the8fest 2024 Full Program Schedule
All In-Person Screenings held at Beaver Hall Gallery, 29 McCaul Street, Toronto, ON
PWYC, $5 suggested
cash or e-transfer at the door
UNPROJECTABLE Program
Title: The Tooth of Time
Artist: Hannu Nieminen
Runtime: 04:05 mins
Country: Finland
Sound: Stereo
Year: 2021
Production Format: Super 8
Description: Time mercilessly flows and slips from our hands. No reason to fight, better to go with the flow. This experimental film has been created by physically manipulating B&W Super-8 film in various ways using direct painting on film and scratching. Also, physical objects from nature such as plant parts, dust, fur and hair has been glued and taped to the film surface.
Title: Media Mail I
Artist: Justin Clifford Rhody & Jovi Vidal
Runtime: 06:02 mins
Country: USA
Sound: Silent
Year: 2023
Production Format: Regular 8
Description: The first in a series of hand painted film collaborations, carried out through the mail during lockdown.
Title: Deepest Darkness, Flaming Sun
Artist: Ella Morton
Runtime: 09:52 mins
Country: Canada
Sound: Mono
Year: 2020
Production Format: Super 8
Description: Deepest Darkness, Flaming Sun is a short experimental film about the Svalbard Archipelago in the Norwegian Arctic. Narrated by wilderness guide Marte Agneberg Dahl, the film features altered Super 8mm film footage of the region. Dahl speaks about her travels in the Arctic, climate change, walruses and the region’s history.
Title: La vie souterraine (Underground life)
Artist: Boris du Boullay
Runtime: 04:03 mins
Country: France
Sound: Mono
Year: 1996
Production Format: Super 8
Description: Exit via the Highways zebras at La souterraine.
Title: Experimental
Artist: Andrew Burke
Runtime: 00:46 mins
Country: USA
Sound: Silent
Year: 2024
Production Format: Regular 8
Description: The fragile ghost of a 1936 film stops, starts, and derails.
Title: Scatter Brain
Artist: Lorenza De Benedictis
Runtime: 01:00 mins
Country: Canada
Sound: Silent
Year: 2020
Production Format: 16mm
Description: A visual representation of the inside of a scattered brain.
Title: Leakage
Artist: Blaine Spiegel
Runtime: 01:48 mins
Country: Canada
Sound: Silent
Year: 2024
Production Format: Super 8
Description: A traditional filmmaker tries new things.
Title: DEMBI TAMA
Artist: Alex Brandão
Runtime: 07:00
Country: Brasil
Sound: Digital
Year: 2021
Production Format: Super 8
Description: Modou is Senegalese and has lived in Brazil for years. The film seeks to register its relationship with percussion and the preservation of African traditions that refer to its origins. A film about memory shot in Super 8 in single take. Shot in Super 8 with two cartridges filmed in single take, this film shows images of an African percussionist playing his drum, a djêmbe, with the sea in the background, reconnecting with Africa on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Shot in 2021 with film that expired almost 50 years before, in the 1970s, the film establishes a relationship between the deterioration of the emulsion and the precariousness of film preservation in Brazil.
Friday, July 26, 2024
Opening Reception featuring drinks from Collective Arts and food from Newcomer Kitchen: 6:30-8:30 pm
Bageroo #1 Screening: 8:30-9:00 pm
Join us for the 17th annual Bageroo program! An 8fest classic, this is a collection of short films that have been submitted through our annual call for submissions. A regular classic, full of live music, filmic joy, and good times all around!
Title: Road Trip
Artist: Rennie Taylor
Runtime: 2:15 mins
Country: Canada
Sound: Live Performance
Year: 2023
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 24fps
Description: Cars roaring by on the interstate highways, glossy gas station pumps calling for customers and a sea of patriotic American flags – this is the iconic “Road Trip”, a well established pilgrimage for artists looking for visual inspiration within the vast American urban landscape. It became a 20th century rite of passage for photographers Walker Evans, Robert Frank and Stephen Shore and now continues into the 21st century with contemporary artists. “Road Trip” is a travelogue documenting a quick trip from Buffalo, New York, to Providence, Rhode Island, and back. Inspired by Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” (1957), the film focuses on unique American imagery from the Prairie style houses of Frank Lloyd Wright to highways, flags, churches and even a T-model Ford weathervane. Peering out the window of a moving car, “Road Trip” shows the American road trip well travelled and still inspiring. Accompanied with live music performance by the artist.
