Film Categories: science/medicine

  • Blinkity Black

    One blink, one lost image. Another one, another lost image. And so on thousand times a day. This is the story of a man marked by lost images from his life. Blinkity Black is created from all the moments that escape the eyes simply because our eyelids close. If we could discover all these lost moments, what would we discover? And witch image to save?

  • Messengers

    A poetic exploration of three subterranean telescopes in remote regions of Canada, Japan, and Antarctica that reveal a new way of perceiving the universe from within. Underground, we are dreaming into the earth.

  • Ecopoiesis

    In moments of monstrous pareidolia, all the things that we don’t consider alive form a new world, a world in our image. Ecopoiesis explores the concept of terraforming, reimagining it through the lens of cosmic horror. Blurring the lines between terrestrial and extraterrestrial, the film invites viewers to challenge their perceptions of human impact on an alien environment, as the visual and auditory landscapes evoke a sense of planetary unease. Within its abstract representation, Ecopoiesis delves into the ethical and existential dilemmas posed by transforming foreign worlds by infecting them with humanity.

  • Uncle Bardo

    Through an innovative blend of documentary, archival film manipulation, and experimental stop-motion animation, Uncle Bardo delves into the memories of an estranged family member who has undergone a near-death experience and awakens lost between two worlds. Rooted in the industrial landscape of Hamilton Ontario, we get lost in Uncle Bardo’s memories of a coma as he strives to find his sense of reality and recover his health.

  • The Perfect Human

    Inspired by Jørgen Leth’s Black and White cult classic The Perfect Human (1968) which raises many simple yet philosophical questions about who the perfect human is, what it means to be human, or perfect, this work applies unsupervised machine learning and experimental filmmaking techniques to reexamine and question the contested notion of perfection in the eyes of artificial intelligence. Later the remake of the computer-generated moving images are transformed from digital recreation to an analog artifact of transparencies which completed the cycles from analog film to digital video and back to 16mm format, from motion pictures to still images, and…

  • A Flame the Colour of Air

    Medieval Catholic mystic Hildegard von Bingen reconciles the virgin/whore dichotomy in a psychedelic, erotic vision. Hildegard was known for her waking visions of the divine, her musical compositions, and her extensive medical encyclopedias. The animated imagery in this film is inspired by her surviving transcriptions, which suggest a departure from the mainstream views of her culture. In this speculative fictional tale, Hildegard has a vision in which erotic dancers appear to her as embodiments of the divine. The narration is strategically selected and collaged from Hildegard’s texts.

  • The Flower and The Flood

    Following the seasonal cycle of a saffron farm based in the Fraser Valley, the film explores unmechanized labor through harvesting the delicate crocus stamen by hand. After an atmospheric river decimates the flourishing saffron crop in 2021, the flood waters temporarily return Semá:th Xó:tsa to the valley more than a century after its forced draining. The film traces the interconnected history of this sacred lake with the rebuilding of the saffron crop; cultivating community and the most expensive spice in the world. Collaborating with the saffron crocus and other plants through eco-processing and analogue processes, the family garden offers us…

  • Human on My Faithless Arm

    Winner of Honourable Mention (Experimental) at the 1987 Canadian Student Film Festival/Montreal International Film Festival, “Human on My Faithless Arm” shatters the common stereotype of the deaf. The main character, remaining nameless throughout, has rejected “the institution of the deaf” only to find herself, years later, rejected by society. In this multi-dimensional portrait of an individual trapped between self and self-image, issues of sexuality and economics are questioned. This film is an exploration of alienation through techniques of superimposition, sound displacement ,and deconstruction/reconstruction of language, exposing the hearing-impaired women’s comprehension of sound and conversation. “‘Human on My Faithless Arm’ is…

  • I Will Not Think about Death Anymore

    “I Will Not Think about Death Anymore” is a dramatic film about a Jewish lesbian who is obsessed with worries about dying following the death of a friend to AIDS. The fears triggered by this event bring on anxiety attacks common to women at the beginning of a healing process from sexual abuse. The story revolves around an internal adventure and fantasy, where Death becomes a butch dyke in the supermarket. The themes of healing, sexual abuse, dying, and panic attacks intertwine with Jewish identity, and the reclaiming of Jewish ritual for gay and lesbian audiences.

  • Letters from Home

    Begun with a speech by Vito Russo, “Letters” enjoins a chorus of speakers to sound off on AIDS, love and death. Impelled with a variety of formal procedures, this series of mini-portraits are generously furbished with found footage extracts, hand-processed dilemmas, home movies, super-8 psychodramas, pixilated phantasms, intergalactic warfare and a hot kiss in a cool shower. “Mike Hoolboom has produced an absolutely sensational work, not only by the extreme density and intelligence of the witnesses who appear in the film, but also by the visual quality and inventiveness of his cinematographic language. Each shot, each edit has a message…