• N A T I o N A L c I N E M A • Vancouver's National Film Week • The dignitaries: Canada Council's George Armstrong, Hon. Homegrown Campbell, Hon. Pat Carney, and city alderman Bruce Yorke films and flaring egos • Popcorn power: My American Cousin's Sandy Wilson and organizer Pat Campbell modern film facility. "I am confident," ises: Cineworks Independent Film­ Smiling triumphantly, Sandy Wilson by George C. KoBer said' Marcel Masse that Friday, March makers' Society, Canadian Filmmakers sat smack in the centre of the podium, 21 , in his inaugurating remarks, "that Distribution West, and the Pacific her stylishly unkempt blonde hair fram ­ the new Pacific Cine Centre, combining Cinematheque. Sandy Wilson flew back ing her glowing, girlish face. But it was he beaming commUni.cations Minis­ production, distribution, and exhibition from Toronto with her Genie .awards a woman with experience who domi­ ter, flanked by Cabinet colleague facilities, will encourage many new for My American Cousin to star in the nated the proceedings - after all, she's TVancouver Centre MP Pat Carney filmmakers." A week later, veteran ex­ first seminar on the program, featuring finally made it. Best screenplay, best di­ and project organizer Peg Campbell, perimentalist AI Rzutis was "encour­ directors and producers. joining her on rection, best actor and actress, best cut the ribbon to open the impressive, aged" to spray paint a red, avant garde the panel were moderator Wayne Ster· editing, and best picture! Not many slogan on the screening room's virgin­ loff, fresh from Canada Post, now the Canadian filmmakers can boast of such white wall. Western coordinator for Telefilm a list of awards. Kicking off the activities of the new Canada; Victoria-raised director Atom Among other fascinating facts, we $1.8 million Centre was National Film Egoyan (Next of Kin), Winnipeg film­ learned that she had once directed a Week, a festival of Vancouver and Cana­ maker John Paizs (Crime Wave), and 16mm short called Garbage, edited George C Koller, Cinema Canada's dian films, jointly sponsored by the Paul Pope, president of the Newfound­ news at BClV for a while, and made founding editor, lives in Vancouver. three organizations that share the premo land Film Coop. He's Not The Walking Kind about her c c: e o Q) Q; E til E U til U Vl C/) ~ U ~ U o ~ -0 .r; -a.~~~~;peririI ": ' : experimental film's AI Razutis, right, with the Professor, ~----~~~~~--~~------------------~ ~ • "Avant-garde spits in the face of institutions": AI Razutis creating June 1986 - Cinema Canada /25 • N A T I o N A L c I N E M A • wheelchair-bound brother. As for My expertly captured by Kelly Duncan's clever I am" feel about them. Memora­ included Patricia Gruben's first feature, American Cousin, a Toronto inter­ cinematography, even in black and ble were the excrutiatingly painful 1 on Low Visibility, and Jack Darcus' most viewer asked her, "You spent years de­ white. Malcolm LOWry: The Forest 22, by Bob Brown and Cleo Mittlestadt, recent feature, Overnight. The former veloping this project - was it more dif­ Path recounted how the famous author six minutes of ear-splitting soundtrack stars Larry Lillo as Mr. Bones, an appar­ ficult as a woman or as a Canadianl " lived, worked, and drank in a shack on and bondage imagery; The Ideal Artist ent amnesiac found wandering in the "What the hell do you answer to a ques­ the beach at Dollarton, actually finish­ by Peter Gress, depicting a messy art­ dead of winter by the side of the road in tion like that?" replied Sandy. ing Under the Volcano in B.C. ist's loft, complete with naked artist, ar­ Manning Park. The film captures the To a question from the audience as to In addition to the Vancouver film­ tistic paraphernalia, and a more than painstakingly slow process of bringing why Canadians like Phil Borsos (The makers honored with retrospective clever soundtrack; in Sex Without this mute, half-brute back to reality in a Grey Fox) are so anxious to heed Hol­ showings (Sandy Wilson, David Rim­ Glasses McLaren discovers rear projec­ research hospital, and the attempts of lywood's call once they've made it, the mer, Philip Borsos, Al Razutis, Larry tion, flying in his dreams, and how to the staff to teach him how to communi­ panelists had a range of responses. Kent, Zale and Laara Dalen, Philip Keat­ eliminate the technical imperfections cate. Through the aid of a female psy­ Egoyan said that at this stage of his life ley, and Peter Bryant), the week fea­ plaguing the other Funnel films. chiC and other clues it becomes appar­ he's comfortable making films here. "I tured screenings of shorts from film Having its public premiere at Na­ ent that he was the victim of a plane don't have a dream of going to Hol­ coops across the country. A sampling tional