April 24 2007

Prairie Tales 8 is the latest annual collection of short film and video works by Alberta media artists.

We begin with a chillingly possible future where exploiter and exploited begin to share the same fate in Jonathan Joffe's Cost of Living, followed by Don Best's equally personal animated piece on obsessive behaviour, Damaged Goods. Jaro Malanowski's documentary on the proud rural inhabitants of Alberta in Hot Summer Road Trip serves as counterpoint to the (sub)urban angst in Scott Roger's enigmatic Hell's Half Acre, while Trevor Anderson grounds us with the complexity of public intimacy in Rugburn.

Steven Hope creates a highly stylized music video in Twin Fangs Film that acts as a perfect intro for Brandon Jan Blommaert's more repressive venturex. In Eat This!, Shelaine Sparrow gives us a tongue-in-cheek peek into gourmet consumer politics and Kay Burns waxes poetically on her lack of need for speed with Ode to Walking. aAron Munson returns to Prairie Tales with a hands-on approach to nature in not so natural and in Dad, Don't Be Mad Dayna McLeod uses comedic footage of her RCMP father arresting her as a young offender.

Prairie Tales 8 may be the most unpredictable and vibrant collection of media works to ever tour under the Alberta banner. Curators have constructed a program that is a unique mesh of independent media production grounded in a broader Canadian sensibility that resonates with all who recognize the need to contemplate place through cultural ambition.

Please visit the website for the program here:
www.prairietales.org/