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Nous (29 min., 16mm, B&W, sound, USA/Canada/France, 2011)
FOR PREVIEW ONLY This is a 16mm film and is intended to be viewed only on film.
Filmed over a nine-year period, a close look at how we build relationships and how relationships build us. A bi-lingual film in French and English (no subtitles).
Soundtrack created by Jon Leidecker. Optical printing done during an artist residency at Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto in 2005. Cast: Maïa Cybelle Carpenter, Alexis Rubenstein (1975-2002)
Distribution
Canyon Cinema, Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center and Collectif Jeune Cinéma
Limited edition of 5 BluRay discs available to purchase.
Selected Screenings
2012 Laboratorium, Galerie Půda, Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, Czech Republic
2011 Work-in-Progress screening with live sound by Jon Leidecker aka Wobbly, ATA, SF
Selected text from the film
"Son corps a une memoire mais sa memoire n'a pas de corps; vivant chaque jours a travers sa perte en s'integrant au present, futur."
Translation: "Her body has memory but her memory has no body; living daily through the loss and folding into the present, future.
"
"Son corps et votre environment. Son apparence n'est qu'une illusion. Elle n'existe que par des mouvements dirigés et comme alignements temporaires que pour disparaitre et reapparaitre avant que votre regard vous revient.”
Translation: "Her body is your environment. Her physical form is an illusion. She exists as directional flows and temporary alignments only to disappear and reappear before thy gaze returns to thee."
Finishing Funds
Generously supported on Kickstarter by: Beau Trincia, Chuleenan Svetvilas, Cathy R Fischer, Hilary Hart, KL Parr, Pam Vliek Martchev, Dean and Karin Rosenthal, Jay Stone,
Drew Boles, David Evan Harris, Marco and Maria Grazia Buscaglia, Kirthi Nath, Zanne deJanvier, Saira Ramasastry, Scot Mollot, Jacob Park, Jonathan Marlow, Tracy Brien,
Nicole Bernstein, Charmaine Ehrhart, Christopher Sherrill, Haiyan Zhang, Adam Hopkins, Paul Sekhri and Mark Gude, Neil Sekhri, Michelle Silva, Vera Miao, Gretchen Wustrack, Michael Tamburro,
Peter Moore and Anita Monga, Paula Cavagnaro, Christina Havemeyer, T'ai-Lin Smith, Karen Vanderborght, Phil Hoffman, Sonia Shulman, Kathryn Schauer, Eve and Peter Silbernagl,
Jef Cunningham, Riccardo, Cristina and Ruggero, David Lu, Valeria Cardoso-Tan, Bob Linzy, Joerg Student, Ted Meisel, Avie Tevanian, Bob Boster, and over 40 additional anonymous supporters.
Working Portraits (8 min., 16mm, B&W, silent, USA/Canada, 2005)
FOR PREVIEW ONLY This is a 16mm film and is intended to be viewed only on film.
A document in the form of a portrait. Shot in June 2000 at Phil Hoffman's Independent Image-Making Retreat, this film stays close to the participants
and the film medium itself as they work on their projects.
Cast: Becka Barker, Helen Hill (1970-2007), Deirdre Logue, Kelly Krotine, Alexis Rubenstein (1975-2002), and Karyn Sandlos.
Distribution
Canyon Cinema, Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center and Collectif Jeune Cinéma
Selected Screenings
2007 Havana International Film Festival
, Cuba
2005 Féstival des Cinèmas Différents, Paris, FR
2005 MIXNYC Anthology Film Archives, NY
2019 TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto, ON, Canada
Inspiration
"…[P]rocess must not be viewed as a goal or an end in itself, nor must it be confused with and infinite perpetuation of itself.” – Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, The Anti-Oedipus.
Sans Titre (6-8 min., 16mm, color, silent, USA/Canada, 2001)
FOR PREVIEW ONLY This is a 16mm film and is intended to be viewed only on film.
Optically printed, hand processed and painted, this film records the space of light. It attempts to remove the Form of abstraction from Matter and thus places the viewerin a virtual temporal-space. The last minute of film is comprised of clear leader. After this, the projector remains running with no film passing through its gate for30 - 60 seconds. This flickering white light completes the film’s projection. This piece is available as a monitored 16mm installation piece. Technical and spatial specifications upon request.
Distribution
Canyon Cinema, Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center and Collectif Jeune Cinéma
Selected Screenings
2001 San Francisco Cinematheque, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
2002, 2004-5 Cinematheque Ontario
2003 MIXNYC Anthology Film Archives, NY
2012, Dutch Art Institute, Amsterdam, NL
2017 Whitney Museum of American Art, NY
Praise
"Some of the most beautiful chemically treated images I've ever seen." Stan Brakhage, Postcard, April 2001. (Referencing Sans Titre, The Shape of the Gaze and Site Visit.)
The Shape of the Gaze (7 min., 16mm, color, silent, USA/Canada, 2000)
FOR PREVIEW ONLY This is a 16mm film and is intended to be viewed only on film.
Optically printed, hand processed and painted: the film process is manipulated to disrupt viewing expectations on a textual and aesthetic level. This repositions the subject and discourse of gender ambiguity available in the gaze. By shifting the discourse of the gaze, the film implicates viewers in the gazes operating between the filmmaker and her self-identified lesbian butch subjects.
Cast: Denise Conca, Susan Ford, Deirdre Logue, Karyn Sandlos, and Gretchen M. Till.
Distribution
Canyon Cinema, Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center and Collectif Jeune Cinéma
Selected Screenings
2000 San Francisco Cinematheque, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
2001 Directors Guild of America, Los Angeles
2008 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam, NL
2019 Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto, ON, Canada
Praise
"Some of the most beautiful chemically treated images I've ever seen." Stan Brakhage, Postcard, April 2001. (Referencing Sans Titre, The Shape of the Gaze and Site Visit.)
Site Visit (10 min., 16mm, color, sound, USA/Canada, 1999)
FOR PREVIEW ONLY
This is a 16mm film and is intended to be viewed only on film.
Entirely hand-processed and hand-painted, this film evokes a series of fantasy maps and visited imaginary 'sites'. The process of the film can be interpreted as the content of the film, but metaphorically it depicts the impossibility of concretely mapping disease in the human body.
Distribution
Canyon Cinema, Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center and Collectif Jeune Cinéma
Selected Screenings
1999 MIXNYC Anthology Film Archives, NY
2000 San Francisco Cinematheque, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
2003 Cinematheque Ontario
Praises
"Some of the most beautiful chemically treated images I've ever seen." Stan Brakhage, Postcard, April 2001. (Referencing Sans Titre, The Shape of the Gaze and Site Visit.)
"Just as foregrounding the means of production became and important tactic for deconstructing essentialist representations of women in early feminist counter-cinema, Carpenter has used the techniques of surface manipulation and optical printing in her own work to problematize the cinematic construction of gender." Mary Slaughter, The Journal of Film and Video, vol. 54, no.1, Spring 2002. (Referencing Site Visit.)