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A rich, visual tapestry of unrequited desire.

Kaspar is drowning. Several people who want to save him rush forward. Some of them are filled with good will, others are pumped up with pretentiousness. They are all equally inefficient in this satirical animated film about public spiritedness.

The political emotions of the butcher shop are discussed within the codes of Catholicism. Purging Catholic guilt, sins of the flesh, and flesh eating. The confessions of a butcher gone astray. An ambiguous layering of images, one is not sure whether the confessor is human or a pig, or if the priest is a butcher.

Cartouche is the third part of an unfinished four-part series (Narratives of Egypt) by Cartmell. It’s an audio-visual tombstone for his friend Cathy (Ca-thy, Ca-rtouche) whose pyramidical face is offered in between glimpses of Egypt and whaling and sex.

You Take Care Now, an early student film, is a perfect exemplar of Ann Marie Fleming's idiosyncratic vision and stands as one of her signature works. Made on 16mm, and incorporating found footage, original material, animation, and processed images (Vancouver's groundbreaking avant-garde cinema of the 1970s is a decided influence here), Fleming's film offers a visually dazzling, emotionally wrenching, oddly humorous account of two profound personal traumas.

An animated film about the appropriateness of new technology and its effects on people. The case in point revolves around a bank whose human tellers find themselves unemployed when they are replaced by electronic tellers. A mild-mannered client of the bank is overwhelmed and humiliated by his first encounter with the dispassionate computer.

An artist’s hectic day-to-day life revolves around the telephone, straight out of the artist's drawing board. In less than five minutes, we've experienced a day jam-packed with little incidents.

From 1968-1984, 60 minutes worth of history, on Super 8 film, were recorded. Out of this footage there were forty minutes of weddings and in each case it was the bridge that was related to our family. In reviewing this public record of interpreted events, I found myself living within memories of events that could not be seen. While watching these familiar faces represented in this official history, I recalled other versions of the events recorded, as well as other events that didn't get recorded but had occurred at the same time. I began to ask what else was being recorded here and whose histories were these images claiming to represent?

This striking documentary pays tribute to the importance of women farmers to the agricultural economy, and recognizes the invisible subsidy their labor provides to consumers.

The song “Cadet Rousselle”, illustrated with drawings by Jean Dallaire and sung by Félix Leclerc.

A scientific report about a bizarre, new creature and its life cycle, told from a child's point of view. On one level it is amusing, on another, the new creature can be seen as a symbol of healing the fragmentation of living with and within different worlds.

These were the first vivisection videos taken by an organization who wants to stop animal experiments. In 1981 Lifeforce Founder Peter Hamilton and camera person Chas Leckie travelled to numerous research laboratories throughout Canada. The goal was to expose the secretive experiments on animals. The public taxpayers and donors have a right to know.

During the long, dry season in the south of Togo, in West Africa, a woman's day began at 1:00 a.m. with an eight-hour trek for water. Unbeknownst to her, the water so arduously collected was contaminated. Water for Tonoumassé shows the efforts of a group of villagers to get clean water by drilling a well nearby. It chronicles the success of this project in which women played a key role. To the surprise of the village men, the women were capable of making decisions, handling money, and learning the mechanics of keeping the pump in working order. We share their joy as they celebrate when water pours forth.By taking responsibility, these women have transformed daily life, both for themselves and their families. They are able to care for their children better, and have more time to grow food. This vivid example of a development project that works is an excellent resource for exploring issues relating to women's roles in developing countries.

It is a tough time for gays and lesbians. There seems to be a spell on these minorities, an evil spell, despite which life must go on. This tape, tells a straight forward story (which in reality is an allegory) about two lesbians and their attempt to cure themselves of the "spell". They are aided by a gay man (which allows for comments on the ongoing rivalry between gays and lesbians), and they find their salvation in the hands of a benevolent dancer/witch in Mexico.

