ATLANTIC AUTEURS

SHORTS PROGRAM

JUNE 23, 2023 • 8:30 PM
@ LIGHT HOUSE ARTS CENTRE
(1800 ARGYLE STREET, HALIFAX)

A Q+A WITH THE FILMMAKERS WILL FOLLOW THE SCREENING

Our Atlantic Auteurs program brings together the genuinely touching, the inventively unsettling, and the abrasively experimental elements that complement each other in a fluid and exciting collection of innovative works by Maritime filmmakers.

Jenna Marks’ Homard au Coeur is a charming stop-motion animation that focuses on a 65-year-old lobster fisherman’s monologue about discovering some health issues. With some interesting time-lapse moments, the shadows that move across the rocks give us a calming undertone of time passing by.

Colleen MacIsaac’s Traps on Ironbound centres on disintegrated pieces of lobster traps that were found on the shores of Ironbound Island. In the form of a loopable animated sequence, and complete with a musical score made from the traps themselves, Colleen provides us with an energetic meditation of bright abstract imagery as well as their personal connection to the traps.

Matthew Kratz’s The Mother with a Thousand Faces tells the story of the entire history of the earth in 1920 pictures. As we watch the earth’s surface change from frame to frame, we are forced to contemplate that we are just floating, spinning slowly and changing second to second.

Local legend Dawn George brings us Dendrology Dreams for Big Agnes, a white-knuckled examination of audio pareidolia she experienced while on a wilderness expedition. A digital re-edit of a 16mm film shot in 2017, this experience has haunting sound design and hallucinatory images of mountains and conifers, all accompanied by a ghostly marching band that fades in and out.

Kennlin Barlow’s The Oxbow gives us an ominous firsthand encounter of Hurricane Ian hitting a reservation early in the morning in New Brunswick. This patient observation combines turbulence and tranquility masterfully as we sit and let the weather act as a guide.

Kate Solar provides some truly beautiful sound design with POND—which is digitally shot footage of her childhood home then laser-printed onto black and white16mm film. The deteriorated shapes of people, landscapes and buildings are an accurate depiction of a continuously fading memory.

André Melanson’s Ruin is a tragic, mythic love story shot on unedited black and white Super 8. With beautiful costume design and a jagged landscape, this is an effective and classic revenge tale backed by a fantastic dark score.

Brielle LeBlanc’s The Year-Long Boulder is a gentle portrait of the fluctuating mind of a twentysomething as they wrestle with the ambiguity of a potential love interest over the course of a year. Brielle’s thoughtful and composed exploration of uncertainty and vulnerability is deeply touching and unapologetically poetic.

Nicholas James Staples’ Slow Fight shows a young couple experiencing a series of increasingly upsetting events in a New Brunswick high-rise. As these events push them further apart, the story becomes more fragmented, cryptic and paranoid. Shot on vivid 16mm with a fantastic performance by Bhreagh MacNeil (Werewolf), this is a compelling and tense story about distrust.

Devin Shear’s Grown in Darkness is a truly heartwarming story about an older man living alone on the edge of Newfoundland. As he grows his rhubarb patiently in a lonely candle-lit room and waits for companionship, he finds joy in the small moments of human connection no matter how fleeting they are.

Evelyn is a compassionate new documentary from award-winning filmmaker Millefiore Clarkes. It centers on Evelyn Christopher, a 94-year-old farmer who still wakes up at dawn to work her fields. She grows vegetables, stacks firewood and doesn’t really care for contemporary society. This is an excellent documentary about a very inspiring and charismatic woman. —Aaron Webster

PROGRAM LINEUP:

Homard au Coeur • Jenna Marks
Traps on Ironbound • Colleen MacIsaac
The Mother with a Thousand Faces • Matthew Alexander Kratz
Dendrology Dreams for Big Agnes • Dawn George
The Oxbow • Kennlin Barlow
POND • Kate Solar
Ruin • Andre Melanson
The Year Long Boulder • Brielle LeBlanc
Slow Fight • Nicholas James Staples
Grown in Darkness • Devin Shears
Evelyn • Millefiore Clarkes