Genres: experimental

  • Negation

    “Negation” is an attempt to create an abstract document of where I live, Regina, Canada. During production there was one restriction while shooting – everything had to be shot in a 10-block radius from my house. The use of negative B/W imagery was utilized in an attempt to “look” at my familiar surroundings from a different perspective, and I felt that this formal choice would provide a more accurate representation of the location being documented.

  • 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…

  • Bad Karma

    A short experimental animated film. Using hand-drawn imagery and found imagery taken from many sources. All combined to present an apocalyptic portrait of the western industrialized 20th-century world.

  • 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…

  • Game On

    “Game On” examines the glory of competition, the tension between opponents, the strategies of the game, the sweat of the players, the taste of victory. Shot on Super 8 with music by Kids on TV.

  • 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

  • Pursuit of Happyness, The

    This film explores the work and travels of John and Frank Navin, two gay brothers from Chicago, who create modern easy-listening music under the moniker The Aluminum Group. The film documents a music tour of Northern Italy where their musical past and future meet. With Cynthia Plaster Caster.

  • Business as Usual

    Vision. Leadership. Expertise. Monster. Who the hell is running things anyway? Is he man or beast, machine or god? Toronto, New York, London, Tokyo – “BUSINESS AS USUAL” invites you along for a psychotic ride through the financial power capitals of the world. Witness the omnipresent executive citizen as he (it) imitates you with his bizarre rituals of behavioral dysfunction. Description – “BUSINESS AS USUAL” If a Corporation were to be embodied in a human being, how would it act? What would it do? What would it look like? Described as an art-film version of ‘The Corporation’, “BUSINESS AS USUAL”…