Genres: documentary

Tabula Rasa

“Revisiting footage he shot more than ten years ago in an American high school, Vincent Grenier combines deftly manipulated and layered images with oblique commentaries delivered by students and instructors. The socializing process of education is made visible in the architecture, surfaces and colours of the school, ‘in the ambiguous quality of appearances so assiduously cultivated by institutions’ (Grenier).” – Images Festival, 2005 Initial footage shot with the helpof a production grant from the Canada Council. Selected screenings & awards: Jury’s Citation (2nd Prize), Black Maria Film & Video Festival; 2nd Prize, Media City 11, Windsor, Ontario; Views from the…
Super Super 8: Experimental Works for Educational Environments

Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. 1) 4x8x3 by Chris Kennedy (2004 / Regular 8 / 3 min.) 8mm unsplit. Streetcars circle. The ferry leaves and returns in one gesture. Camera and character dance. 2) All U Can Eat by Stevi Urben (2003 / Super 8 / 12 min.) Increasingly separated from his place of birth, a 70-year-old Jewish native of Quebec fuses personal and historical memory to create a sense of belonging. 3) Coolie Gyal by Renata Mohamed (2004 / Super 8 / 5.5 min.) In this coming-out story, an honest and sincere letter is read from…
Fem Crit: Experimental Works for Educational Environments

Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. This collection of works made by women and dedicated to feminist subject matter is political, poetic and provocative. The works explore the complexities of identity and womanhood, addressing often-difficult issues such as domestic violence, body image and poverty, and locating the intersections where language, race, class and gender collide. “Fem Crit, a creative and thought-provoking compilation of seven super 8 and 16mm short films, presents candid and edgy kaleidoscopes of women’s personal experiences and reflections… These films showcase a range of creative narrative and filmmaking styles – useful for class discussion on…
Queers on the Verge: Experimental Works for Educational Environments

Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. This compilation brings together challenging and innovative film and video works that explore lesbian/gay/bi/trans culture by both Queer pioneers and emerging makers. It covers a broad range of subject matter including gender and sexual identity, social dynamics, coming out, the impact of AIDS, and Queer youth culture. “Queers on the Verge… is an excellent compilation of short subjects featuring contemporary gay, lesbian, and transgender themes. This DVD is highly recommended and will be a great catalyst for discussion in high school and colleges, not just to gay audiences. It should be accessible…
You Are Not From Here

“You Are Not From Here” is a record of a rapidly disappearing vernacular landscape. With an oblique narration about the process of gentrification, the film explores the notions of discovery, belonging and the meanings we project on our environment. Shot in Super 8 and narrated by Philip Horowitz. Selected screenings: Mix New York, 2005; Athens International Film Festival, Ohio, USA, 2005; Antimatter Film and Video Festival, Victoria, BC, 2005
Bahar

Bahar is a 52-minute documentary about a Turkish transsexual, who has lived through many periods of tumultuous times, each of these chapters a fragment of her life marked by a different name she has chosen to call herself after abandoning her original name of Mustafa: Ayla (Aura), Ülkü (Ideal) and Bahar (Spring). The film was shot in Turkey with interviews conducted around the time of Bahar’s much-desired facial surgery. Having a sex change operation is surprisingly easy in Turkey. But the bill a transsexual has to pay is to be cast away from an ordinary life and suffer from the…
Multiple Selves of Hannah Maynard, The

A glimpse into the unique, eccentric mind of a pioneering Canadian photographer, Hannah Maynard (1834-1918). Born in England, Maynard immigrated with her family to Vancouver Island in 1862, where she set up her own portrait studio. After the sudden death of her youngest daughter, she produced a troubling series of experimental images that reflected her haunted state – an attempt to contact her beloved daughter’s spirit. Considered overly bold and unconventional, Maynard experimented with such techniques as collage, multiple exposure and photo-sculpture. She developed a surreal vision, a world obsessed with children and death, but also the spiritual possibilities of…
Benediction

A filmmaker’s exploration of fleeting existence. Filtered through a personal story, “Benediction” is a last attempt to pay homage to those things left and leaving. When faced with the realization of her grandfather’s mortality, a young filmmaker journeys to find meaning in the wake of absence and loss. Is she trying to hold on to something that was never there? Winner of the Norman McLaren Prize at the Festival des Films du Monde in Montreal. Winner of the Kodak Award for Best Cinematography in a Canadian Short at the CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival, 2006. Screened at the Toronto International…
Plethora

“Plethora” is a documentary about stuff. Several individuals and professionals from psychologists to sociologists discuss the reasons why people obtain, collect , store, hoard and creat attachments to things. The movie examines the personal storage industry, consumerism, compartmentalization of private lives and containment of belongings from the past and for the future.
still | move

“still | move” is a visual essay of the photographic album in which I sociologically explore the history of my family. Channeling through old postcards, torn letters, and discarded photographs, I document and archive the snapshots, the landscape where my father’s family lived, and the home movies shot by my grandfather. I mark myself, as a filmmaker and a member of the family, to understand the history and to chronicle the decay of a prairie railroad community. – Michael Rollo