This is the 22nd year for Toronto’s Images Festival and I’m thrilled to be listing it for the first time on the Underground Film Journal and plan to keep it in rotation with all the other underground and experimental fests regularly covered here. Images will run an epic ten days on April 2-11 in 24 different venues across the city.

What is listed below, as extensive as it looks, is in no way a comprehensive guide to the festival. Below is just as many film and video screenings and expanded cinema performances as I could list. There are also way more panel discussions, presentations, performances, parties and artist lounges than I could hope to cover. For full coverage, you’ll just have to go to the Images Festival official site.

Out of this exhaustive event, there’s only one screening that I feel comfortable singling out for a special plug and that’s for April 10th‘s “Saturn Returns” screening that’s curated by filmmaker Brett Kashmere. Kashmere is also the founder of the new journal of experimental media, INCITE!, and “Saturn Returns” is an outgrowth of that featuring work by animator Leslie Supnet, artist/curator Marisa Olson and filmmakers Ben Russell, Oliver Laric and more.

But there’s lots of other great stuff going on, too, including a retrospective of the work of Canadian artist Louise Bourque; Deborah Stratman‘s 16mm documentary O’ver the Land that I keep hearing great things about; plus films by Stephanie Barber, Naomi Uman and Karl Lemieux sprinkled throughout. Check it out:

April 2
8:00 p.m.: “Notes on Composing: 5 Collaborations in Film and Music”
2 Cameras @ Sea, dirs. Oscar van Dillen & Clive Holden
ONCE NEAR WATER: Notes from the Scaffolding Archive, dirs. Rick Sacks & Vera Frenkel
Behind the Shadows, dirs. Martin Arnold & Christina Battle
Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis, dir. Malcolm Goldstein & Daïchi Saïto
Glorious, dirs. Richard Ayres & Guy Maddin

April 3
8:00 p.m.: Make Me Stop Smoking, dir. Rabih Mroué. A live video and performance piece on the exploration of Lebanon wherein Mroué will share items from his exhaustive archive.

9:30 p.m.: “In the Room 3” by Sung Hwan Kim, dogr (aka David Michael DiGregorio) and Byungjun Kwon. A live performance of music, drawing plus live and pre-recorded video of various dream-like activity.

April 4
2:00 p.m.: Make Me Stop Smoking, dir. Rabih Mroué. A live video and performance piece on the exploration of Lebanon wherein Mroué will share items from his exhaustive archive.

6:00 p.m.: “Talking Points and Talking Ponies” by Ben Coonley. A performance of the PowerPoint presentation Remapping the Apparatus: Cinematographic Specificity and Hybrid Media; plus a selection of videos.

8:00 p.m.: Make Me Stop Smoking, dir. Rabih Mroué. A live video and performance piece on the exploration of Lebanon wherein Mroué will share items from his exhaustive archive.

8:00 p.m.: “VIDEODROME”
First, a screening of Total War by Jubal Brown, followed by a “video battle” between Bad Credit, Infinity Dose, Istvan Kantor, Jubal Brown, Rko (v-atak), Ryan Stec, Skeeter, Smearballs, Tzii (v-atak), Nohista (v-atak), Nwodtlem,Ouananiche, Pete OHearn, David Matton.

9:30 p.m.: “In the Room 3” by Sung Hwan Kim, dogr (aka David Michael DiGregorio) and Byungjun Kwon. A live performance of music, drawing plus live and pre-recorded video of various dream-like activity.

April 5
2:00 p.m.: “Crossing Over (Under Your Skin)” curated by Arjon Dunnewind
Borders test (version complet), dir. Thierry Geoffroy
The Romanians (Live Like a King), dir. Heidrun Holzfeind
The Walraff Method, dir. Thierry Geoffroy
The Race, dir. Thierry Geoffroy
Your Blood Is As Red As Mine, dir. Julika Rudelius
Cultural Exchanges, dir. Thierry Geoffroy
Att tänka tankar man inte vill tänka, dir. Joanna Rytel

6:00 p.m.: “A Human Drawing Blood From a Bound Prisoner, an Anthropomorphic Cat Doing the Same”
The Presentation Theme, dir. Jim Trainor
1-9, dir. Mary Billyou
Adrift, dir. Julika Rudelius
I Deeply Regret, dir. Karø Goldt
Cleopatra’s Teeth, dir. Mika Kiburz
Kempinski, dir. Neïl Beloufa

8:30 p.m.: “Canadian Artist Spotlight: Louise Bourque”
Just Words
Fissures
Imprint
Self Portrait Post Mortem
Jours en fleurs
L’eclat du mal / The Bleeding Heart of It
Going Back Home
a little prayer (H-E-L-P)

April 6
7:00 p.m.: “And to Perfection All Our Efforts We Devote”
O’er the Land, dir. Deborah Stratman. An examination of national identity through the prism of militarism.
Screening with Nature Morte, dir. Akram Zaatari

