HIFF 2013 | Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival

HIFF provides a unique venue for filmmakers and media artists to share their works in a forum dedicated to the celebration and promotion of independent cinema. Since its inception, HIFF has attracted more than ten-thousand ticket-holders from across Atlantic Canada. The 7^th Annual HIFF, which takes place April 6, and 9-13, 2013, will feature more than 40 events including film and video screenings, installations, and artist talks featuring filmmakers and video artists from near and far.

New in 2013, HIFF will present a series of daytime panel discussions on topics ranging from The Bright Future of Film as an Art Form, Making Music Videos as Art, Online Distribution for Independent Filmmakers, Shifting Focus: From Shorts, to Features, to Shorts Again, and more.

Presently, HIFF is pleased to announce the Call for Entries for four screening programs at the 2013 festival:

• Atlantic Narrative Screening: Recent narrative short works from Atlantic Canadian writers, producers, or directors.
• WIFT-AT Atlantic Women In Film Screening: Recent short works from women writers, producers, or directors from Atlantic Canada
• Atlantic Experimental Screening: Recent experimental short works from Atlantic Canadian writers, producers, or directors.
• Music Video Showcase: Recent music videos made by Canadian filmmakers.

The deadline for entries is February 15, 2013. Click here for the Submission Form and for more details.

The 2012 Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival was a great success! We are delighted that so many people came out, ate a lot of popcorn, and enjoyed our programming this year.

The festival, just finishing its sixth year, runs with a small budget and little staff but benefits from the kindness of committed funders, many in-kind contributors, remarkable artists, and dedicated volunteers.

I would like to send out thanks to everyone who helped make HIFF 2012 such a wonderful event!

Our Partners: Canadian Heritage, 
the Canada Council for the Arts,
 the Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage, Telefilm Canada, 
the Halifax Regional Municipality, 
the National Film Board of Canada,
 NSCAD University,
 Dalhousie University,
 the University of Kings College,
 Situating Science,
 SIM Video,
 CFAT – the Centre for Art Tapes, 
the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar Society,
 the Toronto Animated Image Society,
 SAW Video, 
Live Art Dance Productions,
 WIFT-­AT – Women in Film and Television Atlantic,
 The Coast – Halifax’s Weekly,
 HM Design, 
the Postman Post-Production Studio,
 Village Sound,
 the Hideout Studios, 
902 Post, 
Digi Boyz,
 PS Atlantic,
 William F White International,
 Deluxe,
 Kodak, and the Bus Stop Theatre. You are all bighearted.

Thanks to the talented (and often clever) folks who introduced each screening during the week, reading the names of those many partners one after the other in front of an audience. Take a bow, and a breath.

Thanks to the many kind and helpful volunteers including Dawn George, David Fulde, Justis Danto-Clancy, Joel Reeves, Ralph Jackson, Carolyn Thomas, Josh Edmonds, Jack Benoit, and Amy Sark. Many thanks also to Evan Brown.

Thanks to our guest artists, Tom Sherman from Syracuse, Paul Clipson from San Francisco, Suzan Vachon from Montreal, and Eva Madden-Hagen from Halifax (but a delightful guest no less). Each of you inspired others countless times this week.

Thank you to our guests Laura Jeanne Lefave from the Canada Council for the Arts in Ottawa, and Lori McCurdy from the Atlantic Office of Telefilm Canada. The generosity of your time and the sharing of your knowledge this week will be much appreciated well into the future.

Thank you to the members of the AFCOOP Curatorial Committee, whose cinematic synapses snap in all the right places: Solomon Nagler (Chairperson), Darrell Varga, Shannon Brownlee, Jennifer VanderBurgh, Jerry White, and Silöen Daley.

Thank you to the members of the AFCOOP Board of Directors, Chaired by Jeff Wheaton (sometimes he lets the whuppet Chair).

Thank you to the Board of Directors of WIFT-AT, as well to Mireille Bourgeois, Tom Elliot, Kristen Atkins, Emily Tector, Gay Hauser, and Paul Caskey. Solid folks to partner-up with, always. We look forward to working with all of you for many years to come.

