A presentation of my work in Winnipeg is a rare thing.
Since 2006, I’ve been Executive Director of the Winnipeg Film Group, which has the Winnipeg Cinematheque as its presentation centre, and I’m also a programmer for the WNDX Festival. Not selecting your own work in a context that excludes the work of others is a basic principle of programming, and so this largely closes Winnipeg to me.
Winnipeg is a very small city, and there just isn’t a lot of opportunity for local filmmakers. My friend Noam Gonick says this is what makes Winnipeg such an interesting place to create – because those more commercially inclined move elsewhere out of necessity. And what’s left, is a grouping of artists who do not play by any set of pre-determined rules.
And so it was a surprise when Mike Petkau Falk, the Artistic Director of the West End Cultural Centre, asked me to perform a show Wed Apr 6 @ 8 PM with local musician Demetra, as part of its Melodies on Mercredi series. The West End Cultural Centre, as Winnipeggers know, is all about the music.
For the show, Demetra and I will each be doing a set of our own work, and we’ll be presenting a new collaboration – Memory : Recollected is a new 16 mm film performance I’m currently creating for this show, and Demetra is working on music to pair with it.
This show will also provide me the opportunity to screen Imprint and What Comes Between, films that have never been shown publicly in Winnipeg before.