the 8 fest schedule

January 27-January 29, 2012

Download the full catalogue here.

Friday, January 27

7pm Milena Gierke: Depuis que je me souviens / Since I can remember

9pm ZINGER: Volume III (more tales from the Funnel) curated by Milada Kovacova

11pm Bagerooooo, five! Part 1 a survey of recent films

Saturday, January 28

2-5pm Introduction to 8mm Filmmaking - workshop led by John Kneller (preregistration required)

4pm Artist’s Talk by Milena Gierke * at the Goethe Institut, 100 University Avenue, 2nd floor (at King Street West)

7pm FIRST FILMS / even filmmakers start small curated by Milada Kovacova

9pm Notes from Nowhere: Super Winnipeg Super 8 curated by Shawna Dempsey & Lorri Millan (in person!)

11pm Adventures in Animationland new works by filmmakers and visual artists

Sunday, January 29

7pm Bush Films presented by the Home Movie History Project

9pm Bagerooooo, five! Part 2 survey of recent films

All events (except *) at:

Trash Palace, 89-B Niagara Street (Just west of Bathurst)

Tickets $5 per event/$25 festival pass

more info: the8fest (at) gmail.com

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Friday, January 27 2012 7pm

Milena Gierke : Depuis que je me souviens / Since I can remember Milena Gierke in person!

Co-presented with Goethe-Institut Toronto

The 2012 8 fest is proud to present a solo program by Berlin-based filmmaker Milena Gierke. Her appearance is made possible thanks to generous support from the Goethe-Institut Toronto.

Focusing her camera on singular details and objects within landscapes and the lived world around her, Gierke offers impressionistic silent in-camera motion paintings of time and place. Gierke has likened the “fragility” of Super 8 to water colors, noting that “each brushstroke [remains] visible and permanent....I am strongly attracted to the unique visual qualities of everyday existence, and my films are my means of drawing attention to that which fascinates me.” Tonight’s program will be projected on Super 8 by the filmmaker with brief pauses between films.

Friday, January 27 2012 9pm

ZINGER: Volume III (more tales from the Funnel) curated by Milada Kovacova

sponsored by the Art Gallery of York University

ZINGER : Volume III (more tales from the Funnel) continues the unearthing of films from the archives of the Funnel’s Distribution Catalogue. Infamous in the history of the small-gauge film community, The Funnel Experimental Film Theatre cultivated a lot of Super 8 filmmaking in its day, even actively encouraging emerging artists to exhibit publicly on their premises. This was the 80’s, the era of the post punk, new music scene where vim and vigor resonated in Toronto’s Queen Street West Art Scene. ZINGER: Volume III gravitates towards the vibrancy of the Art Scene era and these films were culled predominantly from artists active during the 80’s scene, whose artistic practice enveloped many fronts including but not exclusively filmmaking. Featuring films by John Porter, Bruce LaBruce + Anne MacLean, Edie Steiner, FASTWURMS, Sandra Meigs and Eldon Garnet.

Please click here for an in-depth article on the Funnel by Blaine Allen.

Friday, January 27 2012 11pm

Bagerooooo, five! Part 1 recent small-gauge filmmaking!

sponsored by FADO Performance Art Centre

The 8 fest received enough submissions this year that we again decided to split our yearly Bageroo screening, devoted to this year’s highlights, into two programmes. These films were selected from an international call for recent Super 8 and Regular 8 films. Films by Zoë Heyn-Jones, caleb miller, Albert Trivino Masso, Aubrey Reeves, Leslie Supnet, Jason Halprin, Stephen Broomer and Christopher Boyne. Augmenting the selection of recent work are two commissioned works by Canadian artists Thirza Cuthand and Stefan St. Laurent, as well as a leadoff film-related performance by Halifax-based artist Eleanor King.

Saturday, January 28 2012 2-5pm

Introduction to 8mm Filmmaking - $25

Workshop led by John Kneller (preregistration required)

sponsored by LIFT

8mm film - or 'regular 8' – is not just Super 8's crazy uncle: it's the original 'small gauge' format, and it's still going strong. In this workshop, local filmmaker John Kneller will give you a comprehensive introduction to 8mm filmmaking. You'll get hands-on practice loading the 8mm camera and 'flipping' the film. Basic principles of camera operation, such as setting exposure and focusing, will be discussed. Learn how to apply techniques like multiple pass, single frame and 'unslit' projection; find out how to splice film and operate an 8mm projector. Get information on where to buy and process film. And work with John to make a film that will be processed overnight for showing on Sunday evening. Beginner and experienced filmmakers alike will find this workshop informative and inspiring.

Capacity: 8-10

* Space is limited; please register in advance by email (pending availability, signup will also be offered during the festival on Jan 28). Please email us at the8fest (at) gmail.com with your name and phone number – and 'WORKSHOP' in the subject line. Please note that there is a $25.00 fee for participation.