The graceful and unflappable Clare Waque at the Bus Stop Theatre – thanks for being there!

So many more thanks go out to the staff of AFCOOP, including the very special Martha Cooley and the gifted Chris Spencer-Lowe. Alex Balkam, Technical Coordinator, worked diligent long hours and lined-up 16mm, after DVD, after Super-8, after Digi-Beta, after any number of different video file formats so well – thank you for everything Alex.

Sarah MacLeod, Festival Coordinator, so gracefully balanced festival passes, film canisters, and Facebook in one hand, and hors d’oeuvres, airline tickets, and everything else in the other. You’re amazing! Thank you Sarah.

All of the filmmakers, local and from across the globe, who shared work at the festival this week – this festival would not exist without you. Thanks for contributing, and congratulations!

Finally, thanks audiences – you’re the best!

Greg Morris-Poultney
Executive Director

HIFF 2012′s Closing Reception featuring the band Windom Earle starts at 9:00PM tonight following Tom Sherman’s screening! The fun begins at 9:00PM at the Bus Stop Theatre.  Come join us for nibbles, drinks and great conversation to celebrate the conclusion of another amazing, engaging, and spirited HIFF!

The featured band Windom Earle is a collective of friends and musicians who play a mixture of instrumental new wave synth pop and indie rock. Currently based out of the North End in Halifax, Windom Earle is comprised of Stephan MacLeod (guitar), Brad MacDougal (drums), Matt Pollard (bass), Nathan Pilon (sax), James O’Toole (guitar), and Jen Clarke (synth).

$5 Suggested Donation

The last day of HIFF 2012 kicks off at 12:00PM-Noon at the Bus Stop Theatre with the fantastic “Recent Works from the Toronto Animated Image Society (TAIS)” This program was curated for HIFF by Tais’ Madi Piller.

$5 Students & Seniors/$7 General

Formed in 1984, The Toronto Animated Image Society is a not-for-profit, artist-run organization. Over the past 25 years, TAIS has encouraged the exchange of information, facilities, ideas and aesthetics within Toronto’s animation community through events, screenings, workshops, and art exhibitions. The TAIS membership is made up of independent and professional animators, educators, enthusiasts and artists.

How To Get The Girl (dir. Ashlyn Anstee, 2011, Canada, 2:53 min.)

Ooh La La (dir. Sharon Kate, 2011, Canada, 1 min.)

Wolves (dir. Rafael Sommerhalder, 2011, Switzerland, 3:59 min.) 

The Manifesto Edition (dir. Rune & Erik Eriksson, 2010, Norway, 10 min.)

Sorry Film Not Ready (dir. Janet Perlman, 2010, Canada, 1 min.)

Fitting In | (dir. Taylor Annistte, 2011, Canada, 2:34 min.)

Spirit of the Bluebird (dir. Xstine Cook & Jesse Gouchey, 2011, Canada, 5:45 min.)

Counting Sheep (dir. Neely Goniodsky, 2010, Canada, 5:30 min.)

Paso Doble (dir. Jamie Metzger, 2011, Canada, 4:49 min.)

Fester Goes Fishing (dir. Aaron Long, 2011, Canada, 6:41 min.)

The Socking Truth (dir. Liza Leung, 2011, Canada, 1:59 min.)

URS (dir. Moritz Mayerhofer, 2010, Germany, 10 min.)

Something Left, Something Taken (dir.  Max Prter & Ru Kuwahata, 2011, USA, 10:13 min.)

Tara’s Dream (dir. Patrick Jenkins, 2011, Canada, 1 min.)

At 2:00PM join us for a  rare chance to view in films Halifax from the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar ” The Artist and The Process ” is presented by our friends at CFAT – The Centre for Art Tapes and screens at the Bus Stop Theatre.

$5 Students & Seniors/$8 General

The Robert Flaherty Film Seminar is the longest continuously running film event in North America. Named after Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North, Man of Aran, Louisiana Story) who is considered by many to be the father of documentary film, the seminar began in 1955 when Flaherty’s widow convened a group of filmmakers, critics, curators, musicians, and other film enthusiasts at the Flaherty farm in Vermont. The four films featured are selections from the seminar series over the years.