Title: Norwegian Star
Artist: Alina Tretinjak
Runtime: 2:50 mins
Year: 2023
Country: Austria
Sound: Yes
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 18fps
Description: Portrait of a ship named „Norwegian Star“ at night. There is not much to see but few lights that could just as well be stars as ships passing by far away on the horizon. The visual silence ends in a final cord when abstract images dissolve into observational ones. Shot on Super 8, this experimental film explores analogue filming in very low light conditions.
Title: SUPER BLACK
Artist: Alex Brandão
Runtime: 4:11 mins
Country: Brazil
Sound: Yes
Year: 2020
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 18fps
Description: Experimental audiovisual portrait of the empowerment of a black woman in connection with her African ancestry and recognition of her cultural identity. – Arm the crowns!
Title: on departure
Artist: Lee Ingram
Runtime: 4:00 mins
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Year: 2023
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 18fps
Description: “During a farewell visit to a special spot on the territories of Sc’ianew (Beecher Bay) First Nations, Lee recalls memories of rest and solitude with the land…and meets a familiar forest being along the way.
Title: Apple Baby
Artist: Chloé Griffin, Toni Cavaco, Josh Goldman
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 7:00
Year: 2022
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 18fps
Description: An unexpected phone call teleports an innocent family into a rural landscape of experimental terror with macabre characters playing out psychedelic psychodramas.
Scotti was born in Papeete, Tahiti, on a sailboat and has been in films since he was 3 days old. This is his first festival.
Programmer’s note: We are honoured to have you Scotti! <3
Title: la vie de l’homme qui tombe (The life of the falling man)
Artist: Boris du Boullay
Country: France
Sound: Yes, magnetic
Runtime: 1:00 min
Year: 1997
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 18fps
Description: FR Tout ça, c’est de l’eau qui coule. Le cinéma c’est des bains de révélation. Les films s’abîment, ma mémoire itou.
ENG It’s all water under the bridge. Cinema is a bath of revelation. Films get damaged, and so does my memory.
Title: BECAUSE: Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants
Artist: Rima Sater
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 3:24 mins
Year: 2024
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 24fps
Description: BECAUSE: Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephantsis a memory mnemonic for spelling the word itself. With this in mind, I wanted to make a short film which hones in on nostalgia and memory and involves the little people in my life, aka the small elephants. By leaning into this word play and the fact that elephants are known for their memory, I divided the film into 3 parts. Repetitive scenes are meant to build patterns and trigger memories and anticipations for the viewer. The soundtrack for the film is external audio of my niece and nephews talking about elephants and their own memories. At the heart of this project, I wanted to make a film for them that could also act as a memory for myself.
This work was commissioned by the8fest for this year’s festival.
Title: Shinny
Artist: Tom Taylor
Country: Canada
Sound: No
Runtime: 2:44
Year: 2020
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 18fps
Description: Shinny’ is the record of an annual rite of passage—playing shinny on a homemade outdoor rink.
Title: Stamen
Artist: Blaine Speigel
Runtime: 4:20
Year: 2024
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 12fps
Description: A view into the garden. Projected by the filmmaker.
Karl Reinsalu Expanded Cinema Performance: 9:00-9:30 pm
Saturday, July 27, 2024
Bageroo #2 Screening: 5pm-5:30 pm
Title: sous la surface
Artist: Josephine Vuigner
Country: Switzerland
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 2:20
Year: 2023
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 24fps
Description: When a coffee pot goes up in pressure, a young woman sinks beneath the surface.
Title: You Can Do With These Artist: Sean Bokenkamp
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 4:00 mins
Year: 2022
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 18fps
Description: “The present—perpetually transforming itself into the past—leaves marks. As does the attempt to capture or recall the past. Rejected footage gets hand-painted and scratch animated. Transference magnifies the unintentional and thereby distorts that which we seek to preserve.”
Title: Daphne and I
Artist: Konstantinos Gerardis
Country: Greece
Sound: No
Runtime: 3:06 min
Year: 2024
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 18fps
Description: Antoine, a young artist falls in love with Daphne. Will he find a way to her heart
Title: *666
Artist: Abby Elizabeth Falvo
Country: Canada
Sound: No
Runtime: 3:03
Year: 2023
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 24fps
Description: Two curious women perform a ritual to make a call beyond the veil and discover that some calls are better unanswered.
