Genres: experimental

  • Talking Portraits

    TALKING PORTRAITS is a 2-disk compilation of the following films: YOU 16mm, 1990, 15 min., sound YOU is an imaginary fictionalized you in a whimsical space. It is the still live residue of the broken relationship Lisa is here confronting. A parallel actor, the film is in the business of reinterpreting. Director’s Choice, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, 1990 OUT IN THE GARDEN 16mm, 1991, 15 min., sound Set in and around the house and garden of a middle-aged upstate New York academic, Grenier’s intimate experimental documentary portrait explores, in an innovative form, the thoughts and feelings of one…

  • In Every Dream Home a Heartache

    Kids on TV and Johannes Zits have together created a music video art piece based on Johannes’ visual work and the song “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” performed by Kids on TV. The video takes the song’s plotline of a rich man falling in love with a rubber doll and uses it to critique queer consumerism and the advertising industry’s targeting of the gay-demographic — turning peoples desires into a fetishization of newly built condos and lavish funishings. The rubber doll is portrayed by KOTV member John Caffery is covered with green-screen paint and super-imposed with gay male pornography…

  • Mr. Edison’s Ear

    “An inventive exploration of the visceral nature of sound and how we learned to capture and reproduce it over time. Anchored by the discovery of the phonograph by the brilliant-and deaf-inventor Thomas Edison, this visual and conceptual collage of rich archival footage and animation playfully traces the birth of technological reproduction and the beginnings of our modern, audio-drenched world.” – Gisèle Gordon (Hot Docs Canadian Spectrum programmer) Selected Screenings: Canadian Spectrum, HotDocs, 2008; DOK Leipzig Festival, 2008

  • Young Prince, The

    The fifth film in THE BOOK OF ALL THE PRAISE cycle. “‘The Young Prince’ film is my current project, and is based on alchemical themes. The film is about transformations – about transformations of imagery, about history as transformation, about eros as a transformative power, about that old Eisensteinian idea of collage and montage as transformation, but most of all, about transformations of the self. “The film combines two sorts of transformations: electrical transformations, produced by digital image processing, and chemical transformations, produced by processing the film by hand, in small batches. Thus, it is a dialogue between two technologies,…

  • Autoplastic

    “Autoplastic” intimately explores perceived psychosis in store front manikins.

  • Richard Reeves: A Compilation of Cameraless Animation Films

    A DVD compilation of cameraless animation by a master of the genre. All of the images and sounds are created by drawing, painting, etching or applying shapes directly onto the film. “A master of scratch animation, Reeves extends the tradition of visual music first explored in Canada by Norman McLaren. This is sublime work of cinematic dexterity” (Philip Hoffman). Titles: Garbanzo (2 min. 16mm 1992) Zig Zag (1 min. 35mm 1993) Linear Dreams (7 min. 35mm 1997) CFMDC Trailer (30 sec. 35mm 2000) Sea Song (4 min. 35mm 1999) OIAF 02 Signal Film (30 sec. 35mm 2002) 1:1 (2.5 min.…

  • Deadication

    “Images of dead fish are used to illustrate the needless destruction and waste inherent in our technological society.” – Martin Rumsby, Hidden Cinema Tour, 1989 “A product of the Saskatchewan Film Pool, ‘Deadication’ approaches the natural world (fish, specifically) with a fully developed aesthetic sense.” – Images Festival of Independent Film & Video, 1988

  • Four Genderfilms

    These four award-winning films by Catherine Crouch explore gender issues from a feminist perspective with humour and sensitivity. Vanilla Lament (6 min. 16mm 1997) Utilizing a mix of live-action, scratch and stop-motion animation techniques, “Vanilla Lament” is a humorous fantasy rendering of a sudden romantic break-up and its aftermath. This hand-crafted film, inspired by the experimental filmmakers of 1960s, won numerous awards, including a silver plaque at the 1998 Chicago International Film Festival. One Small Step (30 min. 16mm 1999) Set in South Carolina on the eve of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon walk, “One Small Step” is a dramatic…

  • Cote Jardin

    A quick view of three remarquable organic gardens : Le Tomple and Le jardin du Mas d’Abri in the department of Gard and Le jardin des Sambucs in the department of Hérault. The film goes over their general layout along pathways amongst the vegetation, ponds and people or animals that happen to be there at the time. Un bref aperçu de trois jardins biologiques remarquables : Le Tomple et Le jardin du Mas d’Abri dans le Gard et Le Jardin des Sambucs dans l’Hérault. Le film parcourt leur agencement général à travers les chemins parmi la végétation, les bassins et…

  • Les Coquelicots (Poppies)

    Worn out by the sea, the Sète fishing boats decide to spend a day in the country amongst the poppies surrounding Arles, Bédarrides and the Thouzon Grottos. Fatigués de la mer, les chalutiers de Sète décident de passer une journée à la campagne en prenant un bain de pavots à côté d’Arles, de Bédarrides et de la Grotte de Thouzon.