Genres: experimental

  • Canicule (Summer Day)

    A hot day in a working-class neighbourhood. There’s trouble in the air as young and old take to the streets. “Give me your tired, your poor Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free The wretched refuse of your teeming shore Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me I lift my lamp beside the golden door” – Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus, 1883 Selected Screenings: Les Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québécois, 2011; L’Alternativa Festival de Cinema Independent de Barcelona, 2011

  • Dream, N.Y.C., The Return, The Flower, The

    “These are four individual films which together make an autobiographical travel narrative, question the aesthetic separation of ‘great’ and ‘ordinary’ experience, and propose an aesthetic which might contain, within a single work, a diversity of styles – from complex formal construction, to ‘home movie’, to single framing in a greenhouse. The second of these films presents the sometimes terrifying power and majesty of New York City in a clear precursor to the later ‘Unconscious London Strata’ (1981).” – M.J.

  • A Dream

    The story of meeting your soul mate in a dream and waking up to find your soul mate in reality.

  • Not So Subtle Subtext, The

    “The Not So Subtle Subtext” is a video piece that explores the sub-textual nature of Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship in the television series “Xena: Warrior Princess.” Clips are taken throughout the six seasons of the show and re-edited to create five different segments centred on subtext within the show. Without confirming or denying their relationship, the film addresses metaphor and subtext and creates meaning between the two characters by utilizing looks and words through repetition. Despite the shows neutral stance, the audience’s engagement with the text and passion remains almost ten years after the finale, proving there is more than…

  • little prayer (H-E-L-P), a

    “Images of Houdini bound in chains flicker and spin amid laceration marks created through hand-processing.” – Vanessa O’Neill, San Francisco Int. Film Festival The images of Houdini chained and attempting to free himself: the stop-and-start (interruption-repetition) of his actions; the high-contrast of the images; the stroboscopic effect created by the rhythm of the shutter; the gashes in the emulsion from the hand-processing – combined with the layers of sound, all evoke the violence of a tortured soul in search of escape. NB: View in total darkness to appreciate full flicker effect. Image description: A grainy, sepia-tinted image of Houdini hanging…

  • Ville – Quelle Ville?

    “Ville – Quelle Ville?” reflects a satirical view of city life, commonplace and redundant. Urban life is portrayed as a series of rituals: coming of age in an environment shaped by generations, obscured by the constant barrage of everyday life. The film randomly touches upon key events familiar to everyone in North America, a melting pot of human experiences. As in any city there is an aspect of alienation, here displayed through the eyes of a young woman caught in the web of her own daily existence. “Ville – Quelle Ville?” (4 min.,1984): While Onodera’s earlier work explored the possibility…

  • Dead Zone

    Dead Zone (2.5 min.,1985): Images, repetitive in visual completion, combine with a popular music track and self-acknowledging voice-over to form a void of numbed loneliness and dissatisfaction. Part of the triptych “Three Short Films.”

  • Afloat at Dawn

    A tiny baroque ode to fleeting darkness and pretty make-believes. Partly made in Fredericton with the support of the New Brunswick Film Co-op , the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec’s artist-in-residence Program, the National Film Board of Canada’s Filmmaker Assistance Program and TAIS, the Toronto Animated Image Society. Music arranged and recorded by Marc-André Simard. Selected screenings: Anim’ est International Animation Festival, Special Mendion of the Jury, 2010; Les rendez-vous du cinéma québécois (Montreal, QC) 2010; Festival du n nouveau cinéma (Montreal, QC), 2009; Interfilm Berlin, 2009

  • Traversée, La (The Crossing)

    Boy and Rabbit embark upon a voyage into the night. From a small paper boat, they watch the wooded shore and its special inhabitants… Selected screenings: Ottawa International Animation Festival, 2010; Les rendez-vous du cinéma québécoise, 2011; Melbourne International Animation Festival, 2011; London International Animation Festival, 2011

  • Keratin Reserve

    A film diary. 673 finger/toe nails saved, a large mess of 16mm rescued from darkroom garbage bins. The former adhered with nail polish topcoat to the latter, optically printed, and finished as a print.