The Idea of North is part filmed docudrama, part fantasy, part forerunner of music television. Based on the radio play by Glenn Gould, North’s montage of words, images and music tells a universal story of the quest for our last frontier. A young man boards a train going North. It is a real train on a scheduled run, yet also a train of mind and mythology. As the journey unfolds, he chats with a seasoned guide, and passes his time in reading, watching the rugged landscape and speculating about his fellow travelers. He encounters four of them in his imagination, sharing their memories and the challenges that transformed their lives in the North.
Tag: CANADA
Bob is an aging thief who has seen better days and is battling both an addiction to heroin and a growing gambling problem. But he still thinks he has one more big score in him and plots a massive heist of a Monte Carlo casino. In order to pull off the theft, he’ll need an amazing team of accomplices and will have to outwit his nemesis, the local police chief. The chief knows that Bob is up to something, but can he figure it out before Bob makes off with millions?
?O, Zoo! (The Making of a Fiction Film) is ostensibly about the making of Peter Greenaway’s feature film, A Zed and Two Noughts, the production of which Phil Hoffman was invited to the Netherlands to observe. However, Hoffman’s film actually concerns the terms and conditions under which it was itself made. In part, the film translates actuality and memory into invention and fiction in which the symbolic father is cast as a real ancestor. Hoffman rewrites the Canadian documentary tradition into a family memory and romance.
Passing Through/Torn Formations is a wide open ramble through the labyrinth of memory… The film deals with the life and history of Philip Hoffman’s Czech-born mother and her family, as presented as a kind of polyphonic recitation of words, of images and of sounds.
Through a meaningful hail of bullets, flying glass and bloodshed, this animated film poses many profound questions about watching and responding to TV violence. Its images and sounds are disturbing and provocative, forcing viewers to examine what, why and how they watch TV, and to examine the effects of television violence on themselves and others.
This animated film is based on an old Persian parable. The inhabitants of a village learn to overcome their fear of the unknown. The benefit of their new-found knowledge is demonstrated. The black-and-white images are reminiscent of German wood-cuts. No dialogue.
Elliot is a loser who robbed a bank and landed in jail after being setup by his girlfriend. As the new guy, Elliot is considered fresh meat and encounters inmates trying to make him their own at every turn.