As part of its “Thinking Space” conference, Spiral is pleased to present “Screening Space,” an exhibition of short film and media works organized around interconnected themes of space, place, movement, and transformation.
This screening brings together recent works culled from the catalogue of the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre that engage space and cinema beyond both the static and the merely representational. Its focus is on the dynamic way in which the visual tracing of movement allows for both the creation of space and the opening of new paths for thought.
Programmed by Scott Birdwise and Reşat Fuat Cam in collaboration with the CFMDC, with special thanks to Genne Speers.
This screening is open to the public and is free of charge.
Friday, May 11 at 7:30pm, Toronto Media Arts Centre (32 Lisgar St, Toronto, ON).
Program:
SKY ROOM
Marianna Milhorat (U.S.A. / 5:55 / 2017)
Someone is missing. Plants grow, but at what cost? Technology threatens and seduces as humans attempt to solve a mystery through telepathy and mirrors. Stainless steel and broken glass strewn about an intergalactic discotheque.
Commissioned by the Chicago Film Archives and made in collaboration with sound artist Brian Kirkbride, with footage and sound from the archive chopped, manipulated and arpeggiated into a fertile mix of anthem and narrative.
Marianna Milhorat is a Chicago-based filmmaker and educator. Working in film and video, she utilizes landscape and duration to disrupt and transform notions of space and perspective.
350 MYA
Terra Long (Morocco / Canada / 4:55 / 2016)
In Terra Long’s 350 MYA, a sheet whips before the camera, shaped by the same wind that forms the rigid, undulating lines of sand below it as the film conjures the continued presence of the now-vanished Rheic Ocean in the Tafilalet region of the arid Sahara Desert.
Terra Long is an independent filmmaker, She creates tapestry like works that draw on natural history, deep time, and the space between the real and the imaginary. Her films are often concerned with the materiality of film in relation to the image captured.
TRACKING SASQUATCH (FIELD REPORT #4)
Christina Battle (Canada / 08:25 / 2016)
A search for the elusive Sasquatch. The fourth chapter in an ongoing series. “The more a thing deviates from the known, the better the proof of it’s existence must be.”
With text generated, sourced and scoured from various articles and essays found on the internet.
Media artist, curator, arts administrator and educator Christina Battle has been an active member of a number of communities including Toronto, San Francisco, and Denver and is currently based in London (ON). With a practice founded in a DIY ethos she sees culture as being entirely dependent on it if it hopes to remain current and progressive.
LUNCH TIME
Irene Bartolomé (Egypt, Spain / 12:16 / 2017)
In this film we drive through downtown Cairo. While exploring the urban life and daily routine of the streets near Tahrir square, we sink into a labyrinth where our path keeps on being cut. During the 2011 revolution it was often said that “the people took back the streets”, but since then the police and military have returned to power and show their supremacy by controlling the public spaces, leaving many to adapt to a system where they have no voice and must work around the obstacles that are left behind.
Irene Bartolomé is a filmmaker born in Barcelona, and currently based in Cairo. She works professionally as a video editor and has over seven years of experience in fiction and documentary. Irene is currently in post-production stage of her first feature-length film about the Spanish colonization in Africa.
24.24.24
Dan Dietzel (Canada / 13:00 / 2016)
24.24.24 is a view of a day in concurrent time. All of the day’s twenty-four hours are presented at once. In the minutia of time, banal events unfold and are made extraordinary through the camera’s gaze. People go to work and to school, time is stretched and skewed, the act of taking a walk or watering a lawn develops a magical quality. Light gains character, shadow reshapes objects, and time becomes palpable.
Daniel Araquiel Dietzel is a Montreal-based editor/director originally from Regina. In addition to 24.24.24, he is also the editor of the upcoming features A and The Devil’s Trap both directed by Mitchell Stafiej. He has also edited the feature documentary I’ve Seen the Unicorn (2014) directed by Vincent Toi.