Title: Pleasant Dorm
Artist: Ilias Adamis
Country: Canada
Sound: No
Runtime: 3:30
Year: 2024
Projection Format: Super 8mm Film, 24fps
Description: Walk through Mount Pleasant eternal nature, light and shadow, meet the dwellers. Some read, some dance, others play or gaze…others lay and rest in their lover’s arms, forever.
Title: Brisbane River
Artist: Chris Kennedy
Country: Australia/Canada
Sound: No
Runtime: 3:00 min
Year: 2023
Projection Format: 16mm, 24fps
Description: A timelapse of the Brisbane river
Title: Correspondance-danse
Artist: Nicole Blundell et Sandy McLennan
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 3:50 min
Year: 2023
Projection Format: 16mm, 24fps
Description: The postal system serves as more than just a means of transportation; for these two filmmakers it becomes a conduit through which they forged a connection, weaved a tapestry and created Correspondence-dance. With each shipment by mail of both camera and 8mm film, they infuse the work with their individual perspectives and practices allowing them to transcend geographical boundaries and language barriers to co-create something that links the Two Solitudes.
Title: To Discipline a Rock #2
Artist: Jiayi Chen
Country: US
Sound: No
Runtime: 0:58 min
Year: 2023
Projection Format: 16mm, 24fps
Description: Drifting from being controlled and out-of-control, from film negative to positive, from compositional clash and evasion, the film applies labor-intensive processes, questioning suppression choreographically.
Title: Intervals
Artist: Sandy McLennan
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 3:44 min
Year: 2024
Projection Format: 16mm, 24fps
Description: Double 8mm in-camera-created clips, hand-processed. A meditative piece via unpredictable mechanisms, machinations and darkroom events; sound from a music box brought home from a Dresdner Schmalfilmtage adventure.
Title: We Made Ourselves Believe
Artist: Lisa Danker Kritzer
Country: Colombia/US
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 3:30 min
Year: 2024
Projection Format: 16mm, 24fps
Description: A collectively shot hand-processed Super 8 adaptation of Mexican artist and author Verónica Gerber Bicecci’s CONJUNTO VACIO (EMPTY SET).
Title: Sheebop! Shebopp! Sheebopp!
Artist: Jiayi Chen; Cameron Worden
Country: US
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 2:36 min
Year: 2024
Projection Format: 16mm, 24fps
Description: An edited-in-camera, hand-processed Super 8 film growing out of a conversation about Florida and Disney World. To one, it is unfamiliar terrain. To the other, it is impending homecoming. Part of an on-going experimental home movie series.
Title: Youtuber
Artist: Josh Weissbach
Country: US
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 0:40 min
Year: 2024
Projection Format: 16mm, 24fps
Description: Using imagery shot during the Covid-19 lockdown and audio from the film subject’s personal video library, a YouTuber (or something adjacent to that) is created.
Title: It’s under the flesh where you are tender
Artist: Agnès Hayden
Country: Spain/Canada
Sound: No
Runtime: 2:29 min
Year: 2024
Projection Format: 16mm, 24fps
Description: It is I who drag my fingernail across the flesh, capriciously, seeking to understand what dwells beyond. How many layers until I reach the bone. How much I would have to excavate to turn around and return to the starting point.
Artist Spotlight: Marcos Arriaga: 6pm- 7pm
A collection of films shot by local filmmaker Marcos Arriaga. These films demonstrate many aspects of Arriaga’s interests, from the political lens of a trained journalist to the personal point of view of a filmmaker. We see Arriaga’s vision, from the observing eye with a steady hand on the Super8 camera, to the artist enamoured by the sights around him. A wonderful collection of work, ranging from the late 90’s to the mid 2000’s, we are especially proud and pleased to be able to share this work with you all.
Born in Lima, Peru, Arriaga studied Communications and was trained as a photo-journalist before he immigrated to Canada. He is currently working on a feature film, and is a mentor to many through his role as technician at York University’s equipment room. He also teaches workshops at the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto, and has mentored many of our commissioned artists on film handling, inspiring many to continue shooting on film. He has shown his films internationally, and is an important part of the8fest.
– Robin Riad.
Title: Days of Action (B/W)
Sound: No
Runtime: 9:46 min
Year: 1996
Projection Format: Super8, 18fps
Description: Footage taken during the days of action by Ontario unions against Conservative Premier Mike Harris’ Common Sense Revolution.
