keeping up

I haven't written personally on this blog in a while, and thought maybe I'd check in with an update.

On the horizon:

I have invited Canadian art filmmaker Bruce Elder on behalf of the NB Film Co-op's Experimental Film Program to deliver a lecture about his work and filmmaking process. He will be in town on March 27th at Marshall D'Avery Hall 8pm, with films in tow, to talk about his work and:
"Cosmological Themes and New Media Technologies: The Body and The Celestial Dance."

Bruce was one of the recipients of the Governor-General's Award for Visual Arts in 2007, and has an immense body of work starting in 1975. He currently teaches film at Ryerson, and is Director of the Communications and Culture Program.

Bruce Elder's Lecture will be the final one in a series that began in January and included Barbara Sternberg, Andrea Dorfman, and a screening of Canadian Short Experimental Films. The community's response has been so positive, and I'm hoping we can fill the auditorium for our final big event.

Our screening on January 11th included (from CFMDC):
Brakhage, Stan “Mothlight” 4 min.
Brown, Carl “Drop” 4.3 min. 16mm
Daniel, Mary J. “Confessions of a Compulsive Archivist” 7 min. 2004
Gruben, Patricia “Before It Blows” 1997 8.3 min video
Hoffman, Phil “?O, Zoo! (The Making of a Fiction Film)” 23min.
Hoolboom, Mike “in the dark” 8 min.
Mitchell, Allyson “Precious Little Tiny Love” 4.5 min
Pruska-Oldenhof, Izabella “fugitive l(i)ght” 9 min.
Sternberg, Barbara “surfacing” 10 min.

See also Fringe Online, an assortment of Canadian Filmmakers homepages.

Some of other excellent online resources for film art:
Ubu Film (got this bookmarked to Maya Deren...
Video Data Bank
NFB Animation dept.


Having just returned home from the face-creasing but amazing "There Will Be Blood", must add that two of my favourite features of the year were def The Secret Life of Words, Red Road.