This presentation of Canadian underground films is drawn from the collection of experimental film distributor Black Zero, and all historical films presented here were restored by Canadian filmmaker and film historian Stephen Broomer. These films, spanning 1966 to 2015, reflect a broad range of engagements with the experimental tradition by filmmakers whose work merges material self-consciousness, environmental and historical studies, and personal exploration.
In the first program, reflections on nature take many forms, from Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof’s photogrammed flora in Song of the Firefly, to Richard Kerr’s machined-abstracted vision of a Canadian landscape in plein air etude, to Josephine Massarella’s vision of the figure passing through a rapidly transforming environment (Light Study). These films, works of an ecologically-engaged cinema, are punctuated by contrasting studies that turn back toward the apparatus itself, toward stylization and iconography, toward history: Christine Lucy Latimer’s Still Feeling Blue About Colour Separation, a hypnotic repurposing of MacBeth color-checker cards eroded by digital translation; Robert Cowan’s Rockflow, a wild op-art treatment of a Chambers Brothers concert; and 1857 (Fools Gold), one of R. Bruce Elder’s early explorations of the legacy of poet Ezra Pound, a mutating synthesis of photography, writing, and mathematical equations.
Song of the Firefly (Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof, Canada, 2002, 5 min)
Still Feeling Blue About Colour Separation (Christine Lucy Latimer, Canada, 2015, 2 min.)
plein air etude (Richard Kerr, Canada, 1991, 5 min.)
Rockflow (Robert Cowan, Canada/USA, 1968, 9 min.)
Light Study (Josephine Massarella, Canada, 2013, 14 min.)
1857 (Fools Gold) (R. Bruce Elder, Canada, 1981, 25 min.)
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