Images we saw

Fernand Leger's Ballet Mechanique

Tom Verlaine Live! Music for Films
April 16, 9:15 pm, Innis Town Hall

Imagine all the black and white 1920’s Avant-Garde films you were forced to watch in art school set to music. Except this time the films seem much more intriguing and you don’t feel like falling asleep amidst the sound of the whirling projector and endless images of women’s eyes and cut out shapes. Tom Verlaine and fellow guitarist Jimmy Ripp perform the live soundtrack to these formerly silent films adding life and depth with their lonely strumming and haunting melodies. The music, contemporary American, juxtaposed against old European films makes them feel modern without being goofy.

Fall of the House of Usher
Directed by James Sibley Watson & Melville Webber (1928)

Based on an Edgar Allan Poe story, this early horror film about a brother and sister living under a family curse was both corny and cool. The curse, which hides in a large roasting pan, floats out and takes hold of the sister, turning her into a zombie who lives in a coffin and haunts her brother. David Lynch, eat your heart out. The film features lots of interesting costumes, sets and optical tricks such as overlapping shots of winding staircases that twist together but lead nowhere.

The Life and Death of 9413- A Hollywood Extra
Directed by Robert Florey & Slavko Vorkapich (1927)

A dark comedy about the life of a man aspiring to be a star amidst the superficial world of Hollywood, this film is both satirical and sad. It depicts an optimistic wannabe star, a rude and slimy agent and a stuck-up celebrity. Apparently, not much in the entertainment world has changed. Interesting cut out miniatures of cityscapes and storefronts that were shot in Slavko Vorkapich’s kitchen.

Etoile De Mer (Star of the Sea)
Directed by Man Ray (1928)

A surreal love affair that appears to be shot in front of a ripply glass shower door making each of the images appear misty and layered; including many beautiful close up shots of a starfish floating in water, it’s glass bowl reflecting the sunlight.

Ballet Mechanique
Directed by Fernand Leger (1924)

A film school classic full of fragmented images, stop motion animation, and cutout shapes. Dizzying shots of pots and pans, whirling eggbeaters, spinning gears and dancing bottles depict mass production and modern times.

Rosie Pedlow's Tulips at Dawn

Trace Elements
April 17, 7 pm, Innis Town Hall

Horizontal Silence
Directed by Seoungho Cho

A cropped frame reveals scenes around a city focusing in on different people like a voyeur. Sounds of the street are layered and build as the camera changes locations, capturing the spontaneity and energy of the urban landscape.

Sounds Like Her
Directed by Jane Devoy

This film combines the lives of three women: young, middle aged and elderly through the sounds they create. Sound effects such as a vacuum, a book falling and wind in the trees build and overlap, acting as a fourth character in the film.

Tulips at Dawn
Directed by Rosie Pedlow

An ode to old chemistry textbooks and the demise of their hand drawn illustrations, this sweet and slightly obsessive animated short ponders the use of stock photography in textbooks in place of traditional diagrams.

The Phantom Museum
Directed by Brothers Quay

Weird little human anatomy sculptures taken apart by a pair of gloved hands, exposing all their insides one by one. Rusty chastity belts, mechanical hands, intriguing images, cool and creepy but went on too long.

Chiquita and the Soft Escape
Directed by Michael Robinson

The first five minutes of this film are enjoyable; after that was another story. Starting with the grain of leather on a suitcase, the camera moves to a misty window and then onto a blurry photograph of someone pulling two kids in a sled. It trembles on this photograph for five minutes. There was a second part to this movie, much like the first…

Stable
Directed by Robert Todd

Tinted shots of horse’s hooves as they graze combined with layered sounds of them grunting, makes for a strange haunting piece. Double exposed shots of barns and windows create a surreal vision of farm life.

Regarding: Scene #50 from The Red Violin
Directed by Phillip Barker

Interesting adaptation of a scene from The Red Violin where a father manipulates his daughter into pursuing her acting career while she slides up the wall of her spinning bedroom. Kind of pretentious and overacted, but worth it for its visual effects that I still can’t get my head around.

Jonathon Inksetter's Animale

The Broken Mirror
April 19, 9:30 pm, Innis Town Hall

Paradise Falls, New Mexico
Directed by Christina Battle

A beautiful exploration of America’s Southwestern ghost towns split screened beside footage from various Hollywood Westerns. The film places real ghost towns against fake film sets creating a haunting, barren feel.

Collage d’Hollywood
Directed by Richard Kerr

This is a fast-paced, insane collage of Hollywood movie trailers. Set to grinding techno, we are taken through a journey of sci-fi, horror and psychodrama films and forced to reflect on our societies’ obsession with shock value.

Petit Theatre du Chaud et Vent
Directed by Christiane Patenaude

Cheesy art school style video about a ballerina in a music box, wind blowing through trees, a balloon being blown up, and rope unravelling a woman’s body.

Equestrian
Directed by Michiel Van Bakel

A horse cantors through a European Square and the camera spins around it Matrix style capturing its every step. Visually stunning.

SARS
Directed by Liu Wei

This video cuts between shots of a man breathing and images of China from Mao to Tiananmen Square. Bold but subtle comment on how SARS is a new stitch in China’s history.

Animale
Directed by Jonathon Inksetter

A comment on human evolution, this film explores the human body through various x-rays.

Papillion D’Amour
Directed by Nicholas Provost

Brilliant, captivating use of footage from Kurosawa’s Rashomon transformed into a mirrored explosion of images. Set to dance music this film moves and changes into something beautiful with every beat. By far the best film I saw at the festival.