Toronto International Film Festival, September 6 – 15, 2007.

For complete info on TIFF, click HERE

Wavelenths is a curated presentation of 25 of the best in artist-made film and video from around the world.

This year’s programme is presented in 6 curated programmes running September 7 – 10, 2007.

Nicky Hamlyn, Risoni, film still. Image: lumen.org.uk

The programme features new work from such celebrated artists as Ken Jacobs, Peter Hutton, Karø Goldt, David Gatten, Nicky Hamlyn, Pip Chodorov, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Hannes Schüpbach, Bruce McClure, Heinz Emigholz, Jean-Marie Straub and the late Danièle Huillet.

Here are some of VoCA’s suggestions from each programme:

Wavelengths 1:

David Gatten’s WHAT THE WATER SAID, NOS. 4-6 (USA) offers sounds and images resulting from strips of unexposed celluloid encased in crab traps being buffeted by salt water, sand and rocks off the coast of South Carolina. Former merchant seaman Peter Hutton delivers a magisterial story about the birth, life and death of a container ship in AT SEA (USA).

David Gatten, The Great Art of Knowing, 2004 (film still). Image: loopcollective.com

Wavelengths 2:

Ken Jacobs‘ CAPITALISM: SLAVERY (USA) awakens flickering worlds out of nineteenth-century stereoscopic images of cotton-picking slaves. John Gianvito’s PROFIT MOTIVE AND THE WHISPERING WIND (USA) is a breathtakingly beautiful visual poem on America’s progressive history as seen through its cemeteries, plaques and monuments.

Peter Hutton, Time and Tide, 2000 (film still). Image: filminc.com

Wavelengths 3:

Daïchi Saïto’s ALL THAT RISES (Canada) combines hand-processed and printed footage with sounds from violionist Malcolm Goldstein to form a unique tribute to the duo’s Montreal neighbourhood… Combining archival footage and poetic text together, Chris Kennedy’s THE ACROBAT (USA/Canada) is a compelling consideration of the significance of allowing oneself to fall. ECHO (Canada) is an atypical self-portrait by Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof which explores homesickness and cultural yearning through visual imagery, song and text.

Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof, Song of the Firefly, 2002. Image: photogram.org

Wavelengths 4:

Leading British filmmaker Nicky Hamlyn’s QUARTET (UK) comprises four variations on the same twenty shots of a room. ERZÄHLUNG (Switzerland/Italy) by Hannes Schüpbach is a graceful portrait of 80-year-old Italian sculptor Cesare Ferronato. The billowing softness of Karø Goldt’s GONE (Germany/Austria) is created through the animation of a photograph of an arum plant that visualizes a beautiful evanescence.

Karo Goldt, été, 2006 (film still). Image: fdk-berlin.de

Wavelengths 5:

Heinz Emigholz’s Photography and Beyond series, SCHINDLER’S HOUSES (Austria) offers “architecture as autobiography” by presenting 40 houses – circa 1931 to 1952 – built in and around Los Angeles by Austro-American architect Rudolf M. Schindler.

Heinz Emigholz, Schindlers Hauser, 2007 (film still). Image: imageschack.us

Wavelengths 6:

Henri Storck’s 1929 film POUR VOS BEAUX YEUX (Belgium) – made in collaboration with painter Félix Labisse – tells the tale of a young dandy who tries to send a glass eye through the post, to no avail. The ubiquitous shape of film reels endlessly unspooling is recalled in the op art-influenced spirals of Pip Chodorov’s FAUX MOUVEMENTS (France). Chris Kennedy’s TAPE FILM (USA/Canada) cycles through five different film stocks and a variety of processing methods to offer a portrait of the artist at play. In John Price’s otherworldly ECP 2D: SUN (Canada), a home-movie snippet is transformed into a bold colour frieze… Bruce McClure’s EVERTWO CIRCUMFLICKSRENT… PAGE 298 (USA) is a feverish excursion into flickering light and intense reverberating sound

Bruce McClure. Image: wkv-stuttgart.de

**TOMORROW: VoCA SPOTLIGHTS FUTURE PROJECTIONS: TIFF’S PROGRAMME OF FILM-RELATED ART INSTALLATIONS**