EXPMTL Part II: Montreal Experimental Cinema at Federation Hall, VCA

6PM Wed, 29 Mar 2023
Federation Hall, VCA, 7-17 Grant Street #5 Southbank
Free admission, reserve tix HERE
Digital Projection

EXPMTL is a programme of film and video works made by artists in and around Montréal, Canada. In collaboration with VCA Art Forum, the programme is presented in person by Benjamin R. Taylor, artist, creative director of VISIONS and co-director of la lumière collective in Montréal. This screening and discussion is hosted by filmmaker and academic Giles Fielke.

VISIONS is a monthly screening series presenting non-fiction cinema and artists’ moving image. Curated by Benjamin R. Taylor in Montreal since 2014. We exhibit non-fiction cinema and artists’ moving image at local venues and festivals including la Cinémathèque québécoise, la lumière collective, Cinéma public, RIDM, FNC, POP Montréal and Cinéma moderne. Presentations are dedicated to a single artist. Artists are always present. Original formats are projected.

By night, la lumière collective is a microcinema exhibiting film, video & expanded cinema by local and international artists. We are one of the only venues in Montréal presenting 16mm, 35mm and expanded cinema. Every event features an artist in person and is followed by a Q&A and audience discussion. By day la lumière collective is an artists’ studio and residency space with production resources for working on various moving-image media. The collective is run by local artists and curators who believe in creating cinema and cinema spaces on a human scale. We facilitate events in order to bring people together. We create connections to expand and enliven cinema.

FILMS

Just Words – Louise Bourque (1991, 10mins, 16mm to digital)

Using as its text Samuel Beckett's NOT I, this shocking gift incorporates optically printed home movie footage and an eerily slick close-up of actress Patricia MacGeachy as she rants at lightning speed Beckett's words about home, family and the confines and alienation associated with being a woman. – Madcat Film Festival.

but one bird sang not – Pierre Hébert (2018, 6mins, 35mm to digital)

Scratched directly on 35mm film stock, completed on HD digital video. This film, part of the Scratch project, is a visual interpretation of a Malcolm Goldstein piece for solo violin based on a Bosnian popular song from Bosnia-Herzegovina. The composer describes it as a gesture of hope for peace in that land ravaged by war during the 1990’s. – Pierre Hébert.

Show de bleu – Antoine Larocque (2022, 5mins, Digital)

Show de bleu (2022) was shot in the town of Tingwick, located in the Centre-du-Québec region. The title, “Show de bleu”, comes from a local expression referring to doing a burnout. The video highlights a form of filial ritual as well as the encounter between the followers of car culture and the act of leaving one's mark. The sequence of images in the film is drawn from sources found and filmed by Larocque, while the film's soundtrack is produced by composer Charles Barabé. – Antoine Larocque.

un bête accident – Alexandre Fatta (2013, 3mins, Digital)

“A Silly Accident” - A contemporary portrait of our market civilization’s dehumanization, agony and present and future catastrophe unfolding in a generalized indifference guided by a pure and brute nihilism. – Vidéographe.

Aliquid - Sabrina Ratté (2019, 5mins, Digital)

Aliquid is a single channel video where the electronic signal is manipulated digitally to materialize into synthetic flesh. Slowly landing onto a glass architecture, this undefined substance is torn apart by sharp edges and eventually disintegrates into particules that spread into the atmosphere. – Sabrina Ratté.

TimeTraveller™ Episode 01 – Skawennati (2007, 6mins, Digital)

The year is 2121. Brilliant billboards, seamless and seemingly endless, light up the flyway. A young man, sporting a black jetsuit and a dreadhawk, zooms through the air, propelled by a fusion-powered jet pack. The first episode introduces us to Hunter in his environment. Tired of his life as a hired gun, Hunter wants to do something different. He realizes that he can use his edutainment system –his TimeTraveller™-- to find guidance to his own path. Thus begins his journey. – Skawennati.

Mobilize - Caroline Monnet (2018, 4mins, Digital)

Guided expertly by those who live on the land and driven by the pulse of the natural world, Mobilize takes us on an exhilarating journey from the far north to the urban south. Over every landscape, in all conditions, everyday life flows with strength, skill and extreme competence. The fearless polar punk rhythms of Tanya Tagaq’s Uja underscore the perpetual negotiation between the modern and traditional by a people always moving forward. – Caroline Monnet.

We Thought It Was Tanderrum – Benjamin R. Taylor (2018, 6mins, Digital)

They’re tearing up the street outside my house as my feet touch the sand. Moving about as I please. The blueprint of the South overlays on the North. Ghosts sing across voids and you look just like me. [Tanderrum: a ceremony allowing safe passage and temporary access and use of land and resources by foreign people.] – Benjamin R. Taylor

Drei Atlas – Miryam Charles (2018, 7mins, 16mm to digital)

A maid is suspected of murdering her former employer. Questioned by the police, she will reveal the existence of a supernatural power.  – La distributrice.

brouillard #14 – Alexandre Larose (2013, 10mins, 35mm to digital, Silent)

brouillard #14 is the result of in-camera temporal layers shot on the path that extends from the filmmaker's family cottage to a lake. "In his ongoing brouillard - passages series, Alexandre Larose creates long-take sequences by superimposing first-person, Hamish Fulton-esque walking trajectories shot along a man-made path leading to a lake. Using a lens wide enough to condense the human eye's field of vision into the frame's 1.33 aspect ratio, Larose creates spectral superimpositions infused with a meteorological mix and the intense lusciousness of the Quebec landscape." – Andréa Picard.

Total runtime: 62 minutes