The excitement and traumas of two girls turn into 60 seconds of huffing and puffing with computer animated explosions, blithely representing the hectic pace of a woman's middle years. Calmly, a serene white-haired woman emerges from this multi-layered explosion. She chats with her old friend (who is now a bag lady with a cellular phone) about survival and getting older.

Legendary Brazilian composer and singer Antônio Carlos Jobim delivers a masterful performance at the world famous Montreal Jazz Festival in July 1986.

A TV movie sequence is repeated in slow motion: the sound gradually gets out of sync with the image. The point moves on the soundtrack while the viewer anticipates the meeting of the image and sound.

An upbeat, positive film about a group of women dealing with mid-life and menopause. The women come from a wide range of backgrounds, careers and lifestyles. Some are married; some are divorced. Interviews alternate with sequences showing the women both at home and in the workplace. Based on the women's experiences, the film effectively dispels popular myths and fears about life during and after menopause.

Many years ago there was a popular song suggesting that each time it rained it rained pennies from heaven. Today's reality is that when it rains, it rains acid from heaven. By re-enacting a case study of a person whose income was cut off as a direct result of acid rain, this presentation provides, in laymen's terms, some basic information about this little-known form of pollution.

Tribute to her radical mother’s activism and solidarity.

A short study of the impossible relationship between a camera and a tree.

The evocative images in this film stimulate associations between visual and tactile information. Vivid close-ups of sensuous activities such as licking a popsicle, stroking a beard and walking barefoot in the grass encourage the viewer to explore the tactile properties of objects using different parts of the body. The sound track consists of music without words, which provides pacing and highlights the nature of different sensory experiences.

This short addresses art and men … Artists impose their view and manipulate reality (not always a happy thing for their subjects). Men objectify women (as a young woman, I was uncomfortable being the object of their gaze)

Canadian Poet Joe Rosenblatt's reading his poem of the same name along with evocations of the poem's landscape. Using the metaphoric terrain of his allusions we draw closer to the imaginative leaps that come to light.

This feature documentary profiles poet Milton Acorn, who left his home in Prince Edward Island in the late 1940s to earn his living as an itinerant carpenter, and wound up in Toronto as one of Canada's most highly regarded poets and one of its most outrageous literary figures. Dubbed "The People's Poet" by fellow poets, he won the Governor General's Literary Award in 1975. Burned out by personal crises, Acorn moved back to Charlottetown in 1981. This film, directed by a P.E.I. filmmaker, brings out Acorn's wit, love of nature, unorthodox political views, and sometimes infuriating personal contradictions.

A TV gossip columnist’s obsessive pursuit of the final months of a TV weather reporter’s affair with a powerful, socially prominent married man.

An elderly Caribbean man moves to Eastern Canada but struggles with isolation and addiction when he gets there.

A dark film that explores images of survival, reproduction and death.

Five deals with questions of identity and self-perception, highlighting the inherent difficulties (impossibility?) of expressing or communicating such. Four individuals appear alternatively : although they seem to be describing someone, it is not always clear to whom each is referring.

An encounter at a zoo between people and gorillas. The video blurs the relationship between the observer and the observed; the bias that people place upon an animal that has such human characteristics; the institutionalization of animals for our cultivation and illumination.

A Cartoon by Dan Collins

A certain combination of objects can warp a person for life. "This is my story." -R.A.

Sulfur dioxide and acidic precipitation have added stress to the forest ecosystem and is the unofficial cause of the decline of the Sugar Maple. This is the lamentation of a world slipping away. A farm here, a person there.

Before Keltie came along, the women in her family removed their facial hair and told no one. Keltie is proud of her beard and tells her story to us in this single-take film.

Employing a simple three-part structure, “PATH” is about personal experience and the interpretation of that experience. Both humorous and serious, the film is a cross-Toronto exploration, expansively taking in a wide variety of people, events and situations. In creating a dynamic web of associations, “PATH” invites participation in the act of perception.