9:00 p.m.: “Siting Cinema”
(Just beyond the screen) the universe – as we know it – is ending, dir. Christine Lucy Latimer
Mount Shasta, dir. Oliver Husain
12 x 26, dir. Andrew J. Paterson
Film Noir (100% Black Film 1), dir. Jorge Lorenzo
The Diamond (Descartes’ Daughter), dir. Emily Wardill
The Pitch, dir. Isabell Spengler
Boy/Analysis: An Abridgement of Melanie Klein’s “Narrative of a Child Analysis”, dir. Steve Reinke

April 7
7:00 p.m.: The Limits of What We Know, dir. Amy Bodman. An ethnographic portrait of Zimbabwe.

9:00 p.m.: “Various Small Fires and Ice”
Retrato Oficial (Official Portrait), dir. Francisca Duran
The Inversion, Transcription, Evening Track and Attractor, dir. Stephanie Barber
Bernadette, dir. Duncan Campbell
On the Logic of Dubious Historical Accounts, 1969-1972, dirs. Peter Miller & Alexander Stewart

April 8
9:00 p.m.: “S is for Student”
Annual Report, dir. Cristina Braga
The Red Carpet, dir. Joerg Hommer
Nu hander det igen: They Will Never Catch Us, dirs. Frank Aschberg & Gabriel Watson
Verbal Burglary, dir. Mani Mazinani
Those Crazy Insides, dir. Ben Wheele
I Love (St.) Louis, dir. Joe Lachajczyk
In Between, dir. Mischa Leinkauf
It only hurts when I cry , dir. Daniel McIntyre
Spinners, dir. Fern Silva
Child, dir. Altan Yucel
Morning Will Come, dir. Pouyan Jafarizadeh Dezfoulian

April 9
7:00 p.m.: “On Screen 6: 43 After 66”
Chelsea Girls, dir. Althea Thauberger
Ibiza: a reading for “The Flicker”, dir. Ian White

9:00 p.m.: “I Want to Wrestle With Your Mind in the Long Grass”
Commercials, dir. Erica Eyres
Men Seeking Women, dir. Penny Lane
Close Encounter, dir. Zak Tatham
Someone Else’s Girlfriend, dir. James Fritzgerald Craig
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, dir. Ariel Smith
Holy Smokes!, dir. Loren Hartman
How to Lose Consciousness, dir. Gary Kibbins
dino, dir. Judith van der Made

11:00 p.m.: “Super 8 Late”
Aufhebung, dir. Francois Boue
1997A (Arrival), dir. Steve Polta
Mylar Balloon Rip Off, dir. Jason Halprin
Light Speed , dir. Karen Johannesen
A House Full of Dust, dir. Steve Polta
Some Days Ago (Kajitu) , dir. Takehiro Nakamura
Des nuages aux felures de la terre, dir. Philippe Cote

April 10
9:00 p.m.: “Saturn Returns” curated by Brett Kashmere
The Animated Heavy Metal Parking Lot, dir. Leslie Supnet (Watch online)
Black and White Trypps Number Three, dir. Ben Russell (Watch online)
Performed Listening: H, dir. Marisa Olson
Message The, dir. Oliver Laric
And We All Shine On, dir. Michael Robinson
Don’t Worry Be Happy (stressful mix), dir. Jacob Ciocci
NJS Map, dir. Seth Price
PYT (Pretty Young Thing), dir. Tara Mateik
Chapters 1–12 of R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet Synced and Played Simultaneously, dir. Michael Bell-Smith
The Game, dir. Tasman Richardson
Untitled (Pink Dot), dir. Takeshi Murata
01/06 , dirs. Xander Marro & Mat Brinkman

10:30 p.m.: “Feedback Loop”, 16mm projection performances by Ben Russell and Karl Lemieux.

April 11
1:30 p.m.: “Curse!”
Altars , dir. Guillermina Buzio
Curse Cures, dir. Lesley Loksi Chan
The Professor and the Blind Girl, dir. Penny McCann
Believing Makes It So, dir. Steev Morgan
Ariadne’s Thread, dir. Sarah Shamash

3:00 p.m.: Hotel Diaries, dir. John Smith. A series of video recordings made in different hotel rooms in six different countries.

6:00 p.m.: “The Landscape as a Collective Memory”
Quiero Ver, dir. Adele Horne
Revival, dir. Heidi Phillips
Kalendar, dir. Naomi Uman
Nothing Is Over Nothing, dir. Jonathan Schwartz
the generosity of mechanics (is not well documente, dir. Troy Gronsdahl
v = d/t, dir. Amanda Dawn Christie
Path, dir. Elvira Finnigan
Buried Traces, dir. Michelle Smith

For more information, please visit the Images Festival official site.