PROGRAM
WIDEOPENWIDE ONE
Butch Tits
Jen Crothers, Vancouver, 2010, video, 3:39 min.
Butch women discuss the sometimes-complicated relationship they have with their breasts.
Vomit Star
Steve Reinke with John Marriot, Toronto, 2010, video, 6:42 min.
Marriott and Reinke demonstrate the affirmative value of domestic voodoo in this descent into crime-scene-glitter-porn (which is presumably one word in German). When you make celebrities the target of your repressed rage, they more or less become family members. Shot and performed by Marriott, edited by Reinke.
Regrets Only
Blair Fukuruma, Toronto, 2009, video, 4:30 min.
Regrets Only, the title taken from the last line of wedding invitations, is a meditation on California's Proposition 8 ruling, and the inherent hypocrisy in constructing bizarre, themed, non-traditional weddings, to celebrate the creation, and union of what has been deemed the traditional family.
Chelsea Hotel Room 207
Paul Wong, Vancouver, 2008, video, 5 min.
Crack induced euphoria amplifies a sexually charged environment. The cameraman is implicitly involved in the activities of two men in tightie-whities–one black, one white. Described by viewers as both horrific and so full of humanity, this work is not what-it-seems, or is it?
High Level Bridge
Trevor Anderson, Edmonton, 2010, video, 4:40 min.
Edmonton's High Level Bridge has a morbid notoriety; it's a frequent spot for suicides. Anderson pays homage to the people and events surrounding an odd landmark.
Starboy
James MacSwain*, Halifax, 2006, 16mm to video, 4 min.
A Frameworks animation about a Hollywood advertisement director who is rudely interrupted by the Babyheads and who transform the main character, Starboy, into one of their own.
Two Beds
Wynkoop Kanako, USA, 2010, video, 8 min.
A queer doppelganger couple fights the age-old battle between poly-amorous adventure and hetero-normative monogamy.
Sisyphus
Maureen Bradley*, Victoria, 2005, video, 4 min.
A hand-processed message to a broken heart and soul.
climb / step / turn / slide
Nikki Forrest, Montreal, 2011, video, 2 min.
This video is part of a series of studio experiments with perception, gravity and performance. Forrest was interested in setting up situations and moments of rupture where the perception of ordinary reality could be observed shifting and wavering. She was also interested in beginning to explore how perception of and by the body change over time and in different situations.
Friday’s Child (Fredagsbarn)
Tom Kietz, Denmark, 2010, 11 min.
Rune is 14 years old and different from the other boys. After a fight with his dad, he flees to the docks, where he finds older Benjamin tagging an abandoned warehouse. Intrigued, Rune approaches him to say "hello."
My Lesbian Friend
Sarah Rotella, Canada, 2009, video, 5 min.
A young girl catches a wild lesbian in her backyard. After getting permission from her mother, the girl can keep the lesbian as pet, but only for the day.
Lesbian National Parks & Services Presents: ENDANGERED SPECIES
Shawna Dempsey* and Lorri Millan*, Winnipeg, 2009, video, 6:30 min.
That formidable force of conservation officials, Lesbian National Parks and Services, presents three portraits of lesbian species in crisis. Not unlike the renowned 1970s Hinterlands Who's-Who series, these public service announcements point to the perils of habit loss and poaching. The Marxist Feminist, the Lesbian Separatist and the Bull-Dykus Americans are featured in this parody of nature education.
All That Sheltering Emptiness
Gina Carducci & Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, USA, 2009, 16mm to video, 7 min.
All That Sheltering Emptiness is a meditation on elevators, hotel lobbies, hundred dollar bills, a bathroom, a cab, chandeliers, cocktails, a receptionist, arousal, and other routines in the life of a New York City callboy. Gorgeously hand-processed in full 16mm glory, this film explodes the typical narratives of desire, escape and intimacy to evoke something more honest.
Tears From My Pussy
PJ Raval with Christeene, USA, 2009, video, 5 min.
"I hear a baby cryin', see a rainbow flying overhead/It's getting hard to blow you when I know that you're tricking on him instead/My tee-taw's raw inside, and I cannot hide the pain/You ain't payin' me for my quality, and you're gonna be to blame/Where do all my tears go when they fallin' from my pussy?.." A slow jam trick of sex, sorrow and rough living.
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 77 min.
* denotes artist in attendance in their respective cities
WIDEOPENWIDE TWO
The Girl Bunnies. Hockey
Françoise Doherty, Montreal, 2009, video, 6 min.
