Genres: documentary

  • Running Fence

    “Running Fence” depicts the four-year struggle faced by the artist Christo to see his vision realized: a 24-mile fence of white fabric over the hills of California disappearing into the Pacific. After an extensive battle with the state bureaucracy, the fence is finally unfurled, bringing the community together in celebration of its beauty. The three-million-dollar fence was taken down as planned at the end of two weeks, and now exists solely on film.

  • Ryland’s True Story

    Through the art of realism and East Coast story telling, this short experimental documentary reconsiders the fine line between documented truth and the everyday interaction of relating personal experiences.

  • Salesman

    It’s such a fine, pure picture of a small section of American life that I can’t imagine its ever seeming irrelevant, either as a social document or as one of the best examples of what’s called cinema verité or direct cinema.

  • Shadows

    “Shadows” is a marriage of dance, music, and digital visual effects. The choreography and the visual effects work integrally together to create a piece that could only exist in this medium. Images of a dancer and of a solo harpist are manipulated and combined electronically, so that they pass through each other, transform one into the other, and bend and ripple to the music, as the harpist plays one of John Weinzweig’s haunting “Fifteen Pieces for Solo Harp.”

  • Sikhs, The

    An in-depth study and description of the Sikhs and their faith, focusing on their unique and sometimes misinterpreted way of living. It covers Sikh history and its impact on forming the Sikh Culture. The universal institutions such as the “Sangat” – the holy congregation open to all – and the “Pangat” – free refectory or interdining for all, are stressed, and the “Typical Sikh Response” evident throughout their history towards crisis and events is presented. Recommended as a resource material for all public institutions as well as community organizations.

  • simulacrum

    “Simulacrum” attempts to fashion the experience of absorbing plastic art through a time-based medium. Rather than voice-over documentary commentary, this short video authors an “Applebroogesque” environment. As in Applebroog’s constructs, surface indications wash over tensions that glue people to situations and each other. In “Simulacrum”, a family portrait becomes unhinged. Carefully tended family “secrets” get a night out on the town and the waiter gets more than the orders. Finally, the daughter’s embarrassment fractures into visions of Applebroog paintings, until her thoughts marry the artwork in a batle of imagery and emotions.

  • Smell of Burning Ants, The

    “The Smell of Burning Ants” is a haunting documentary on the pains of growing up male. It explores the inner and outer cruelties that boys perpetrate and endure. Through formative events of a boy’s life, we come to understand the ways in which men can become emotionally disconnected and alienated from their feminine side. The common dismissal that “boys will be boys” evolves into the chilling realization that boys frequently become angry, destructive, and emotionally disabled men. “The Smell of Burning Ants” illustrates how boys are socialized by fear, power and shame. The burning of ants is one of the…

  • Snorkel

    When a film camera is introduced into an unexpected setting it acts as a catalyst for spontaneous performance. “Snorkel,” which was shot in Super 8 and transferred to 16mm film, shows a group of friends gathered for a social evening. They put on various acts, including the garbled telling of some sci-fi movie’s plot, and snorkelling in a pail of water. McLaren’s camera is by no means an innocent bystander – it intrudes upon the scene, picks out particular activities, withdraws, and generally impels the action as mediator between event and document.

  • rameau

    A documentary work which takes an in-depth look at the full range of Michael Snow’s work, including his painting, photography, music, sculpture, and filmmaking. Through conversations with Snow, and interviews with other members of Canada’s cultural community, the viewer is given an understanding of his challenging art. The film is designed in such a way as to give the uninitiated viewer a lasting introduction to Snow’s work and an understanding of our national artistic heritage.

  • Solar Frontier, The

    A film about solar-heated houses in the snowbelt – their cost, performance, and technology – as told by the architects and people who live in them. The film demonstrates that solar energy is a feasible alternative now, not next year or in the next century.