Lust, violation and contamination intersect and cause, through the window, the Chernobyl disasters, AIDS and rape. The sound, taken from the radio (shortwave), an Italian B-movie and an advertisement for Chanel is a real cacophony behind which we can see the ultimate profanation.

Waldorf education overview from the perspective of the Toronto Waldorf School.

A day in the life of a floating head.

Original music by David Van Tieghan punctuates the breathtaking movement of the dancers as they draw us into the dialogue that can only be described as La La La Human Sex. Bernar Hebert has directed this beautifully crafted document.

A group of infants with electric guitars compose a shocking violent punk rock song which surprises, saddens and offends their mothers.

A "subversive engagement with documentary convention" centered on the production of Peter Greenaway's film A Zed and Two Noughts.

Through 4 moving portraits, this short documentary sheds light on the tragedy of caregiver stress and elder abuse. The abuse takes many forms, ranging from wilful neglect and financial exploitation to physical assault. The film portrays the emotional complexity of family relationships that can lead to abuse of the elderly, the anguish and isolation of its victims, and the need for community understanding and support.

A television special commemorating the 15th anniversary of Toronto's Citytv.

"I placed a medallion on the sidewalk and filmed whoever happened along to pick it up. The film is about not being able to have control over the event, and the acceptance of this fact. This is the first film in my Performance Trilogy, a series of films which also include Snow Search and Making a Scene." (MD)

Margaret Peterson is a retired painter, now living in Victoria, British Columbia, where this production was shot. The film explores the psyche of the painter through her paintings, through interviews, through an interpretive commentary by the director of the film, and the improvised riffs of a saxophone soloist. The film is a scrapbook of ideas, memories, opinions, interpretations and paintings that render the artist eventful rather than biographical. Beyond the Sun reveals a character very much attracted to primitive religion and a painter drawn to colour abstraction, both qualities typical of the 'beat' movement of the 1940s and 50s.

Steve Reinke ironically adopts the position of a mainstream documentary filmmaker making a film tracing the slow death of a person with AIDS. The first of Reinke's The Hundred Videos project.

A squared multiplication. Made with Telidon, a Canadian videotex system that was in use in the 1980s. Although its primary function was to transmit textual and illustrative information, this system has been used by a number of Canadian artists as a creative tool to make graphic or video work. These films possess the rudimentary and primitive charm of the beginnings of the digital image era.

Set in a Referendum torn Quebec between two languages, between two cities drawn between two cultures, a young immigrant tries to find his way while simultaneously dealing with the loss of his own father.

Snow Search finds four performers searching for each other, each carrying one quarter of a photographic portrait of Michael Snow. A lyrical exploration through the city and an homage to Michael Snow.

A young Mother dying of cancer, her children, husband and close friends talk about it with filmmakers Bronwen Wallace and Chris Wynott on a beautiful autumn day in Eastern Ontario countryside. Sometimes uncomfortably honest and forthright with comic moments.

Documentary focused on Christmas tree production in Rivière-du-Portage, New Brunswick.

"The intention of Talk, Kids was to videograph the conversations of four young children during an entire day in the country, and then choose the most memorable events for the final edit. In reviewing the footage afterwards, we discovered that the most memorable events were the interactions of the children with the off-camera adults. We therefore put together a tape that illustrates children's fragile and often stubborn re-interpretation of what adults expect of them. The tape is embroidered with vignettes (filmed on Super-8 as home-movies) of the same children at play." -B.A.

A disembodied video eye floats over the road, from side to side, exterior to interior, watching, waiting, moving inevitably ahead.

The bitterness of an uncommunicative couple manifests itself over the course of an evening's television viewing. Unable to address the issues which threaten their relationship directly, the couple seethe and stew against a telling aural backdrop of television commercials and entertainment, directing cynical asides about each other's faults to the viewers. In the role of confidante, the viewer is given the uneasy task of bearing witness to their relationship's inevitable destruction.