Feb. 12
7:00 p.m.
Winnipeg Cinematheque
100 Arthur Street
Winnipeg, MB R3B 1H3

Hosted by: Brett Kashmere

Filmmaker/curator/publisher Brett Kashmere continues his survey of the influential Escarpment School film movement that took place in Canada in the late ’70s and ’80s. Kashmere began the series with a screening back in November. This screening post on the Underground Film Journal for that event goes into the history of what the Escarpment School was all about.

This new screening covers the evolution of the movement from social-based documentaries to more personal ones. Also, many of the films from this period focused on waterways as a major theme, in films such as Richard Kerr‘s Canal, Rick Hancox’s Waterworx and Philip Hoffman’s river, where the filmmakers chronicled their trips to the “landscapes of their youths,” according to Kashmere.

Kashmere further describes these films:

Exploring geographies of identity, these films take place at the fluid intersection of time, space, and memory and feature an array of strategies, from the use of on-screen text, to the repetition and variation of elements, to the integration of multiple media formats and technologies.

Other films; like Gary Popovich’s Faultlines and Louise Lebeau’s Desert Veils; feature journeys to new, remote desert locations by the filmmakers. Meanwhile, Two Pictures, a collaboration between Carl Brown and Rose Lowder, is also a landscape film, although its techniques — the manipulation by Brown of Lowder’s photographs — is a prime example of the movement moving into new, more experimental processes.

Below is the full list of films at this screening:

Trip Sheet, dir. Alan Zweig
Oxford Spa, dir. Jeffery Paull
Canal, dir. Richard Kerr
Waterworx (A Clear Day and No Memories), dir. Rick Hancox
river, dir. Philip Hoffman
Faultlines, dir. Gary Popovich
Desert Veils, dir. Louise Lebeau
Two Pictures, dir. Carl Brown and Rose Lowder