Film Categories: history

  • Rainbow Crossing – Out & About with Brewer & Berg in Hawaii

    Come trip through time and space with gay gurus Michael Brewer and Thomas Alan Berg in a multi-dimensional travelogue that explores the beauty, culture and spirituality of the Island of Hawaii from a fresh new perspective. Tom and Michael travel through the enchantig Hawaiian scenery while foloowing a trail of rainbows through realms of philosophy, spirituality, history, art, psychology and politics with an entertaining and often irreverent dialogue, featuring entertaining cameos with people met along the way, and perhaps even the ancient Gods of Hawaii themselves. Fascinating, uplifting and very entertaining, Brewer and Berg take you one a journey that…

  • American Dreams

    “James Benning’s films belie the cliches often attributed to avant-garde film. Elegantly conceived and realized, they are seductive as much for their visual audacity and originality as for the intellectual conundrums they challenge the viewer to resolve. ‘American Dreams’ is chock full of concrete, discrete elements that comprise an American iconography of the past three decades. “The film encourages a kind of perverse nostalgia for ‘the good old days’: Nixon’s ‘you don’t have Nixon to kick around any more’; Elvis’ response to questions about his gyrating style and the rumour that once he shot his mother; Patty Hearst’s ‘Tania’ statement;…

  • Tell Us The Truth Josephine – A Bitter Immigrant Story

    “Tell Us the Truth Josephine” is a 15-minute experimental drama about a Maltese woman’s search for “home.” Josephine struts across Canada on stilts. And for Josephine to find home she must accept the Truth. And once she does she can come off her stilts and land. Her journey is haunted by fragmented voices and images of her bloodline – bitter immigrant stories.

  • Chronicle Re-Constructions

    “I believe that filmmakers in the future will have to establish an archaeological approach to their subject matter. Instead of photographing images, we may have to dig them from the ground, and paste them together – film will look like today’s Dead Sea Scrolls.” – Steven Woloshen

  • 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

  • Procession

    “Procession” is a portrait of the modern Colombian city of Medellín filmed during the city’s Feria de las Flores, or Flower Fair, a famous annual celebration. Held during the first two weeks of August, this period of festivity was established in the late 1950s to celebrate the importance of flower growers in the regions near Medellín. It has since grown to include a range of festivities and to celebrate many aspects of this city and its surroundings. “Procession” proceeds through the city with a near-continuous camera motion from left to right.

  • Parícutin

    In February of 1943, a fissure appeared in the cornfield of Dionisio Pulido, a farmer in the Mexican state of Michoacán. Ash and incandescent rocks emerging from this fissure preceded lava flows, violent explosions, and the birth of Mexico’s youngest volcano. Despite the prayers of the locals, the lava flows displaced the populations of two nearby villages and part of that of another. The final explosion of the Parícutin volcano was in January of 1952, nine years after its birth. By March of that year, it merely fumed, standing 424.6 metres tall-the first volcano ever to have been observed through…

  • Kuboå

    The life and times of an ordinary Norwegian ghost.

  • But Some Are Brave

    “But Some Are Brave” is an innovative, multi-layered animated film project. This short poetic chronicle uses an oil paint-on-glass animation technique. It introduces iconic characters and historic events in a flurry of emotional and psychological rhythms. Using the metaphor and symbolic structural device of weaving, “But Some Are Brave” takes us through this visual poem like a spindle flying through layers of thread – telling us something of the cultural and political histories of communities under attack. Awards: Audience Award for Best Film, TAIS Animation Showcase, Toronto, 2009; Prix du publique for Best Animated Film, Cineffable Festival, Paris, 2009

  • Films of Su Friedrich, The: Volume 1 – The Ties That Bind

    “The Ties That Bind” is a powerful meditation on political responsibility and personal loss as seen through the story of the filmmaker’s mother, who grew up in Nazi Germany. Using rare archival footage, extensive interviews and critical commentary, Friedrich constructs a fearless dialogue between past and present, between mother and daughter. “The Ties That Bind” engages in a profound search for an understanding of history, and challenges us in our responsibility for the present. Languages: English, German * New Directors/New Films, MoMA * “Le Mois du Film Documentaire,” France * “In and Out of the Cold, 1945 to 1995,” International…