Title: National Strike (B/W)
Sound: No
Runtime: 11:55 min
Year: 2004
Projection Format: Super8, 18fps
Description: Footage taken during the public rally on July 14, against the government of Alejandro Toledo in the emblematic Plaza Dos de Mayo in Lima, Peru.
Title: Arba Minch Merkato Ethiopia (B/W)
Sound: No
Runtime: 6 min
Year: 2005
Projection Format: Super8, 18fps
Description: A visit to the Arba Minch market and surrounding areas.
Title: Cabanaconde – Saczahuaman – Machu Pichu – City of Cuzco (B/W)
Sound: No
Runtime: 12:51 min
Year: 2005
Projection Format: Super8, 18fps
Description: Images of the Andes of southern Peru, where the city of Cuzco capital of the Inca empire, the fortress of Saczahuaman, the citadel of Machu Pichu and the town of Cabanaconde flourished.
Title: Cajamarca (Colour)
Sound: No
Runtime: 9 min
Year: 2006
Projection Format: Super8, 18fps
Description: The City of Cajamarca is located in the norther mountains of Peru and was the place chosen by the last Inca Atahualpa to meet the Spanish invader, who captured and executed him after paying a ransom for his life, which included a room full of gold and silver.
Title: The Monastery of Santa Catalina (Colour)
Sound: No
Runtime: 5 min
Year: 2008
Projection Format: Super8, 18fps
Description: Citadel located in Arequipa – Peru, it was founded in the XVI centuries by the Spanish as a Monastery and private place of prayer and rest for the women of the rich families of the place.
Sunday, July 28, 2024
the8fest INTRODUCES… BAGEROO: MOSTRA DE CINEMA MEZCLA! 5pm-6pm
the8fest Small-Gauge Film Festival is for anyone interested in small-gauge, and the little gems people create with it. Every year, since 2007, we invite filmmakers from all over the world to submit to our annual call for submissions, our “Bageroo”, and we look for a variety of films: 8mm, Super 8, 9.5mm, installation, loops, personal, performance, and and and… ! If it’s small gauge, we want to see it.
If you’ve been to the8fest, or visited our website, or even just read this statement, you’ll see the word “Bageroo”. Try and look it up, you can’t find much about it! We think it came from the phrase, a “mixed bag”, as there’s always a wonderful assortment of films waiting to be watched year after year, for the past seventeen years. It’s a unique word that truly embodies the spirit of the8fest.
The films we are screening for you are from a wide range of Canadian filmmakers, with different experiences, techniques, and stories. Join us as we watch films from Canada’s small-gauge film community. Every year, we host workshops and commission emerging and established filmmakers to create new small-gauge work, wanting to keep the spirit of small-gauge alive for many years to come!
The program you’re going to watch was an adventure for us, bringing Canadian small-gauge films to an international artist. This program was shown for the first time in A Coruña, at S(8) Mostra de Cinema Periferico, in their 2024 festival.
We would like to thank the S(8) Mostra de Cinema Periferico for their generosity in hosting us during their festival. We would also like to thank the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto, Niagara Custom Lab, and YOU for watching
Title: Membrana Mortis (Dead Film)
Artist: Kyle Whitehead
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 5 min
Year: 2016
Projection Format: Super8, 18fps
Description: Membrana Mortis is a meta-film, a chaotic assemblage of re-photographed and chemically manipulated image fragments culled from a damaged roll of film that was nearly un-projectable. The film’s title suggests a two-fold intention – here process and existence pre-suppose one another, at once an elegy to a dead film and observance of new genesis.
Title: Portal
Artist: Lina Wu
Country: Canada
Sound: No
Runtime: 3 min
Year: 2023
Projection Format: Super8, 18fps
Description: A kinetic arm slinky becomes a connective portal revealing the magic of play, touch, and friendship. This scratch-animated film was commissioned as a trailer for the 2023 edition of the8fest. Thank you to Robin, Christine, Fan, Yoyo, the8fest, Niagara Custom Lab, and of course the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers for your generous support.
Title: The Return
Artist: Louise Noguchi
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 4 min
Year: 2023
Projection Format: Super8, 18fps
Description: With the intention of finding an item they had left behind; two spirits return to an area where they once lived prior to the war. During the visit, they enjoy seeing how much the area has changed, while also being disheartened at the sight of an old rifle range that tested firearms destined for war. The Return is about what is lost, but not forgotten, and the responsibility that binds one generation to another. Commissioned by the8fest. Thank you to Niagara Custom Lab and the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers for your generous support.
