Ten Years of Fringe Film

This is a celebratory year, as we present the tenth Fringe Film Festival. The world has changed a lot in ten years and so has the nature of filmmaking and video. Most everyone with an electronic contraption in their pocket has the ability to make moving images. We aim to reflect this changing nature of society by providing programs that are dynamic, innovative, challenging, disconcerting, enlightening, political, pretty, ironic. This is an aspiration and an integral part of our mandate. Though it has not always met with approval from everyone, the festival will continue with enthusiasm to be representative of Canadian contemporary art.

We will be inflating our large portable screen beside the Saugeen River again, so bring a blanket, the kids, and the pets for a casual evening under the stars. We will dip into the past with a screening of veteran independent filmmaker Keith Lock’s two classic films: Work, Bike and Eat, and Everything Everywhere Again Alive.

Dusk at the Hanover Drive-In, 2011

Lev Kuleshov’s 1926 Russian classic By the Law is this year’s silent film presentation. Three men, one couple, one dog, all searching for gold on the banks of the Yukon when things start to unravel. Toronto composer Darren Copeland will present a live soundscape accompaniment in the Symphony Barn.

The controversial use of FBI informants and the introduction of the phrase “domestic terrorism” to the vernacular of the mainstream media is the theme of our two documentaries. If A Tree Falls and Better This World both look at political activists who cross the line into law-breaking and authorities who may be crossing their own lines to catch them.

Our three guest programers, who are so important to maintaining the integrity of the festival, collectively bring a vast encyclopedic knowledge of contemporary media arts. We are delighted to introduce: Amy Kazymerchyk, a Vancouver based media curator and filmmaker who works closely with West Coast media artists. She will be showcasing contemporary film and video by the Vancouver artists with whom she works.

Chris Gehman, a Toronto based a filmmaker, curator and critic who has a long-standing professional association with film and video in Canada, will be presenting a retrospective of the films of Helen Hill.

David Clark is a Halifax-based media artist and the chair of media arts at NASCAD University, an institution that has been influential in contemporary Canadian arts. David is bringing together a mix of East Coast flavorings suggestive of the experience by which Atlantic Canada thrives and maintains its unique identity.

Installations of projected images are an ongoing festival staple and we are pleased to have the work of Toronto born Melanie Gilligan. She is enjoying international recognition for her current installation work, of which we will be exhibiting an example that presents an unusual, but acute observation on the prevailing global financial crisis.

Myke Dyer, Phil Hoffman, Tony Massett