The Artist and the Computer, Lillian F. Schwartz (USA, 1980, 11 min)

Pixillations, Lillian F. Schwartz  (USA, 1970, 4 min)

U.F.O.s, Lillian F. Schwartz  (USA, 1971, 3 min)

From Zero, Frank Scheffer (Netherlands, 2011, 60 min)

HIFF is delighted to be presenting its first showcase of experimental works by local filmmakers with the 4:00PM program  “Where Love Is… Recent Experimental Works from Atlantic Canada”. This screening will take place at the Bus Stop Theatre.

$5 Students & Seniors/$7 General

From the transgressive to the sentimental, this program presents a diverse collection of innovative experimental work made by artists living in the Maritimes. Found footage is folded, layered and thrown into the wind in Jenna Marks’ Love, Nature and Collage, while Jeremy MacDonald maps out an apocalyptic archive from discarded VHS tapes in Living Artifacts. Slick digital technologies are used in David Clark and Nick Rudnicki’s kinetic dance splash-fest Bodies of Water and Lukas Hug’s animation Where is the Love . These films are followed by fragile 16mm hand-processed landscape films by Phil Wolfe (Excited States) and Herb Theriault (Earthbound). Courtney Kelsey and Zach Barkhouse’s West of Neverfail is a graceful observational portrait of tugboat operators in the Port of Halifax. Greg Jackson continues this exploration of space and place with a fusion of new and old technologies in Halloween 1977. The Program concludes with the jarring, low-fi tour de force Buggery by Winston De Giobbi, a shocking, innovative trash film from an exciting new voice from Nova Scotia’s underground film scene.

Love, Nature and Collage (dir: Jenna Marks, Nova Scotia, 2011, 2:40 min.)

Where is the Love? (dir: Lucas Hug, Nova Scotia, 1:45 min.)

Bodies of Water (dir. David Clark & Nick Rudnicki, 2012, Nova Scotia, 3:30 min.)

Living Artifacts (dir: Jeremy MacDonald, Nova Scotia, 7:50 min.)

Excited States (dir: Phil Wolfe, Nova Scotia, 5:00 min.)

Palimpsest (dir. Danny Boos, Nova Scotia, 5:00 min.)

Earthbound (dir: Herb Theriault, 2012, 2:30 min.)                                                    

West of Neverfail (Dir: Courtney Kelsey & Zach Barkhouse, Nova Scotia, 13:47 min.)

Halloween 1977 (dir: Greg Jackson, Nova Scotia, 2:00 min.)

Buggery (dir. Winston DeGiobbi, Nova Scotia, 2011, 27:21 min.)

HIFF Closing screening is 7:00PM’s “Tom Sherman – Positioning Art in the Culture of Messaging” at the Bus Stop Theatre. Tom Sherman is a naturalist of media environments. His current research examines the erosion of the vitality of art in cultures dominated by messaging (texting, voice messaging, instant messaging, e-mail and social-networking). How does one go about making messages that stick—that have residual effects–in an era of message abundance and disposability? If it is true that the future is all around us in the present moment, then part of the answer is determined through a speculation on the economies of attention, experience and existence. Q&A with the artist will follow this screening, which is presented by CFAT – The Centre for Art Tapes.

$5 Students & Seniors/$8 General

Half/Lives (2001, 8 min.)

Talking to Nature (2002, 3 min.)

World of Strangers (2006, 3 min.)

Michael Swim’s Catch (2011, 10 min.)

Wrestling with language (2010, 2 min.)

Hyperventilation 2011 (2011, 9 min.)

At the end of it all, is HIFF 2012’s Closing Reception featuring the band Windom Earle. The fun begins at 9:00PM at the Bus Stop Theatre.  Come join us for nibblies and drinks to celebrate the conclusion of another amazing, engaging, and spirited HIFF!