Saturday, January 28 2012 4pm

Join us Saturday at 4pm for Milena Gierke’s Artist Talk at the Goethe Institut, 100 University Avenue, 2nd floor (at King Street West).

Saturday, January 28 2012 7pm

FIRST FILMS / even filmmakers start small, curated by Milada Kovacova

sponsored by Images Festival

Cinema has radically changed our lives since the 1890’s. Just as filmmakers start small, even a young novice as old as 7 years may begin their foray into movie making engaging the use of small-gauge film. FIRST FILMS / even filmmakers start small reflects on the impetus of artists to make movies be it for enjoyment, entertainment, educational purposes, or merely for pure pleasure. There is something refreshing as first time filmmakers freely explore the medium, sometimes disregarding formulaic cinematic constructs. Equally interesting is what these movies reflect back as the starting point for their exploration. FIRST FILMS / even filmmakers start small is a mixed bag of small-gauge films showcasing works made by children, teenagers, and young adults inspired by Hollywood, Science fiction, B-Movies, camp, comedy to name a few. Featuring rarely screened works by Brett Bell, Keith Cole, Pixie Cram, Kevin and John Creson, Jason Ebanks, Chris Gehman + Sean Ryan, Graham Hollings, Jeannie Mah, Louise Noguchi, Madi Piller, Blaine Speigel + Rob Swartz, Lisa Steele and Dot Tuer.

Saturday, January 28 2012 9pm

Notes from Nowhere: Super Winnipeg Super 8 curated by Shawna Dempsey & Lorri Millan (in person!)

sponsored by Trinity Square Video

Winnipeg is an impoverished city, famous for its frigid winters and its artists. Sustained by cheap studio rent and fantastic thrift-store finds, the creative class thrives in the geographic centre of North America. There is very little cool factor to living in the middle of nowhere, so most of us just keep out heads down, get our work done, and try to keep the tips of our ears from freezing. Very little changes in Winnipeg.

Perhaps that is what makes the archaic technology of Super 8 neither outré nor hip. It simply is: a vehicle for ideas, images and experimentation. Friends come together to make something. It doesn’t cost very much. Like Ed Ackerman, you can even develop your own footage in the kitchen sink. Whether the subject matter is, like Deco Dawson’s, seemingly hundred-year-old gestural studies or, like Jaimz & Karen Asmundson’s, an unselfconsciously goofy celebration of place, the particulars of the form continue to enamour. Super 8 looks like memory and is similarly malleable. Winnipeg filmmakers continue to use it to create works that seem to exist outside of time, that reference an earlier time or that simply mark time with chemical collisions and light. Films by Robert Pasternak, Mike Maryniuk, Jaimz & Karen Asmundson, Noam Gonick, Deco Dawson, Heidi Phillips and Ed Ackerman.

Saturday, January 28 2012 11pm

Adventures in Animationland new works by filmmakers & visual artists

Co-presented with the Toronto Animated Image Society

For our 2012 edition, the 8 Fest decided to focus on animation for its hands-on methods of bringing life to still images, or as a means of conveying what can only be expressed by abstracting shapes and bodies, or as a vocabulary for measuring tensions between the static and the kinetic. In addition to the works received as submissions, the 8 fest has commissioned new animated works by visual artists already working with film and visual artists whose bodies of work seriously implied moving pictures. Films by Tara Nelson, Robbie Land, Chloe Reyes, Leslie Supnet, Kate Wilson, Julie Voyce, Stephen Broomer, Daryl Vocat, Tanya Read, and Allyson Mitchell + Deirdre Logue.

Sunday, January 29 2012 7pm

Bush Films

Presented by the Home Movie History Project

Home movies of hunting, fishing and working in the great Canadian bush.

By the later 50’s home movie equipment was cheap enough that working men and women began to cart their camera gear into the bush to document their enjoyment of woodcraft, sport and work on the land. From Nova Scotia, Ontario and BC, we present images of life set in what Canadians have most often just called the bush.

Rock blasts and log booms. Stubbies, cigs and firearms. Frozen lakes and tall mountains. Orange vests and caps. Evergreens and birch. Bush planes and back roads. In this world of rock, snow and stunning fall colours, the man’s man culture of rural Canada is played out for the camera by bold men and a few still bolder women.

Sunday, January 29 2012 9pm

Bagerooooo, five! Part 2 recent small-gauge filmmaking!

sponsored by the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre

Part two of our exciting new works show closes out this year's screenings! These films were selected from an international call for recent small gauge films. Films by Dagie Brundert, Amanda Dawn Christie, Hayley Elliot, Martin Reis, Frank Biesendorfer, Chris Kennedy, Jonathan Culp, Jason Halprin, Rick Bahto, Aaron Zeghers, Christine Lucy Latimer, Paul Clipson, James Noel, Charles Officer and Adam Garnet Jones.

the 8 fest is made possible through the generous support of:

The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council and the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council as well as our sponsors and community partners.