The second stop-motion animated adventure in the homo-girl-rabbit-world series. Coco loves hockey, but she REALLY likes hockey girl.
Borders
Alexandra Gelis, Toronto, 2009, video, 3 min.
This animation, made up of hundreds of high-resolution photographs, unabashedly examines the evidence of physical change and transformation: surgery scars, tattoos, and other traces. The bodies are fragmented, as are the stories affiliated with these traces, and identities remain delightfully elusive.
Nikamowin (Song)
Kevin Lee Burton, Vancouver, 2007, video, 11:15 min.
A linguistic soundscape comprised of the deconstruction and reconstruction of Cree narration dances with various manipulated landscapes. This audio-visual experiment begs questions of how languages exist, emerge, and survive.
Basin
David Geiss*, Victoria, 2010, video, 8 min.
Basin is a disturbingly picturesque, short visual poem depicting the industrial oilsands developments in northern Alberta as an omnipresent force that may be obscured from view, but cannot be ignored. In the distance, a lone drummer speaks for the filmmaker, the planet, and the human collective.
Teenage Wasteland
Clark Ferguson*, Saskatoon, 2007, video, 3:15 min.
A 32 year-old male, acted by Ferguson, travels in a waking slumber, through the routine of the stagnant everyday. The atrophied psyche awakens slightly to be seduced by his own giant fleshy hand that spins seductively in the man’s living room. One can only presume that the two characters will join for a pleasurable, non-productive, moment in time.
Buttery Top
Catherine Crouch and Kelly Hayes, USA, video, 2000, 4 min.
First dates are hell, especially when one woman brings a loaf of processed bread to dinner. A loaf of processed bread! Is this romance doomed before the first slice is eaten?
You Are A Lesbian Vampire
Thirza Cuthand*, Saskatoon, 2008, video, 3:17 min.
In the dark night of a prairie city, a vampire considers her future with a fetching mortal. But requiring blood for sustenance brings a host of problems to the relationship.
Holobomo
Owen Eric Woods, Montreal, 2009, video, 4:40 min.
Owen Eric Wood's Holobomo looks at the notion of appropriation in relation to life in a society over saturated with images. He struggles to find a personal connection with the images he sees by attempting to place himself inside film footage. Since all of the appropriated material in Holobomo comes from Mike Hoolboom's Imitations of Life, which itself is composed entirely of borrowed or found footage, Wood is in a sense re-appropriating the footage he uses. By doing so, he emphasizes the decomposition of context as meaning is recycled and reinterpreted.
Our Father
Kim Kielhofner, Montreal, 2009, video, 3:31 min.
"The three things I said everyday." A video recounting pledges and promises made before and after.
At Home With David Hoyle
David Hoyle, UK, 2009, video, 6:20 min.
The "divine" David Hoyle invites us into his humble abode to share his thoughts on domesticity, creativity and mortality. A funny and poignant glimpse into the mind and the habitat of a maverick UK queer performance artist.
Project B*mbi
Kristin Galvin, USA, 2007, video, 5 min,
Project B*mbi contains three classic scenes from the disparate genres of animated feature, pornography, and epic drama. Scenes were reframed, re-cut, and restructured for specific formal and textual juxtapositions and permutations. Debbie Does Dallas, Bambi and The Deer Hunter are layered upon each other with no new material, yet with a new critical perspective on all three.
The Island of Hermaphrodites
Noam Gonick*, Winnipeg, 2010, Super 8 to video, 3:20 min.
"Every shot was done in one take, and edited-in-camera. It was a rainy day in August and the 'script' flew out of the truck on the third shot, but it didn't matter. Soundtrack by The Wilderness of Manitoba. The title comes from a 14th century satirical French novel about a shipwrecked explorer who stumbles upon a lost island civilization. I've always wanted to adapt it to the screen."
Galactic Docking Company
Clark Nikolai, Vancouver, 2009, video, 2:50 min.
With tongue in cheek, Clark Nikolai cleverly fuses vintage film footage from outer space and ground-control rooms with short clips of foreskin docking. Much to our delight, these two seemingly unrelated acts find a way to collaborate.
The Little White Cloud That Cried
Guy Maddin, Winnipeg, 2009, 16mm to video, 13 min.
The Little White Cloud that Cried is an explicit tribute to legendary underground filmmaker Jack Smith. Goddesses unharnessing the power of the sea and putting it into a whole new element as they engage in orgiastic battles and whoopla. It was commissioned for the Jack Smith festival "Five Flaming Days in a Rented World" in Berlin.
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 77:30 MIN.
* denotes artist in attendance in their respective cities