Windom Earle is a collective of friends and musicians who play a mixture of instrumental new wave synth pop and indie rock. Currently based out of the North End in Halifax, Windom Earle is comprised of Stephan MacLeod (guitar), Brad MacDougal (drums), Matt Pollard (bass), Nathan Pilon (sax), James O’Toole (guitar), and Jen Clarke (synth).

$5 Suggested Donation.

This Friday at HIFF, we are delighted to present Telefilm Canada’s Investment Analyst Lori McCurdy’s free nuts and bolts discussion about what every emerging producer and filmmaker needs to know before they yell “Roll camera!” This is Business Affairs 101 and although glamorous it ain’t, essential it is!

This session will take place at the NSCAD University Film School 1649 Brunswick Street at 10AM.

Registration for this event is required. To register, please Click Here.

Also at the NSCAD University Film School 1649 Brunswick Street at 1:00PM, video artist Tom Sherman will present a free artist talk entitled “Technology as Language: Cultural Engineering Begets Personal Humans”.

You speak my language (2011, 19 min.), Exclusive Memory #9 (excerpt) (1987, 9:30 min.), and Personal Human (1999, 5 min.) will all be screened.

Tom Sherman is an artist and writer. He works in video, radio and live performance, and writes all manner of texts. He represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 1980. He founded the Media Arts Section of the Canada Council in 1983. His interdisciplinary work has been exhibited and screened internationally, including shows at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art and the Musee d’art contemporain (Montreal). He performs and records with Bernhard Loibner (Vienna) in a duo called Nerve Theory. His most recent book is Before and After the I-Bomb: An Artist in the Information Environment, The Banff Centre Press, 2002. In 2003 he was awarded the Bell Canada Award for excellence in video art. He received the Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Art in 2010. Sherman is a professor in the Department of Transmedia at Syracuse University in central New York, but considers the South Shore of Nova Scotia his home.

This talk is presented by Centre for Art Tapes, AFCOOP, and NSCAD University

On Friday evening at 7:00PM at the Bus Stop Theatre 2203 Gottingen Street, HIFF and Dalhousie University present a program of the work of animator Janie Geiser entitled “Animating the Uncanny” with an introduction by the filmmaker. Tickets: $5 Students & Seniors / $7 General

We hope you enjoy Paul Clipson’s beautiful films during tonight’s presentation “The Works of Paul Clipson”. Based in San Francisco, he has shown his films internationally in various galleries, festivals and performance venues in Belgium, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Japan and Russia, as well as throughout the U.S. He works primarily in film, video and on paper, often collaborating on films, live performances and installations with sound artists and musicians. If you want to see more of his work or learn about his process, Clipson will facilitate a FREE artist talk at NSCAD University Film School on Thursday, April 12 at 10:00AM. Everyone is welcome!

HIFF is delighted to be hosting, for the second year in a row, Laura Jeanne Lefave, Program Officer, Media Arts Section of the Canada Council for the Arts in Ottawa. While in Halifax, Ms. Lefave will present a workshop entitled “Grant Writing for Filmmakers / Media Artists” This special Industry Session will be approximately 2.5 hours and will take place at the NSCAD Film School on Thursday, April 12 at 1:00PM. Registration for this event at hiff.ca is required.

In this session, Laura Jeanne Lefave (Program Officer, Media Arts Section of the Canada Council for the Arts) will offer an outline of the Canada Council for the Arts’ programs relating to video, film, audio, new media and curating media arts. As part of her presentation, she will facilitate an intensive workshop on grant writing, with a focus on grants to individual artists, travel grants, and professional development grants.

To make the most of this opportunity to raise questions and obtain clarifications, it is highly recommended that those attending review, in advance, the available programs and their application processes on the Canada Council for the Arts website.

