Film Categories: Work about Women

  • fugitive l(i)ght

    This film explores the morph-like quality of the Serpentine Dance and its intricate play on the visible and the invisible, which extends to the larger context and legacy its originator, the American born Loïe Fuller. “fugitive l(i)ght” is composed of elaborately reworked found footage, originally captured by Thomas Edison and the Lumiere brothers, of various renditions and imitations of Fuller’s Serpentine performances, where glimmers of her presence slip into the film by means of the artist’s absence; both Fuller’s and my momentary suspensions through my use of chance operation. These found films are woven into intricately reworked sequences using several…

  • Shadows Choose Their Horrors

    “Shadows Choose Their Horrors” is the dark and melodic diary of a necromancer, as she lives her secret life between the world of mortals and the realm of lost souls. The film, shot silent with intermittent inter-titles, tells the story of dark and sinister forces as they move through the life of Madame G (Winsome Brown). Madame G tries to bond with her favorite undead, using magic and ritual to give them life and pleasure, but a devastating outcome drives her to do the unthinkable. Finally, Madame’s struggle to overcome the loneliness of evil brings her out, into the light,…

  • I have no memory of my direction

    “i have no memory of my direction” is a feature-length experimental narrative. The story unfolds through a Canadian-born Japanese woman’s voice-over as she dreams her way though Japan. Ostensibly searching for an emotional connection with her aging father, the woman contemplates her own inherited culture and familial touchstones. Her North American pop-culture sensibility fuses with a distorted Japanese perspective to create a surreal interpretation of a “Japan of the imagination.” This fictional landscape is peppered with invented Japanese myths, ruminations on memory loss, the temporal space of digital photography and the ghosts of inherited imagination. DVD version available for institutional…

  • Basement Girl, The

    Abandoned by her lover, a young woman finds comfort and safety in her basement apartment. Mundane routines, a diet of junk food and the warmth of the television insulate her from the pain and betrayal of her ill-fated relationship. Eventually, The Basement Girl emerges – transformed and ready to “make it on her own.” “The Basement Girl” breaks new cinematic territory by employing multiple formats from traditional 16 mm film to toy cameras including a modified Nintendo Game Boy digital camera and the Intel Mattel computer microscope. “Midi Onodera’s latest film is a witty and wonderful meditation on how women…

  • L’éclat du mal / The Bleeding Heart of It

    The house that bursts; the scene of the crime; the nucleus. A universe collapses on itself: all hell breaks loose. “In my dream there’s a war going on. It’s Christmas time. I’m running and I’m carrying myself as a child. It’s dark in the tunnel and I’m heading towards the light, the daylight.” – Louise Bourque, from the film’s voice-over narration Selected Screenings & Awards: Editing Award, Cinematexas, Austin, TX, 2005; Director’s Citation, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, Jersey City, NJ, 2006; Opening Night film, Media City Festival, Windsor, ON, 2006; Whitney Biennial, New York, NY, 2006; Sundance Film…

  • Assembled

    A hand-etched and collaged film where three figures navigate the modern social spaces of being “together alone.” Created with scratch animation, with an original score by Stephen Kelly of pop trio The Just Barelys. Selected screenings: Atlantic Film Festival, Halifax, 2006

  • Praise

    A prologue excerpt from the poem “Try to praise the mutilated world” sets the mood for this film of contained contrasts: black and white, negative and positive, light and dark. Recurring images of trees root the film, unifying its segments, and suggest further twinnings: (knowledge of) good and evil, humanity and nature, ephemeral and eternal – praise and mutilation. “A meditation on mutability and transience in the face of the perduring stone of the canyon.” – Barbara Godard

  • Tuesday Be My Friend

    Sweet SHIUAN, a non-Muslim Malaysian, secretly loves her tudungs (Muslim headscarves), but none of her friends and family know. She is looking for friends who understand and on this particular Tuesday, she finds them. ‘TUESDAY BE MY FRIEND’ tells the story of one Malaysian girl that decides to take her fate into her own hands just so she can be happy. Mandarin with English subtitles. “TUESDAY BE MY FRIEND” is set in modern-day Malaysia, a country with Islam as its official religion, and Bahasa Melayu (Malay language) as its national language. The tudung (hijab) is a Muslim headscarf normally worn…

  • c: won eyed jail

    “c: won eyed jail“ is a 35mm film project consisting of two parts: a quilt patterned out of 35mm still negatives and 35mm found motion picture, and a traditional film print of the quilt that is screened through a 35mm motion picture projector. I consider this quilt/film homage to Joyce Wieland, whose artwork called into question the binary oppositions concerning issues of art and craft, personal and public space, content and form, narrative and experimental, as well as commenting on the sociopolitical environment in which we live. The dual existence of “c: won eyed jail” as projected film and as…

  • transparent c

    transparent “c” is a formal investigation into the structure of language and meaning. Not only does transparent “c” break down the language structure to the basic common denominators, but it also flushes out the direct correlation between sound and image in my work. transparent “c” demonstrates the range of the sonic palette in animated sound through the mechanical performance of the projector optically reading the alphabet. After the loss of my grandparents, and of all the possessions and artifacts my family had ever owned due to a devastating fire, I entered into a very contemplative period where I really tried…