Title: where we are is always too far away
Artist: Mivan Makia
Country: Canada/UAE
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 6 min
Year: 2023
Projection Format: Super8, 18fps
Description: An auto-portrait conceived as a diptych, presenting linear and non-linear spaces as a transient body. Shifting between movement and stillness, time speeds up, slows down, and gets lost in the landscapes of memory. Commissioned by the8fest. Thank you to Niagara Custom Lab and the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers for your generous support.
Title: Timelapse through Lima
Artist: Marcos Arriaga
Country: Canada/Peru
Sound: No
Runtime: 5 min
Year: 2000
Projection Format: Super8, 18fps
Description: A timelapse through Lima, Peru. The filmmaker sits next to the driver on a minibus, a common mode of transportation in Lima, filming his surroundings through timelapse, clicking the trigger manually throughout the trip.
Title: Long Hall
Artist: Eric Hill
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 3 min
Year: 2022
Projection Format: Super8, 18fps
Description: Two figures enter a hallway and find it difficult to get to the other end. Shot on B&W Super 8 film, all “edits” are in-camera captured in the order you see. Inspired by traffic rules for one-lane roads.
Title: sway/pull
Artist: Morgan Sears-Williams
Country: Canada
Sound: No
Runtime: 5 min
Year: 2022
Projection Format: Double 8mm projected as 16mm
Description: Created during the COVID-19 pandemic when queer spaces were disappearing across Toronto, sway/pull is a meditation on the erosion of Hanlan’s point beach in both literal and figurative senses. Hanlan’s Point Beach, located on the Toronto Islands, was the site of Toronto first gay pride celebrations in the 1970s and remains a queer haven today. Additionally, the Toronto Islands have faced poor city planning that has led to a significant amount of erosion on the beach. This film plays with the concept of erosion by the physical pushing of sand to speak back to the literal erosion of the beach caused by late 20th century urban planning failures in Toronto, and the erosion of queer spaces during a global public health and economic crisis. sway/pull was created at the Womxn’s Island Residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point, founded by April Hickox in 2020.
Title: Moving, Parts One and Two
Artist: Sandy McLennan
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 8 min
Year: 2021
Projection Format: Regular 8, Double 8mm projected as 16mm
Description: Same shot of my house, thinking about moving. Moving out/moving in, emptying boxes one at a time.
Title: Grounders
Artist: Derek Jenkins
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 5 min
Year: 2020
Projection Format: Super 8 to 16mm
Description: Confusion and fun go hand-in-hand on the playground.
Title: The Danse Macabre
Artist: Joanna Decc
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 4 min
Year: 2023
Projection Format: Double8 to 16mm
Description: A graveyard dance party.
Title: 4x8x3
Artist: Chris Kennedy
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 3 min
Year: 2004
Projection Format: Double8 to 16mm
Description: Streetcars circle. The ferry leaves and returns in one gesture. Camera and character dance.
Title: Second Sun
Artist: Leslie Supnet
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 3 min
Year: 2014
Projection Format: Super8 to 16mm
Title: Cupid
Artist: Wrik Mead
Country: Canada
Sound: Yes
Runtime: 3 min
Year: 1998
Projection Format: Super8 to 16mm
Summer Parades: Kids’ Life in 40s and 50s Toronto – Home Movie History Project 7pm-8pm
Kids’ life in 40s & 50s Toronto
Two sisters and their young brother are observed in close detail as they go about their daily, yet timeless, kids’ lives. Lives largely lead outside in the seasons — summers by the water, fall leaves and snowstorms. Starting from young toddlers through to independent, spirited kids, the camera follows the family’s three children and their friends.
More than most home movies, these capture kids interacting among themselves: A group of boys mysteriously dig up part of a front yard; Dozens of kids parade in homemade costumes with decorated tricycles and bikes at a lakeside camp for families; Playing in makeup and drag; An egg-on-spoon race; The sisters learning to sketch and paint from nature; A toddler stomping on a straw hat; Gangs of kids diving and swimming; Guests at a birthday party each posing holding a tail for ‘pin the tail on the donkey’; And, everywhere kids making faces and mugging for the camera.
John Porter will help narrate the program, which was selected from his family’s home movies shot by his parents Larry and Marion.
