Genres: experimental

  • A Celebration of Darkness

    A woman with a tortured past is triggered to take an unexpected walk down memory lane, she finds herself face-to- face with her inner child. Giving her a chance to make peace with her past. Does she find a way to celebrate darkness or does she become engulfed forever by it? In 2015, Jaene turned 40. This lead her to become introspective about her unusual life history. From a childhood of severe abuse, neglect, psychiatric institutionalization and being in care, she grew to become a street involved sex worker by 20. She met Elder, Isaac Day from Serpent River First…

  • Helium

    Commissioned by the 8 Fest for its 10-year anniversary, “Helium” is a dual-projector work that explores the worlds of competitive bodybuilding and balloon fetish. Originating from a deep fascination of the ability to derive such intense pleasure from otherwise innocuous objects or activities, “Helium” observes inflation, lust, and explosion.

  • Somnium Lapidum (Dream Stones)

    This stop-motion 16mm film offers an audiovisual meditation on the material animation of stones. The concept is inspired by Camillo Leonardi’s “Speculum Lapidum”, published in 1533, which describes the magical healing virtues of a variety of stones, categorized by colour. The character-based animated vignettes are inspired by the woodcuts in “De Hortus Sanitatis”, a natural history encyclopedia published in 1485, which details various methods of harnessing the power of gems. It was believed at the time that a given gem’s powers could be absorbed through focused viewing. Proposing an analogy between this belief and attraction to cinema, this film offers…

  • The Promise

    Set in an open field, the two men dance, jumping from reality to dream, as they follow a path, a metaphor for structure in their pursuits, giving meaning to their struggles.

  • Watching the Detectives

    Immediately after the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013, amateur detectives took to the internet chat rooms to try and find the culprits. Users on reddit, 4chan and other gathering spots poured over photographs uploaded to the sites, looking for any detail that might point to the guilt of potential suspects. Using texts and jpegs culled from these investigations, “Watching the Detectives” narrates the process of crowd-sourcing culpability. “Chris Kennedy’s latest offering is…a half-hour meta-doc about the online sleuthing surrounding the bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013. Imagine ‘Patriot’s Day’ without Mark Wahlberg leading the charge. Instead, a steadfast…

  • The Films of David Rimmer

    Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. This three-volume set brings together some of David Rimmer’s most seminal early works. Born in Vancouver, BC, Rimmer has been a pivotal figure in the city’s art scene since the early ’70s. Known for his experimentation with superimposition, looping and optical printing, Rimmer’s aesthetic reflects a “West Coast sensitivity to landscape, poetry and psychedelia” (Chris Kennedy). Volume One Square Inch Field -1968 / 13 min / 16mm / CLR / Sound Migration – 1969 / 11 min / 16mm / CLR / Sound Landscape -1970 / 8 min /16mm / CLR /…

  • DataMine

    “DataMine” is a stop-motion indictment of surveillance society; laboriously animated by hand with light painting to create surreal imagery without the use of computer generated images. Society embraces an ever-increasing connection to technology, creating digital communities that distract us from our real world existence. As our lives exist more and more in the digital realm, they are catalogued and stored for future mining by corporations and governments. This activity of data mining raises many questions regarding the future of activism and creativity – that which makes us human. In the intricate world of “DataMine,” the oblivious masses are catalogued and…

  • I Want To Kill Myself

    Contemplating suicide: a biography.

  • Membrana Mortis (Dead Film)

    “Membrana Mortis” is a meta-film, a chaotic assemblage of re-photographed and chemically manipulated image fragments culled from a damaged roll of film that was nearly un-projectable. The films title suggests a two-fold intention – here process and existence pre-suppose one another, at once an elegy to a dead film and observance of new genesis. This film was commissioned by the Independent Filmmakers Cooperative of Ottawa with support from the Canada Council for the Arts for Origin 8, a program commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Super 8 format.

  • ôtênaw

    “ôtênaw” is a film documenting the oral storytelling of Dwayne Donald, an educator from Treaty 6, Edmonton Canada. Drawing from nêhiyawak philosophies, he speaks about the multilayered histories of Indigenous peoples’ presence both within and around amiskwacîwâskahikan, or what has come to be known as the city of Edmonton.