Genres: documentary

  • Lapse Lose All

    “Lapse Lose All” both documents and obscures the collage painting process of Toronto artist Kathryn MacKay. Time-lapse photography seems to speed up the activity of painting by concentrating the work of several weeks into a few minutes, concealing more than it reveals. The title of the documented work is “Hammett’s Eclipse,” and it is indeed eclipsed in this film – first by the body of the painter at work and finally by the reversal of time itself. Layered sounds, recorded live in MacKay’s studio, offer an ambient audio echo of the visual complexity of the painted work. This work can…

  • Can You Love Me?

    Adam Garnet Jones and Sarah Kolasky combine film, video, and experimental animation to create a painfully intimate documentary about Toronto artist Morgan Mavis. ‘Can You Love Me?’ is a seductive exploration of the artist’s narcissism and insatiable need for love. The film begins by describing a poster campaign, which was launched by Morgan Mavis as her thesis project for the Ontario College of Art and Design. She posted a self-portrait around the city of Toronto on every available surface, with text that read, “Can You Love Me?” and listed a phone number. In the photo, Morgan’s pierced tongue sticks out…

  • Tough Enough

    “Tough Enough” is a short experimental film which looks at how being outside of a mainstream gender identity can shut you off from even the simplest touch. As a young queer child, touching people of either sex can be extremely loaded. What can one do to confront this? This filmmaker decides to be tackled repeatedly in order to “shock” their body into feeling.

  • fugitive l(i)ght

    This film explores the morph-like quality of the Serpentine Dance and its intricate play on the visible and the invisible, which extends to the larger context and legacy its originator, the American born Loïe Fuller. “fugitive l(i)ght” is composed of elaborately reworked found footage, originally captured by Thomas Edison and the Lumiere brothers, of various renditions and imitations of Fuller’s Serpentine performances, where glimmers of her presence slip into the film by means of the artist’s absence; both Fuller’s and my momentary suspensions through my use of chance operation. These found films are woven into intricately reworked sequences using several…

  • Cowboys Don’t Cry

    Garney Willis is an 88-year-old cowboy who lives in the “Wild West.” His granddaughter is a filmmaker who lives in the “big city.” When she visits his ranch to make “Cowboys Don’t Cry,” they haven’t been together in 20 years. She sees him as a hero in a Western movie. He sees her as the little girl he had given a pony for Christmas. This intimate documentary portrait traces their efforts to communicate with each other. More importantly, it reveals an old man’s undying idealism and his joy in day-to-day living.

  • L’éclat du mal / The Bleeding Heart of It

    The house that bursts; the scene of the crime; the nucleus. A universe collapses on itself: all hell breaks loose. “In my dream there’s a war going on. It’s Christmas time. I’m running and I’m carrying myself as a child. It’s dark in the tunnel and I’m heading towards the light, the daylight.” – Louise Bourque, from the film’s voice-over narration Selected Screenings & Awards: Editing Award, Cinematexas, Austin, TX, 2005; Director’s Citation, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, Jersey City, NJ, 2006; Opening Night film, Media City Festival, Windsor, ON, 2006; Whitney Biennial, New York, NY, 2006; Sundance Film…

  • Pursuit of Happyness, The

    This film explores the work and travels of John and Frank Navin, two gay brothers from Chicago, who create modern easy-listening music under the moniker The Aluminum Group. The film documents a music tour of Northern Italy where their musical past and future meet. With Cynthia Plaster Caster.

  • Cracker Barrel My Ass

    One mistificata version, but divertentissima – and one scratching taken in turn – of the history (true) of one chain American of restaurants that has decided to fire all the dependent gay or such suspiciones.

  • Crash ‘n’ Burn

    Toronto’s first punk-rock club is the subject of this innovative document featuring performances by The Diodes, Teenage Head, and The Dead Boys. The rock magazine Creem praised the film for “doing everything in its flickering power to self-destruct” and commented that anyone who “thought Canadians bored their beef to death ate at a different delicatessen.”

  • Making Pictures

    “Making Pictures” is an experimental film that follows a fine art photographer being photographed by a documentary crew as he travels through China “making pictures” of massive industrial projects. The film contrasts the photographer and the laborers ‘at work’ and brings up complex questions about making art in that context. The film was photographed as a home movie on black and white super-8, hand-processed and blown up to 35mm for release. All of the lab work was done by the filmmaker including the optical printing and print processing. The texture of the film is as impressionist as the photographers’ work…