Genres: experimental

  • Memo to Pic Desk

    An idiosyncratic look at staging in news photography, using materials from the archives of a Toronto daily. Moral codes, delinquency and autonomy are pulled into an altered coherence, as vintage photos are examined next to their type-written paper trail. Financial assistance provided by the Ontario Arts Council. Selected screenings & awards: Best Experimental Short Film, Lusanne Underground Film Festival, 2007; Toronto International Film Festival, 2006; Jury’s Choice Award, Black Maria Film & Video Festival, 2007; San Francisco International Film Festival, 2007; Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2007; Big Muddy Film Festival, 2007

  • DAS OVO (Ovo – das Video) | THE OVO (Ovo – the Video)

    “It’s not about how a drag queen moves, it’s what she sets in motion.” – Ovo Maltine, 1966-2005 Christoph Josten was Ovo Maltine. She died on February 8, 2005 at Berlin’s Auguste Viktoria hospital, eleven week after suddenly being diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. She had lived with the HIV virus for 13 year. “Ovo (the egg)” – read one obituary – “lay down in Berlin’s nest of queens and brooded on a number of political projects: a hotline for gay victims of assault, Act Up, AIDS benefit events, the legalisation of marijuana, the recognition of prostitution as a profession, transgender…

  • Blue Box Blues (Staging a Photo Shoot)

    How long does the twinkling of an eye last? What all happens in a moment? Slap in a snap – a document of directing and a video on the half-life of still photos.

  • Hong Kong Showcase (a case study), The

    “The world is everything that is the showcase.” Living in a globalized world – a case study. (Loosely based on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, sentence no. 1.)

  • fall storm (california 2003)

    Sitting in a quiet room; listening to a storm out the window.

  • Truth

    “Truth” is the first of two experiments in animation involving the transposition of conceptual material to visual form. The film explores what is in philosophical circles called the correspondence or representational theory of truth. Technically, the film demonstrates the power of simple stop-motion technique using cut-outs. The voice-over narration is intercut with cut-out maneuvers shot single-frame to rockabilly music. Precise synchronization to sound effects enhances the exploration of grace, expression through movement, and timing. The second of the two films, “Relativism” (1999), introduces the use of color.

  • Relativism

    “Relativism” is the second of two experiments in animation involving the transposition of conceptual material to visual form. The film continues an examination begun in an earlier animated film, “Truth” (1998), which introduced the correspondence theory of truth by relying strictly on motion and sound. Relativism addresses objections to this theory by utilizing the symbolic potential of color. Using an elaborate process of multiple-exposures, wherein the same black frames were reshot to introduce different visually-synchronized color elements into the image, the film manipulates the additive process of color production. Instead of relying on the reflective colors of objects beneath the…

  • Butch or Consequences

    Louise, an old-school butch, falls in love with a pretend TV lesbian and in her desperate need to be with her she participates in a fictional make-over show, Inside Out: Deviant Dyke to Diva. Louise, reveals her new marriage approved look to her local dyke march when suddenly it all starts to go wrong, or, some would say, it all gets right.

  • I Remember Now, We Never Danced, I Miss You, Good-bye

    Everyday movement, woven into a dance of memory and loss. Selected Screenings: International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2007; Seattle International Film Festival, 2007

  • (panacea)

    Two lovers – a sailor and an artist – made of different fabrics (one skin, one pleather) spend their last afternoon together.