METAFICTIONAL ENCOUNTERS
Friday, May 31 | 8:30 PM | Dave Barber Cinematheque | PG
An exercise in breaking the fourth wall and dissociating. Screens and mirrors are poised as permeable surfaces granting access to latent alter-egos and dream spaces. Experiments in cosplaying, ventriloquy, and appropriation lead to an uncanny ambience. Performance, re-enactments, and child’s play that is made all the more real by exposing the artifice.
*This program is rated PG. Total runtime 62 minutes
if there is sunshine, it is beautiful, dir. Em Van Loan
2023 | USA | 8.5 | video | World premiere
A leap into pointless frivolity as an attempt to escape capitalist pressures. The performance of childish play allows artists to embody Allan Kaprow's ideas about experimental art, "The playground for experimental art is ordinary life."
Hey Sweet Pea, dir. Alee Peoples
2023 | USA | 11 | 16mm | Canadian premiere
Parental aging and an existential wave collide together in funny ways. Hey Sweet Pea borrows scenes from the 1984 children’s sci-fi movie The Neverending Story to process our collective grief.
Jews Harp or: Harpaud, dir. Sam Taffel
2023 | USA | 7 | video | Canadian premiere
“If I held you any closer, I’d be on the other side of you” - Groucho Marx
An examination of identity seen through the lens of the Marx Brothers and Antonin Artaud’s “Theatre of Cruelty.” Appropriating sounds, images and thoughts from The Marx Brothers, Wayne Koestenbaum, Elaine May, Susan Sontag and Artaud, “Jews Harp or: Harpaud” reflects on impersonation, doppelgängers, and the nature of Vaudeville as a shared art form and cultural practice. Gesturing towards performance as a form of survival, the effect of mirroring becomes a means of finding wholeness.
Calling the Aumakua, dir. Benjamin R. Taylor
2023 | CA | 4.5 | video | World premiere
Spiritual advice found in a garage sale. The Aumakua is now with us.
moonshine/St. Paul, dir. Nik Liguori
2023 | USA | 8 | video | Canadian premiere
From a chance encounter with a video piece in a museum, an auto-fictional narrative is prompted about loss and missed connections, appropriating footage from works by Rineke Dijkstra and exploitation filmmaker turned Southern-evangelist propagandist, Ron Ormond, as well as recordings from the filmmaker's personal archive.
Discordia, dir. Rowan Gray
2023 | Canada | 9 | 16mm on video
A young gymnast develops a mysterious disorder that prevents her from competing. She struggles to find anyone who believes her and fails to grasp the cause of her condition.
Images from: Em Van Loan's if there is sunshine it is beautiful, Alee Peoples' Hey Sweet Pea, and Sam Taffel's Jews Harp or: Harpaud (top) and Benjamin R. Taylor's Calling the Aumakua, Nik Liguori's moonshine/St. Paul, and Rowan Gray's Discordia (bottom)