Member Films

Thank You (2009)

by Deborah Edmeades

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The Art of Being One (2009)

by Shiva Kashi

As their fights and frustration get out of control, Sean and Elizabeth end their few year-old relationship.  While adjusting to living single lives, they start re-discovering the wants and needs that they had been sacrificing for each other.

The Fall (2009)

by Chris Brabant

Visual meditations on water, snow, fire and the sun.  Removing earth’s moving elements  from their natural space and into a blank, infinite cinematic space where new forms of color, movement and function emerge.

The Library Chronicles (2009)

by Thom Stitt

In a smoke-shrouded future, all art and literature will be outlawed. Beneath the Deep Alleys of Sector Eighty-Twelve, in the bowels of a secret underground library, big things are stirring.

The Raft of the Medusa (100 mile House) (2009)

by Adad Hannah

In late 2008 Adad Hannah received a telephone call from an old friend in British Columbia. Gus Horn, a rancher, community activist, and art collector, wanted to stage a version of Théodore Géricault’s monumental painting The Raft of the Medusa (1818-1819) in 100 Mile House, a community of 2000 people in central BC. Although Hannah initially tried to talk Horn out of pursuing the project, explaining that it would be difficult and expensive, the details for remounting this tragic scene were finally worked out in early 2009 and Hannah flew to BC to get started on the project.

In 100 Mile House, the artist met with Horn and made presentations at the local high school, junior high, and community art centre trying to find people interested in being models and volunteering for other roles. Eventually the entire community came together for this project, with volunteers building the set, making costumes, applying makeup, and feeding a cast and crew of well over 40 people. The backdrop was painted by local painter Tom Godin using both brushes, and rollers on heavy canvas. It measures over 1000 square feet and was hung from a three-story scaffold.

For three months the students met weekly at the high school in order to prepare for the final tableau vivant. They practiced yoga so they would be able to hold the necessary poses, and studied the painting in order to get in the right mood. On May 2nd and 3rd, 2009 in the 100 Mile House community hall the final tableau was performed for several live audiences, a life-drawing class, and Hannah’s video and still cameras. The final cast consisted of twenty students and two itinerant tree planters. The models held their poses for between five and ten minutes, creating an uncanny replica of Géricault’s painting rendered in living flesh.

Géricault chose to paint a scene from a recent tragedy, the sinking of the French ship Méduse in 1816, and the plight of the survivors, who, left to their own devices, succumbed to cannibalism, dehydration, and insanity as their numbers shrunk from an initial 150 passengers to the final fifteen who were discovered by accident two weeks later. The finished canvas measured a giant 16’ by 23.5’ and was eventually purchased by the Louvre shortly after the artist’s death in 1824. The community of 100 Mile House has been ravaged itself, if somewhat slower and less dramatically than the passengers of the raft, by downturns in the cattle and forestry industry.

To: Hope, From: Here (2009)

by Amy Lynn Kazymerchyk

To: Hope, From: Here is a 30min hybrid dramatic/documentary/diaristic black & white analog video about searching for meaning, purpose and belonging in a landscape, a city, and a home. It follows the story of a twenty-five year old woman living on the edge of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside who feels increasingly alienated by pre-Olympic gentrification. Her fate takes a turn when she finds a travel brochure promoting 'Experience Hope'. On her road trip to locate Hope BC along Hwy #1 she learns about the gothic history of the West Coast's settlement and development through adventures at the Fraser River, Fort Langley, and the Vancouver Zoo. Cut with Super 8 and video archival footage of significant Vancouver news events and landscape cinematography, the video is a contemporary historical document of a culture that is soon to be forgotten.

Typhoon Mildred: Child of a Modern Diaspora (2009)

by Crisanta Sampang

A short alternative drama about a child who grew up in the Philippines without her mother and how this lack of maternal presence affected her life.  The film is mostly shot in the Philippines mini-DV format, using non-professional actors, and natural lighting throughout the film.

Waterpod (2009)

by Kathleen Hepburn

A documentary on New York artists floating sustainable commune project being built on the dry docks in New York harbor. After shooting, the producers decided not to follow through with the film due to lack of content.

Your Mother Should Know (2009)

by Peg Campbell

Using archival family footage and current interviews, Campbell weaves an evocative tapestry of three generations of women.  As the director states, “My mother said I came out fighting–with her. She died saying I had always been a joy to her, which was quite a sur-prise to me. My mother couldn’t protect me from experiencing the dangers of the world but I want to protect my daughter. Lucky for me she’s a more sensible girl.”

The film is being distributed by Moving Images Distribution.

100 Soldiers Dead (2008)

by John A. Woods

A short experimental film made as a reaction to our nation’s general indifference to its participation in a war that has lasted longer than WW2. Patriotic songs, funeral hymns and the sounds of live combat augment press release photos of the one diplomat and 100 fallen soldiers who have died in Afghanistan at the time of the films completion on December 7, 2008.