PRINTED LIGHT: BBQ, Screening and Panel
Part of the STRATEGIES OF THE MEDIUM Series

Saturday, July 11, 2009
Starts at 8:00PM
Cinecycle, 129 Spadina Avenue (down the alley)

Suggested donation: Members $5, Non-Members $8

The screening will be preceded by the LIFT Summer BBQ, from 6-8pm in the parking lot behind Cinecycle. Meet and mingle with filmmakers and LIFT members, while partaking of cool drinks and grilled munchies.

SCREENING:
This screening represents a diversity of contemporary practices that use the optical printer and contact printer as primary production tools. Staples of analogue special effects and film manipulation, optical printers and contact printers are among the most versatile tools in the filmmaker's toolbox. LIFT currently has two purpose-built optical printers and one contact printer in use, as well as an animation stand modified to serve as an additional printer for special uses. Included among these instruments is an Oxberry 1700 (for 35mm or 16mm), one of the most versatile and precise printers available anywhere. This program introduces a season of workshops devoted to optical printing.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with filmmakers Christina Battle, John Kneller and Francois Miron.

PANELIST BIOS:

With a B.Sc. in Environmental Biology from the University of Alberta and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, Christina Battle currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada. An active member of the city's arts community, she has worked within Toronto's vibrant artist-run culture as jury member, arts administrator, technical coordinator, board member, educator and curator for various organizations including The Images Festival, the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto and the Ontario College of Art and Design. Her artworks have screened internationally in festivals and galleries including: The London Film Festival (London, England); The Images Festival (Toronto); The Toronto International Film Festival (Toronto); The International Film Festival Rotterdam (The Netherlands); YYZ Artists' Outlet (Toronto); White Box (New York); Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery (Halifax, Canada); The Foreman Art Gallery at Bishops University (Sherbrooke, QB); Nuit Blanche 2006 (Toronto) and in the 2006 Whitney Biennial "Day for Night" (New York). The CFMDC recently released a DVD compiling Christina's film works as a part of their 2007 Artist Spotlight series.

Born in Geneva, Switzerland, John Kneller grew up in Hudson, Quebec and moved to Toronto in 1985. He attended the University of Toronto, where he earned a BA in Cinema Studies, and recently received a Master of Fine Arts in Film Production from York University. His work with optical printing, multi-layering and matting techniques has gained critical attention both locally and abroad. John is currently a full-time Professor in the Media Arts Film program at Sheridan College, Oakville, Ontario.

Francois Miron began makings films in 1982 and received an MFA in filmmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His main body of work consists of several short experimental films, all created using the powerful film image manipulation technique of optical printing. His films have been screened in festivals and venues throughout the world and have received countless awards. Aside from this, Francois produces music videos, feature title sequences, photography and short narrative films. Since 1993 he has been teaching optical printing and filmmaking at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Concordia University in Montreal.

FILM PROGRAM:

Archaeology of Memory
(Gary Popovich, Canada, 1992, 14:00, 16mm, colour, sound)
Beginning in scratches of light, Popovich's tour-de-force of optical printing evolves through colour, rhythm and multiple images, tracing a history of cinema from mythical beginnings to the thread of personal memory, peering into the everyday pathology of family, sex and death. "A kind of double history that intertwines autobiography with the development of cinema, it's a stunning, enormously seductive array of images” (Cameron Bailey, Now Magazine).

Self Portrait Post Mortem
(Louise Bourque, Canada/USA, 2002, 2:30, 35mm, colour, sound)
An unearthed time capsule consisting of footage of the maker's youthful self – an "exquisite corpse" with nature as collaborator. Bourque buried outtakes from her first three films (all staged productions dealing with her family) in the back yard of her ancestral home (adjoining the grounds of a former cemetery) with the contradictory intentions of both safe-keeping and unloading them. Upon exhuming the footage five years later, the images seemed handed over like a gift and prompted the making of this film, a metaphysical pas de deux in which decay undermines the image and in the process engenders a transmutation.

We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties. Regular Programming Will Resume Momentarily.
(John Kneller, Canada, 1988, 12:00, 16mm, colour, sound)
John Kneller is Toronto's acknowledged master of the optical printer, and his films often employ elaborate multiple exposures, traveling mattes and glorious colour. "We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties is a visual treat that manipulates, combines and recombines to dazzling effect. In this digital age, this optically printed film runs countercurrent to the trends. The film uses repeating imagery such as five autumns' worth of leaves... and the effect is mesmerizing" (Liz Czach, Toronto International Film Festival).

3 Part Harmony: Composition in RGB #1
(Amanda Dawn Christie, Canada, 6:00, 16mm, colour, sound)
This experimental dance film employs a bastardized version of the 1930s three-strip Technicolor process. Shot entirely on black-and-white film through colour filters, the images were recombined into full colour through optical printing techniques, one frame at a time. The gestures in this dance work explore psychological fracturing and reunification in representations of the female body.

Passage a l'acte
(Martin Arnold, Austria, 1993, 16:00, 16mm, b&w, sound)
Arnold rigourously works through a brief scene from To Kill A Mockingbird in units of a few frames each, effectively opening this fragment of Hollywood film up to a host of readings. A family breakfast with husband, wife, son and daughter shows, in its original state, a classic, deceptive harmony. Passage à l’acte deconstructs this scenario of normality by destroying its original continuity. It catches on the tinny sounds and bizarre body movements of the subjects, which, in reaction, become snagged on the continuity. The message, which lies deep under the surface of the family idyll, suppressed or lost, is exposed - that message is war.

930
(Alexandre Larose, Canada, 2006, 10:00, 16mm, b&w, sound)
Larose captured sequences of images in and around a short train tunnel in Quebec City – in the tunnel, both ends can be seen at once. By manipulating his original footage on the optical printer, Larose transforms his material into an abstract visual landscape and an emotional experience that reflects the intensity of the filmmaking process.

The Evil Surprise
(Francois Miron, Canada, 1994, 16:00, 16mm, colour, sound)
An incredible kinetic collage preoccupied with social conditioning and absurdity, a mind-bending psychedelic optical printing film, a brain probe and a short journey out of your mind, The Evil Surprise is inside your head. You won’t believe your eyes in this psychedelic classic!

buffalo lifts
(Christina Battle, Canada, 2004, 3:00, 16mm, colour, silent)
Awash in sumptuous colour, a herd of buffalo desperately try to hold on as they struggle to cross the film frame. Christina Battle's mastery of the film surface and printing processes alike are made clear in this ravishing cascade of colour and motion.

Once
(Barbara Sternberg, Canada, 2007, 5:00, 16mm, b&w, silent w/ sound prologue)
Poetry. Film. Light. Life. An excerpt read from Rilke's "Ninth Elegy" introduces this silent film which evokes the beauty and brevity of life. Images shimmer in an uncanny light. We catch glimpses only. Silent with sound preface.