Film Categories: history

  • Name Your Poison It’s a Scream Channel No. 5

    A nasty little movie about violation and contamination – physical, geographical and ideological. The sound, built and mixed on a 4-track cassette recorder, was culled from shortwave radio, Italian B-movies, and a perfume advertisement. Chernobyl, AIDS, and sexual assault in a lament for our times.

  • Necrology

    “In ‘Necrology’, one continuous shot films the faces of a 5 p.m. crowd descending via Pan Am building elevators. In old-fashioned black and white, these faces stare into empty space…like faces from the grave… The film is one of the strongest and grimmest comments upon the contemporary society that cinema has produced.” – Jonas Mekas, Village Voice

  • Neurosis

    “Neurosis” makes a powerful anti-war statement through its use of animated still photos as well as live-action footage of a political demonstration. At points the animation of still photos is so dynamic as to create a sense of live-action footage, while at other points it is the very stasis of the imagery that is so effective.

  • New York Eye and Ear Control

    “One of the major achievements of the sixties. Mike Snow postulates an eye that stares at surfaces with such intensity… The image itself seems to quiver, finally gives way under the pressure. A deceptive beginning – silent: a flat white form sharply cut to the silhouette of a walking woman…More human images, love-making – a human epic now still ruled by the after image of the Walking Woman. As in no other film yet seen, its alternately soft and granite images lift us toward the year 2000; capturing not events, not objects, but again and again registering a ‘placement’ of…

  • Nice Step to Take, A

    The radical change from an institutional residence to an apartment complex promoting independence sets the stage for this film about the people at Bellwoods Park House in Toronto. Founded in 1967 by the Adult Cerebral Palsy Institute, Bellwoods is one of the first residences for the disabled in North America. This film puts a face on people too often masked by our perception of disability. Produced for The Adult Cerebral Palsy Institute of Metro Toronto.

  • Now That We Are Persons

    Until 1929, Canadian women were told that they couldn’t be senators. Our Constitution, the British North American Act, (BNA) said that only qualified “persons” could be appointed. The government of the day understood that to mean men only. So, in 1927, five Albertan women challenged this definition of “persons” in court. On October 18, 1929, the British Privy Council, then the highest court of appeal in Canada, ruled that the word “persons” could include both men and women. With this new historical interpretation, women won the right to be eligible for the Canadian senate.

  • Nukie’s Lullaby

    Imagine… a nuclear bomb called Nukie appears on your TV screen and gives a speech to your children. Nukie is such a nice guy… the problem is he keeps putting his foot in his mouth. Completed when the “Star Wars” plan was announced, Nukie’s message becomes a well-timed reminder of the threat to our existence, both present and future, that the nuclear arms race holds over all of us on this globe. The film utilizes a unique animation technique involving coloured sand.

  • Nukie’s Sermon from the Bottle

    One of the most worrysome aspects of the nuclear issue is the volatile situation in the Middle East, which could spark a confrontation between the superpowers. Out of several Middle East doomsday scenarios, Amitay has chosen one which involves the belief of many Christian and Jewish fundamentalists that Armageddon is inevitable. Moreover, it will happen when the Jewish temple is rebuilt on the ruins of the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s most holy sights. Although the film mocks these beliefs, it is a dire warning of the unthinkable scenario alluded to in the film.

  • Opus 40

    “Opus 40” is about repetition: repetition in working and living, repetition through multiplicity and series, repetition to form pattern and rhythm, repetition in order and in revealing. “Opus 40” was filmed in the Enterprise Foundry, Sackville, New Brunswick, and has excerpts from Gertrude Stein’s writings.

  • Orientation Express, The

    By animating three decades of LIFE Magazine, “The Orientation Express” humorously guides us through the sexism of North American media. Hosts such as The Quaker Oats Man, Colonel Sanders, and The Kool Aid Jug explore “the feminine mystique.” This film highlights how attitudes towards women have changed and works to eliminate stereotypes which still persist today. “A technically polished animated film…devoted to an amusingly didactic re-expose of the horrors of sexual stereotyping, circa 1950.” – The Globe and Mail