Film Format: 16mm

  • Child’s Garden and the Serious Sea, The

    In poet Ronald Johnston’s great epic “Ark,” in the first book “Foundations,” the poem “Beam 29” has this passage: “The seed is disseminated at the gated mosaic a hundred feet/below, above/long windrows of motion/connecting dilated arches undergoing transamplification:/ ‘seen in the water so clear as christiall’/(prairie tremblante)” which breaks into musical notation that, “presto,” becomes a design of spatial tilts: This is where the film began; and I carried a xerox of the still unpublished ARC 50 through 66 all that trip with Marilyn and Anton around Vancouver Island. As I wrote him, “The pun ‘out on a limn’ kept…

  • Sand

    “Japanese narration, snail-like aliens, teenage gossip and a dreamlike, grainy style of sand animation mingle in this strange and beautiful short.” – Chris Gehman, Images Festival, 2002 In Japanese with English sub-titles. Selected screenings & awards: Best Short Film, Cinemanila International Film Festival; Antimatter Festival of Short Film & Video; Vancouver Underground Film Festival; Festival de Cinema de 3 Ameriques, Quebec City, QC, 2005

  • paradise falls, new mexico

    “The desert wind from America’s Southwestern ghost towns blows through the film’s emulsion, stripping away the myth behind the imagery of shoot-outs, outlaws and the lone gunmen from Hollywood Westerns.” – Images Festival, Toronto, 2004 Note: 16mm dual-projection Selected Screenings: Time Inside the Image [3], Foreman Art Gallery of Bishop’s University, Jan. 31-March 31, 2007

  • Nocturno

    A woman struggles with the emptiness of her life, her emotional landscape reflected in the images around her. Through macro photography of a bread-making process, a seemingly mundane domestic scene is transformed into something sensual and deeply emotional. Selected screenings & awards: CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival, Toronto, 2005; Jury’s Pick, CSIF $100 Film Festival, Calgary, AB, 2005; Best Canadian Film or Video Award, Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, 2004; Doug Wandrei Award for Best Lighting Design, Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2004; Mill Valley Film Festival, Mill Valley, CA, 2003; Atlantic Film Festival, Halifax, NS, 2003

  • Ode to a Sparrow

    “Ode to a Sparrow” is a profile of Canadian poet Peter Van Toorn. Van Toorn’s book “Mountain Tea” was nominated for a Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 1984. The film celebrates Van Toorn’s poetic insight and language, and captures the concentration and labour of Mountain Tea’s creation. “Ode to a Sparrow” includes readings from Van Toorn, conversations with some of his friends, and lyrical visuals to accompany a reading of Van Toorn’s essay about the importance of the title of a poem, “Handy Handles.” “Mountain Tea” was unavailable for many years, but was reissued by Signal Editions in 2004.…

  • My Powder Blue World

    “My Powder Blue World” explores the memory of a man who recalls his childhood fantasy of attending school dressed like a girl. His story is a whimsical challenge to the institutions that try to regulate and suppress the expression of gender and self. Written and performed by David Bateman.

  • Norman: Turn, Climb, Norman

    Norman is a character who is lost in an ambiguous dreamlike nowhere space where he obsessively turns, climbs and twists. The gritty, hand-processed aesthetic reflects Normans’ intense psychological state. The film is divided into three short sections: Turn, Climb and Norman.

  • Child-Play

    Set in an imaginary nameless space that closely resembles the Caribbean, “Child-Play” is an allegorical Dream Tale paralleling the “innocence” of childhood and the elder phases of existence. Ateesha Mansara, a woman in her late sixties, has lived a life colonized by her own fears about the threat of usurpation of her identity by the Dutchman Spirit of a child molester, whom she had previously met when she was a girl of ten. The spirit of Georgie De Root revisits Ateesha fifty years later in a final attempt to lay “claim” to her soul. Or does he? Available on DVD…

  • Triage

    “Triage” is a unique dual-projection collaboration by Michael Snow and Carl Brown. Each of the artists worked to a specific duration, but were otherwise unaware of any details about the other’s film. So, an experimental film in the true sense of the word! With a sound composition by John Kamevaar.

  • P

    “P” explores a single theme: excrements. Babies, worms and flies guide us through a compilation of facts and theories, approaching a theme often regarded as disgusting in a meaningful and humorous way.