Genres: experimental

  • Current

    “The conceptual and minimalist aesthetic seen in this film refers to the more complex metaphysical and alchemical transformations which occur when silver is exposed to tungsten light. These currents of light, like Daniel Burren’s striped conceptual art, refer to the basic nature of representation while attempting to resist and transform traditional viewing habits or consumption. ‘Current’ is a beautiful meditation on these realities.” – Maria Insell

  • Pink Fairy, The

    A long process of experimentation with a variety of different filmmaking techniques while examining an evolving queer identity. The film shows an emergence of the Pink Fairy. Part femme, part tomboy, part fairy, the characters come together to subvert the idea of a fixed identity. Luminscent imagery is imprinted by hand using hand-processed colour footage, optically printing super8 to 16mm, 16mm to 16mm, negative to positive, video to film, and repeating motifs, to explore the intricacies of the celluloid medium. Audio emotes through random manipulations in a Brion Gysin-like cut-up technique.

  • Role I Was Born To Play, The

    Using borrowed clips from three films about gender bending – two comedies and a tragedy – a personal gender landscape is created. This piece touches on the assumptions, strategies for survival and a the commitment to discussion that alternate gender expressions evoke.

  • Parricide Sessions, The

    In a therapeutic cinematic session of sorts, a gay son introduces his ex-lovers to his father – while examining his own fascination with the father figure.

  • This, and This

    “Vincent Grenier is an artist whose shift to digital filmmaking has consistently been characterized by a rigorous investigation of the specific aesthetics and formal parameters of his adopted medium. ‘This, and This’ is no exception. Thematically, Grenier’s piece is a conversation with nature in both its raw and culturally mediated forms – for example, the rushing waters from Ithaca Falls juxtaposed with the spray of a rain puddle traversed by a steel belted radial. The piece is in many ways a meditation on the power of the straight cut, as opposed to the fades and image-alternations one often finds in…

  • Behind the Walls and Under the Stairs

    The spiders are organizing themselves…one day soon they’ll take over. “Phantasmic photograms crawl across the emulsion, their flow arrested via re-photography, these marks look like multi-hued spiders crawling towards a new berth. Again and again. Falling from the horizon of the frame line in warm hues of red and purple and brown. A movie of theme and variations, noting the small changes of tone and texture and opacity. Every day I don’t have a new best friend, a new job, a new home. I live within the frame, trying to find freedom in my restrictions, my life.” – Mike Hoolboom,…

  • Resurrection

    “Resurrection,” a hand-processed Super 8 blow-up, uses direct animation techniques such as scratching, bleaching and painting onto the emulsion of the film, in order to invoke the awakening of the feminine.

  • Twirl Girl

    “Twirl Girl” is a study of circular motion. It incorporates hand processing, xerography, rotoscoping and found footage in order to transpose the image of a woman dancing in circular fashion.

  • Lake Ontario (in my head)

    A meditative look at a mutable and hypnotic horizon. Grainy Super 8 imagery, optically printed 16mm footage and an atmospheric soundtrack evoke the stillness of mind reached when standing before expansive sky and water. Filmed at Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts, Lake Ontario (in my head) was created as part of LIFT’s 25th anniversary Film is Dead… Long Live Film! commissioning project.

  • Breakdance Hunx (Market Value Mix)

    An homage to the cylists of the world and routes less traveled. Referencing The Smiths, Run DMC, and Kenneth Anger, this video follows six bike gangs through back alleys and side streets. The gangs travel to a park where a dance battle ensues.