Film Categories: art & artists

  • Making Pictures

    “Making Pictures” is an experimental film that follows a fine art photographer being photographed by a documentary crew as he travels through China “making pictures” of massive industrial projects. The film contrasts the photographer and the laborers ‘at work’ and brings up complex questions about making art in that context. The film was photographed as a home movie on black and white super-8, hand-processed and blown up to 35mm for release. All of the lab work was done by the filmmaker including the optical printing and print processing. The texture of the film is as impressionist as the photographers’ work…

  • Seven Secrets to Perfect Porn, The

    In 2001 the law in the UK for gay porn changed forever. Up until then, the only porn gay men in the UK could enjoy would be illegal, bad quality material mainly from Europe and America. Even up until 2003 certain sexual acts were still illegal in gay porn, whilst their straight counterpart movies still enjoyed greater freedom in sexual expression. Now that has all changed and films can be produced and sold freely in the UK and a new industry is starting to emerge. “The Seven Secrets to Perfect Porn” follows the work of Max Lincoln, who took the…

  • Stars Are Ruined, The

    “‘The Stars Are Ruined’ features 22 local Toronto glitterarti filmed in glorious Super 8. A moment in time. A performance. A filmed document made with love. Dedicated to the stars of the past, present and future.” (KC)

  • In a Present Distance…

    “In a Present Distance…” explores the complex terrain of motherhood, through an experimental narrative about a woman who travels to Quebec City to do research for a film she is making. While on the train, fragments of her life emerge and speak subtly to the journey of life: of grieving and loss, of happiness and sadness, as well as the joyful and reverent gestures of living. At the heart of this film is her child, shown at various times and spaces in his development as he explores the world around him. It is through him and his growth and discovery…

  • 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.

  • Crystals

    A cinematic tribute to William Bentley, a Vermont dairy farmer who pioneered the “art” of snowflake photography for forty-six winters (1885-1931), proving that no two of his 5381 specimens were identical. This film contains about 1500 examples (fewer than the average snowball), showing the incredible variation of design in nature, while producing the effect of an “organic” hexagonal mandala in a state of continual metamorphosis.

  • North Southernly

    Changes of directions, in the wind, the edges, the shapes, a joyous and mesmerizing intrigue. Perhaps an other way to put it is to describe this piece as a humorous digital cine take on the long cultural history of the lessons left by the great Chinese painters of the 13th century for whom shapes and edges where often all one and the same. Selected screenings: Media City, Windsor, ON, 2007

  • Pepere’s Chairs

    The story of Pepere’s Chairs was conceived by my mother, visual artist Maryse Maynard. It is a playful tale about a group of chairs that once belonged to her ancestors. Once the film had been recorded and edited, it was projected onto hand-embroidered canvases which served as the screen. Maryse had embroidered the canvases with chairs, and every once in a while, an embroidered chair could be glimpsed floating in the background of the film.

  • Fascination

    “In order to take the next step (not forward or backwards, but only: to go on) it is often necessary (for me) to lean on a picture made by someone else, sometimes a word will do, a gesture, the look on a stranger’s face. Colin Campbell made the next step possible for me so I took up a video camera (his pictures were my company, and my camera accompanied his pictures). Between his images of the past and mine, Colin Campbell emerged as a Cold Warrior, as an artist who would fight the Cold War with stereo. Yes, a stereo…

  • Monsoon St., ‘77

    Monsoon St., ’77 tells the story of a day in the life of a young tomboy, Tina, who finds escapism in the rural desert of Arizona in 1977. To compensate for her unhappy surroundings, Tina lives in a rich imaginative world. She finds beauty in the natural landscape and comforts herself by summoning familiar figures from popular culture. These fantasies supply the happiness that is otherwise so lacking in her everyday life.