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Curated and introduced by Chris Gehman

The cinema allows artists to construct spaces that cannot be experienced in any other way, to work with figures and images detached from their ordinary context and returned to life in an imagined cinematic space. With one partial exception, each of these works centres on the body as it inhabits the floating world of the cinematic screen. - Chris Gehman

•  self-portrait in alterNation between descension & ascension (Dir. Jude Norris, 2010, Canada, 3:55 MIN)
Here, Norris turns the projection screen into a field of stasis in movement. The artist, dressed in turn-of-the-century Plains Cree clothing, remains suspended in space and time on the escalator of the Brooklyn library, moving slightly forward, slightly back. This simple gesture resonates with more and larger implications as it is extended in time.

•  VILLE MARIE (Dir. Alexandre Larose, 2010, Canada, 12:30 MIN)
Recipient of a special jury prize at the 2010 WNDX Festival, VILLE MARIE is a tour-de-force of optical printing in which the experience of falling is broken down and reconstructed, turning a vertiginous descent into an extended experience of colour and graphic form.

•  WHOSE TOES (Dir. Barry Doupé, 2010, Canada, 33:00 MIN)
Commissioned by Animate! In the UK, this recent video by a rising international star of experimental animation brings together a series of recognizable figures from different moments in recent history – Princess Diana, JFK – in a series of perverse wordless scenarios.

•  VERY GOOD ADVICE (Dir. Jenn Norton, 2009, Canada, 6:27 MIN)
With a background in circus performance and performance art, Norton is also a wizard of simple but magical video compositing, creating simple but brilliant collage spaces. “…[A] lovely ride, full of lithe humour and visual delight, tempered with the dark side potential for total annihilation lurking, if not on screen, at least in our imagination.” (Lisa Steele)

•  ARITIFICES #1 (Dir. Alexandre Larose, 2007, Canada, 3:40 MIN)
For this film, originally created for a One Take Super8 event, Larose shot on a Nizo super8 camera. A device specially machined for him by a friend allowed Larose to turn the camera through the centre of the lens while each frame was being exposed. Night time traffic is transformed into a series of spinning, whirling forms, and deep space collapsing into flat surface.

•  sea series # 8 (Dir. John Price, 2010, Canada, 3:00 MIN)
An incredible work of serendipity from cinematographer extraordinaire John Price: he shot a roll of film in 2008, but it remained unprocessed. In 2010 he took the same roll of film and shot it again, this time filling it with images of his children playing by the sea. The resulting unplanned double exposures are sublime.

CHRIS GEHMAN

Award-winning filmmaker, curator and critic, Chris’s films have screened at festivals and cinematheques across Canada and internationally; they include Refraction Series, Rostrum Press: Materials Testing; Contrafacta; and First Dispatch from Atlantis. Chris has worked as Artistic Director of the Images Festival as well as Programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival and Cinematheque Ontario, and has presented programs internationally.