Genres: experimental

  • Batteries

    As the only winter port on Canada’s Atlantic coast during WW II, Halifax was an active part of the Allies’ war effort. At the start of the war, thousands of dollars were poured into the construction of concrete embattlements to defend Halifax Harbour against attack, and ultimately, to guard against possible land invasion. The attack never came. The filmmaker presents a striking, ironic contrast between the footage of the batteries as they stand today, crumbling and abandoned with narratives that recall the anxious, sometimes frantic fear of an enemy attack.

  • Searching for My Mother’s Garden

    Partially shot in rural Czecho-Slovakia, this film investigates the phenomenon of no longer being rooted to a motherland, yet being tied to one’s origins.

  • Seashore

    “The basic image derives from a shot of women in (Edwardian era ) dresses standing along the edge of the ocean. Within this eight-second loop, [Rimmer] cuts shorter ones. For example, the activity of a central group of three women is cut so that the figures repeat certain motions over and over and over again… “Rimmer also chose to use the forms of surface imperfections, the scratches and dirt patterns, as bases for his loops… Although working in a disciplined style of re-structuring cinematic forms, his highly orchestrated creations have inspired great admiration both from cineastes and the more general…

  • Seated Figures

    “Seated Figures” is built with images which are all variations of eight movements on the screen: moving up, down, to the left or to the right, and the four possible diagonal movements. These movements are occasionally interrupted by holds (freeze frames). All the images move parallel to the ‘picture plane’ (the screen). The film could be considered a history of roads. Starting on asphalt the film moves to gravel, then sand, and gradually onto more and more rocky surfaces, occasionally passing through streams. Vegetation appears, roads become paths until finally the images are fields with flowers. The images were all…

  • Second Impressions

    In “Second Impressions” I made a decision to impose on myself, and the film, severe formal limitations in order that I might concentrate on the creation of visual imagery possessing the inherent qualities and natural restrictions of the filmmaking process. The camera was to be fixed for the duration of the film; there was to be no suggestion of direct or implied narrative connections or development. The viewer is locked in the room depicted in the film for a period of nine minutes. The two opening sequences provide autobiographical references to my previous film work. This is followed by the…

  • Secondary Currents

    A film about the relationships between the mind and language. Delivered by an improbable narrator who speaks an extended assortment of nonsense, it is an “imageless” film in which the shifting relationships between voice-over commentary and sub-titled narration constitute a peculiar duet for voice, thought, speech and sound. A kind of comic opera, the film is a dark metaphor for the order and entropy of language. “Secondary Currents” is the subject of a number of articles on the use of language in the arts.

  • See You Later / Au Revoir

    “The action depicted here is simplicity itself; a man (Snow himself) rises from his desk, puts on his coat, says goodbye to a woman typing at a nearby desk, and leaves the room. But what took a mere 30 seconds in ‘real’ time had been recorded with a Super Slo-Mo video camera (developed for sports broadcasting) and further processed before the final transfer to film, being expanded to a full 18 minutes. With the continuous right-to-left pan in smooth and constant motion, taken from a fixed tripod position, the whole image- with arriving and departing frame details- is fully equal…

  • Seeing in the Rain

    Photographed through the windshield of a Vancouver city bus and edited according to the rhythms of the bus’ windshield wiper, the film transforms the linear “narrative” of the bus ride into a temporal construction that can be described as cubist. The effect of the cutting strategy on the actual temporal organization of the film is as remarkable as its effect on our sense of time. (R. Bruce Elder – Image and Identity) “[Gallagher’s] film embodies the essence of cinema; movement, rhythm and the poignance of ephemeral gestures.” – J. Hoerman

  • Self Portrait (by H. Gayer)

    “Self Portrait” is a pixillated film that takes the filmmaker’s head on a whirlwind tour. In ten short minutes the background changes from waves and woods to Eastern mosaics, Indian architecture, and European monuments, while the figure of the head alters its appearance. A soaring soundtrack employs pan-global elements as well, including samples of Balinese and Tibetan chants, Inuit throat singers, and various choirs. The film illustrates oppositions between natural and man-made environments, the monumental and the ordinary, as well as history and timelessess. Underlying all this is a concern with spirituality and morality that gives this personal film a…

  • Serenity

    A visual symphony in which the striking notes include: hoodoo formations created by eons of erosion that give a strong sense of decay, by Japanese gardens whose layouts provide a structure and acts as a tool for quiet contemplation, and by birds which act as a symbol of man’s soaring spirit and other-worldliness. Music and soundtrack by Darryl Miller.