Each year, HIFF and Live Art Dance Productions team up to present a stunning program of dance on screen. “Movement (R)evolution Africa”  directed by Joan Frosch & Alla Kovgan continues this tradition. This amazingly beautiful film will be presented at the Bus Stop Theatre on Thursday, April 12 at 7:00PM. Tickets: $5 Students & Seniors / $7 General

Each year HIFF puts the call out to regional filmmakers to populate this well-liked program (formerly Atlantic Canada Showcase) of the best shorts from the past year. The 2012 narrative program looks great with recent works from eleven filmmakers from across Atlantic Canada. It’s always a crowd pleaser. This screening will be presented by AFCOOP at the Bus Stop Theatre at 7:00PM on Wednesday, April 11.

Tickets: $5 Students & Seniors / $7 General

Featured Films and Filmmakers:

The Open (dir. Daniel Boos, 2012, 1 min.)
Senior Barista (dir. Jason Levangie, 2010, 7:26 min.)
Those Forgotten (dir. Alyssa Buchanan, 2011, 7:24 min.)
Fiddler’s Reel (Marc Almon, 2011, 17:31 min.)
Supersoldier Academy (dir. Struan Sutherland, 2011, 4 min.)
EDEN (dir. Greg Jackson, 2011, 2 min.)
Sandwich Crazy (dir. Michael Doucette, 2011, 7:52 min.)
Deep End (dir. Brettan Hannam, 2011, 6:17 min.)
First Words (Fabien Melanson, 2011, 7:37 min.) Trailer
Katrina’s New Beau (dir. Michael Ray Fox, 2011, 9:30 min.)
Flush (dir. Megan Wennberg, 2011)

Paul Clipson is the first of HIFF 2012′s visiting artists. Based in San Francisco, he has shown his films internationally in various galleries, festivals and performance venues in Belgium, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Japan and Russia, as well as throughout the U.S. He works primarily in film, video and on paper, often collaborating on films, live performances and installations with sound artists and musicians. This screening, which is also presented by AFCOOP, will take place on Wednesday, April 11 at 9:00PM at the Bus Stop Theatre.

Tickets: $5 Students & Seniors / $7 General

Also as part of HIFF, Clipson will facilitate a FREE artist talk at NSCAD University Film School on Thursday, April 12 at 10:00AM.

Works to be screened at “The Works of Paul Clipson”:

SPHINX ON THE SEINE (2009) Super 8mm, 9 minutes, color/black & white, music by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma
This is a film poem: the beginning of a metaphysical journey, musing on a series of brief, but enigmatic images taken from around the world. These images follow one after the other, but geographically span thousands of miles and large passages of time between each cut. Notions of time, space, and memory collide within a visual fabric of abstractions, landscapes, textures, superimpositions and graphic forms, to suggest the first moments of dream-sleep.

CHORUS (2009/2011) 8 min., Super 8mm, sound, color/B&W, music by Gregg Kowalsky
Three cities become one in this nocturnal journey in which space, color and light pass through the eye of the camera to create thoughts visualized before their conception. Shot in San Francisco, New York and Rotterdam.

TUOLUMNE (2007) Super 8mm, 14 minutes, color/B&W, music by Tarentel
TUOLUMNE (pronounced “Too-ALL-um-ee”) is a study of shapes, rhythms and textures in the natural spaces of Big Sur, the San Francisco Bay Area and Yosemite National Park, filmed in color and black & white, and recording a conversation between figurative waterscapes and abstract light forms: a visual dance with light on the surface of water.

UNION (2010) Super 8mm or 16mm, 14 min. color/B&W, music by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma
A figurative exploration of movement, woven into layers of time, and photographed in natural and nocturnal urban spaces, ambiguous within a confluence of lights, colors and darkness.

COMPOUND EYES No.1-5 (2011) 27 min., Super 8mm, sound, color/B&W, music by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma
A series of short film studies, commissioned by the San Francisco Exploratorium, studying aspects of insect , animal life, viewed within a succession of environments in unexpected ways. Filmed in the Golden Gate Park Botanical Gardens, Academy of Arts & Sciences and San Francisco.

COMPOUND EYES (No. 1) – 7 min. , color/B&W.
A macro-menagerie of natural life-forms are introduced in a forest’s tapestry of earth, water and air: Spiders, slugs, flies, bees, and ants navigate their lives in darkness and light.