Film Week '86, Spirit of the Kata crash. Ominous connections occur to lywood," Paizs explained. "I imagine it's turned up Ranch: The Alan Wood was directed by Sharon McGowan, and the attentive viewer that make one a tacky place ... When I peak, people will Ranch Project by Steven DeNure and co-produced by the Pacific Studio and realize that he was not so much a victim remember me a couple of months Christopher Lowry from Cineworks, the Montreal Women's StudiO of the Na­ as the perpetrator of some unspeakably longer, than if I peaked in the States." Vancouver. This half-hour film docu­ tional Film Board. It focuses on women horrible violence. (Against a woman, Wilson summed it up: "I wouldn't mind ments the work of British-born, local practicing karate, and the lyrically naturally ... ) going down to L.A. for a little fun and a artist Wood, whose brightly painted forceful images confirm the fact that the Jack Darcus is a Vancouver painter lot of money, but not if I lose my voice." fences, barns, corrals, and teepees trans­ martial arts are no longer an exclusive who started making 16mm cinematic For a Canadian director in Tinseltown, formed the Rocky Mountain Ranch in male domain. Jacques et novembre by statements in the late '60s. Proxy cultural laryngitis is a distinct possibil­ Alberta into a very large work of art. Jean Beaudry and Franr;ois Bouvier Hawks, his second feature, was made ity. DeNure and Lowry go beyond standard had its first B.C. showing opening night for $16,000 in 1971 and critic John Noon screenings featured a historical documentation, however. Their cine­ to the invitation-only crowd. Michael Hofsess called it "one of the ten best look at early Vancouver and B.C. films, matic effort, through the use of ingeni­ Dorland in Cinema Canada called it "a Canadian features ever made." Over­ including a 1920's offering entitled ous time-lapse photography, editing old profound, life-asserting affirmation of night, his fifth feature, was shot last Canada's Pacific Gateway. Allan King's cowboy film footage in a humorous artistic and cinematic integrity... a year in Toronto for considerably more 1956 documentary Skidrow was his di­ way, and an evident sensitivity to the in­ triumph." Return to Departure, pro­ money, and had its Western premiere rectorial debut. Two CBC films made terplay of light and shadow, becomes an duced and directed by Kirk Tougas, just before the closing party at the 25 years ago stood out for their excel­ art work in itself. starts off in extreme close-up docu­ Pacific Cine Centre. It is a hilarious lence. Totem, produced by Gene- Law­ Unfortunately, some of the films from menting the creation of a realist work of spoof of the pretentions of filmmaking rence, chronicled the monumental Toronto's The Funnel, an exhibition art. The innovative soundtrack is actu­ in general, and the foibles of "erotic" creations in wood of the Haidas, and the space and production collective, were ally a sound portrait of the unseen artist. cinema in particular. Victor Ertmanus efforts to save them from the ravages of self-consciously striving to be "art." The Eventually, the camera pulls back, and plays Scott, a middle-class innocent try­ weather and time. The haunting totem selections presented by founding both the painting and the artist are re­ ing to make it as an actor. In his agent's images and the photographic retelling member Ross McLaren were technically vealed. "Watching the pigment dry" is office he encounters Gale Garnett as of how the Haidas flourished after their amateurish for the most part, some of part of the subtitle of this 83-minute Del, a veteran of 10 skin quickies made first contacts with the white man - only them shot in Super 8, and, what was film. for the logging camps. She gives "good to get wiped out by small pox - were more annoying, many had a "look how The B.C. Retrospectives section also fake," De! tells Scott, meaning she can 26/Cinema Canada - June 1986 • N A T I o N A L c I N E M A • simulate a loud and dramatic orgasm. ers hurried around giving the au­ give a definition for it, even though she cannot be explained ... Cinema must be Scott gets called in to the inner ditorium a media, circus atmosphere. has been accused of practicing it. She freed from its obsession with meaning sanctum, where Alan Scarfe as an expat­ Programmer Maria Insell then gave a cited Bruce Elder's call for a new and words." To illustrate, he showed a riate Czech director is holding his own historical perspective of the term "avant cinema, definitely not narrative, based new video film, As Seen On TV, 14 mi­ in an argument with his crass Canadian garde" (originally a military term, first on a respect for the absolute, for holy nutes of pleasing images depicting smil­ producer about art versus expediency.