Film Categories: music
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Saint-Rémi
Abandoned in the debris of a mine, a dancer is revived by the celestial energy pulsating within him. Filmed in Quebec’s former asbestos mine of Saint-Rémi-de-Tingwick, this short film features the artist’s ‘Tetrahedron’ iron sculpture in which he dances. Serving as both a prison and a pedestal, this sculpture symbolises humanity’s detrimental creations that both elevate and destroy. This duality is also echoed in the magnificent yet barren lunar landscape of the mine, which has remained sterile since its closure in 1968. Despite the desolation, ‘Saint-Rémi’ is an ode to revegetation, a hope that flora, like the dancer, will resurface…
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Breathe On It
A tricycle, a U-Haul trailer, a generator. Queer indie pop group The Hidden Cameras contribute to the Reclaim the Streets resistance movement with friends in tow.
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Momently Gone
Momently Gone is a dive into the interiority, in the form of five video-poems, declining, like a theme with variations, the relationship to our missing ones. It was inspired by the mourning of two of my sisters, both of whom committed suicide, and that of my father, who died of cancer. This common thread gave birth to a set of works that is soothing rather than challenging, because there is sweetness in feeling close to those who are absent, there is sweetness in gathering around a universal reality. Thanks to digital tools, I work with layers of images and sound…
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He Loves Me Until He Hates Me
He Loves Me Until He Hates Me is the long-form music video from Baby, You’re Projecting, Vivek Shraya’s debut label release on Mint Records. Director statement: Taking inspiration from such 90’s classics like The Bodyguard and erotic thrillers, “He Loves Me Until He Hates Me” creates a meaningful (and playful) look at the unpredictability of masculinity–how it can fluctuate in insidious ways within a relationship, how one can be worn down in this type of power dynamic, and worse, how that can turn into lateral violence towards other women.
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Matin Dans Une Foret de Pins (Morning in the Pine Forest)
The lives of six young people unfold in a journey through different worlds revealed and interwoven, where the boundaries between documentary and fiction, reality and dream cease to exist. The volatile and seductive landscape of urban and rural Latvia was treated as a rich context for the complex relationships one has with the world – inviting the viewer to come upon the questions that bind us in our common need to understand our humanness. This film is based on the lives of HELENA, EVA, JANKA, GUNTIS, ANNA and GALC.
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Aka Deadlee
Launching his career in 2000, Deadlee is one of the world’s first gay rappers who still struggles to be heard today.
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A More Radiant Sphere
A More Radiant Sphere tells the long-lost story of Communist poet, activist and Canadian political prisoner Joe Wallace, bringing him to life through archival material, both real and imagined. This hybrid film is shot primarily on 16mm film and weaves together the story of Wallace, the failed Canadian Communist Party, and the filmmaker’s own surprising discovery of her relation to Wallace through a distant relationship with her father (Joe’s great-nephew). Segmented throughout are folk songs based on Wallace’s writings, performed by award-winning folk musician Simone Schmidt, aka Fiver. The film delves into the limits of history and its records, and…
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Self-Portrait in Hell
Self-Portrait in Hell is a hybrid film that combines analog and digital film manipulation techniques. Multiple layers of 8mm films and disparate fragments are amalgamated to create a self-portrait of the director. A singular self-portrait, since ironically the subject of the film is not the director but the image found in abandoned film archives, the image of another, unknown woman. The first layer is from a 1970s 8mm home movie titled Woman Dancing with Dog and was found in an antique shop. The second layer is an 8mm film belonging to an unknown archive, which the artist buried for a…
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Motus
Using the long take and still framing, this film evokes the movement of Montreal as a city rapidly changing through massive construction projects while also experiencing a housing crisis. Not so much a city symphony, “Motus” seeks to create a sleep-like state through abstract lines, muddy grain, and other forms of frame and shutter movement. An homage to the prog-rock scores of the Italian horror films of the 1970s, the music harkens back to the era when I discovered cinema in Montreal movie places such as the Imperial. Utilisant le long plan et le cadrage immobile, ce film évoque le…
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Muses
A dancer wishes to break free from his unfaithful choreographer. In the midst of the deteriorating intimate relationship between a dancer and his older choreographer, the latter finds inspiration in another member of their company. This personal film delves into the intricate dynamics of inspiration, domination, and dependence within the LGBTQ+ dance world. It also depicts the raw experience of betrayal through the visceral and universal language of dance.