ODONATA (No. 2) – 5 min., color.
The expectations of damselflies, skyscrapers and all of the indeterminate space between them.

DIPTERA AND LEPIDOPTERA (No. 3) – 5 min., color.
Flies and butterflies pollinate in a series of beautiful landing maneuvers.

ARANEAE (No. 4) – 5 min., color/B&W.
The fear dream of a spider, a web and a factory.

CARIDEA AND ICHTHYES (No. 5) – 6 min., color.
Fish and crustaceans appear to swim within an ether of natural and unnatural energies.

ANOTHER VOID (2012) 10.5 minutes, Super 8mm film, color, music by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma
This vertiginous study of movement, color and darkness, continues and intensifies an on-going exploration of the act of filming and its relation to music and performance. ANOTHER VOID is an almost entirely in-camera edited film: there are six splices in roughly ten minutes of hundreds of images.

Ten years in making, film among openers at Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival

April 10, 2012, The Chronicle Herald – by Stephen Cooke

Every day, mammoth container ships sail in and out of Halifax Harbour, bringing goods from overseas to load onto trains, or exporting Canadian products to other ports of call.

But while the container trade provides jobs locally, on the docks as well as on the railways, along with the goods we buy on a daily basis, what are the long-term global effects of a mode of transport that has allowed the manufacture of those goods to leave North American shores, and what are the human implications for those directly connected to this mode of commerce? >Click For More

HIFF will present “The Forgotten Space” at 9:00PM Tuesday, April 10 at the Bus Stop Theatre in Halifax (2203 Gottingen Street). Tickets for this screening: $5 Student & Senior / $7 General Admission

Day One at HIFF 2012 begins with the east-coast premier of SAW Video’s “Public Domain” program on Tuesday April 10 at 7:00PM at the Bus Stop Theatre in Halifax (2203 Gottingen Street). A Q&A session with a participating artist will follow this screening. This is a FREE Event!

“Public Domain” originated as a video commissioning project of SAW Video, a media art centre in Ottawa. Seven artists were selected from a national call for proposals to create videos drawn from archival films, photographs and audio recordings held in the collection of Library and Archives Canada. Over the course of a year, SAW Video assisted the artists with the process of researching and collecting materials for use in their work. The completed projects bring a critical perspective to the found materials, reflecting on themes of appropriation, memory, fragility and identity. Public Domain has been touring a number of venues across Canada, the USA, and the UK in 2011-12. Watch The Trailer

During the second part of the evening HIFF will present “The Forgotten Space” at 9:00PM, also at the Bus Stop Theatre in Halifax (2203 Gottingen Street). Tickets for this screening: $5 Student & Senior / $7 General Admission

“An epic view and urgent analysis of the follies of global capitalism, The Forgotten Space is a prime example of essayistic and political cinema. It creates a complex tapestry of powerful images and language.” –Mike Hoolboom

This film is directed by Allan Sekula and Noel Burch. The sea is forgotten until disaster strikes. But perhaps the biggest seagoing disaster is the global supply chain, which – maybe in a more fundamental way than financial speculation – leads the world economy to the abyss. The Forgotten Space follows container cargo aboard ships, barges, trains and trucks, listening to workers, engineers, planners, politicians, and those marginalized by the global transport system. We visit displaced farmers and villagers in Holland and Belgium, underpaid truck drivers in Los Angeles, seafarers aboard mega-ships shuttling between Asia and Europe, and factory workers in China, whose low wages are the fragile key to the whole puzzle. And in Bilbao, we discover the most sophisticated expression of the belief that the maritime economy, and the sea itself, is somehow obsolete. Watch the Trailer

After these two great screenings, stay for drinks and nibblies, and help us ring in the start of a new HIFF at the 2012 Opening Reception. This is a FREE Event – and the fun begins at 10:30PM if you’d like to join us!

We will also celebrate the launch of local professor and author Jerry White’s new book “Revisioning Europe: The Films of John Berger and Alain Tanner” (published by University of Calgary Press).

Why not? Its a Tuesday after all – it’ll be a blast!