress, a cross-dressing 1940s lesbian gigolo, a madam who became mayor, a gang of transgender teen hustlers who rioted for their rights, a radical feminist hooker/assassin, and a posse of anarchist strippers who took over a peep-show. 12-minute version also available, see “Sex on Wheels (short)”

  • Lines on a Slow Decline

    “Lines on a Slow Decline” is a portrait of my neighborhood; shot within a 5-block radius on Super 8 film and full-format VHS video.