Actions 1

Actions 1

Actions 1, a brief program of short films, addresses the question of time through five recent works. It features experimental cinema practitioners from Finland (Niina Suominen), Canada (Charlotte Clermont, Ed Janzen and Penny McCann) and Italy (Virginia Eleuteri Serpieri). Each artist offers a look back on a situation experienced collectively, individually or personally and shares a worry, a feeling, a hesitation, a place or an emotion.

What Time Is ? — Niina Suominen. Finlande. 2020. 7 min. No dialogue.
The essence of our time, under the magnifying glass. A kaleidoscopically abundant visual assemblage set alongside Jukka Ruohomäki’s pioneering electronic composition. The sound material, created in 1970, uses the DIMI synthesizer designed by artist Erkki Kurenniemi.
North American Premiere

Expo Film (this film is my memory)  — Penny McCann. Canada. 2020. 9 min. English. French subtitles.
Using anonymous home-movie footage of Expo ​’67 in Montreal, celluloid manipulation, and sound decay techniques, the filmmaker sets out to recreate a memory that perhaps never existed.
Quebec Premiere

6 Permutations  — Ed Janzen. Canada. 2018. 2 min. No dialogue.
A trial-and-error attempt to reconcile presence and absence.
Quebec Premiere

The Water’s Tale  — Virginia Eleuteri Serpieri. Italie. 2020. 6 min. No dialogue.
In this delicately crafted film, the artist explores different soundscapes; through deep listening, we are reminded that hearing, listening, and perceiving sound are the joint work of the memory and body — that sound is an inward, as well as an outward, experience.
North American Premiere

special dark glass somewhere — Charlotte Clermont. Canada. 2020. 4 min. No dialogue.
Darkness never emerges but it is present. In a bewitching atmosphere, proximity and distance are revealed through a reflected structure where images and sounds confound the imaginary and the real. Sensuality and desire are seen as forbidden, somehow, as if faced with a glass wall.
Quebec Premiere