Air, Fire, Water, Earth: The Films of Jaimz Asmundson
Curated by Cecilia Araneda, for the WNDX Festival of Moving Image
Screening Wed Oct 1 at 7 PM – Gas Station Theatre
★ Followed by a Q&A with Karen Asmundson and C. Graham Asmundson
Jaimz Asmundson (1981-2024), the filmmaker, was unexpected. Named “Winnipeg’s enfant terrible of transgressive cinema” by Victoria’s legendary Antimatter festival for his commitment to works that were campy and subversive, the artist and filmmaker also built a practice centred on mediating personal relationships. The personal was always present for Asmundson. Even in his earlier works there is the deep and continued participation and collaboration of his family and close friends, and also his pets. This presence not only hints at the artist he would evolve into, but also how he would emerge as one of Winnipeg’s most important cultural workers in the media arts, for community was always central to him.
The son of artists, Asmundson was particularly influenced by his father C. Graham Asmundson’s trajectory. Graham described his working process to his son from early childhood as being a “conduit for an unseen magical force,” and this left a deep impression on the child Asmundson was at the time and the artist he would eventually become as an adult. In this way, transgressive art was handed down to Asmundson like a family business – but this served only as a starting point.
In 2006, several years after he emerged as an artist at age 18 with the iconic 1999 film Attack of the 50 Foot Chihuahuas From Outer Space!, Asmundson’s filmmaking practice would be transformed by the WNDX One Take Super-8 Event. The Event, which restricts the filmmaking process in a dogme-like manner to impose super-8 home movie aesthetics and which does not permit post-production editing, emerged in the mid to late aughts as the most influential production incubators of its kind in Winnipeg. Asmundson would develop a special affinity for it. Works created for the One Take, often co-directed by his wife Karen Asmundson or starting her as a main performer, include Drawing Genesis (2006), SLEEP (2008), Goths! On the Bus! (2010), and Citizens Against Basswood (2012). Goths! On the Bus! would additionally feature a musical collaboration between Jaimz and Karen that would hint at their professional music duo project, Ghost Twin, to come in future years.
The two major works that Asmundson worked towards throughout his career were The Magus (2011), a portrait of his artist father C. Graham Asmundson that emerged from the process of making Drawing Genesis; and Echoes (2015), an act of memory processing in response to the death of Asmundson’s mother, poet Carol Barton, from cancer a few years prior.
Much like the Qabalistic correspondences Asmundson was known to evoke in his creation process, the film works of Jaimz Asmundson ultimately cast a connection between the earthly world and the divine, and what giveth and what taketh away.
Air, Fire, Water, Earth: The Films of Jaimz Asmundson
Program duration: 85 mins
Attack of the 50 Foot Chihuahuas From Outer Space!
Jaimz Asmundson | Manitoba
8:20 mins, digital file, 1999
A group of bored, giant Chihuahuas land on Earth and lead a demented war against a young goth and his friends by waiting around every corner and pissing on them every chance they get.
Carpet Cleaners
Jaimz Asmundson | Manitoba
25:49 mins, digital file, 2002
Amerika, Zed and Kyle are good friends until Trasha enters the frame, cutting Kyle off from his friends. Amerika and Zed aim to free Kyle by enlisting the aid of the Sappho Carpet Cleaners for some wet work, but the plan goes awry when the tables are turned. With a special appearance by Shawna Dempsey & Lorri Millan.
The Phantom of the Cinematheque
Jaimz Asmundson | Manitoba
3:24 mins, digital file, 2008
On the 25th anniversary of his employment, Dave Barber, the visionary-workaholic programmer of Winnipeg’s beloved Cinematheque, dies tragically in an avalanche of VHS tapes while working late to finish the programming calendar. His workaholic ghost returns to finish the calendar and haunt Cinematheque by night. Featuring narration by Matthew Rankin.
SLEEP
Jaimz Asmundson | Manitoba
1:13 mins, digital file, 2008
Asmundson’s first attempt at a One Take film in 2008 was torn to shreds by the camera he’d borrowed. Left with no alternative, Asmundson made Sleep while he slept, using the open exposure setting on his new Bauer camera, with no light except for what spilled in through the window. Eight hours of sleep is compressed into 20 seconds. But this is only the beginning.
Goths! One the Bus!
Karen Asmundson, Jaimz Asmundson | Manitoba
3:20 mins, digital file, 2010
A couple of uber-goths ride the public transit to go to the mall to buy more lipstick. Shot in sequence and in one take for the 2009 WNDX One Take Super 8 Event.
Citizens Against Basswood
Karen Asmundson, Jaimz Asmundson | Manitoba
3:23 mins, digital file, 2011
Found audio of concerned citizen(s) rallying to prevent the nuisance of new trees scheduled to be planted on their block in the 1980s. Produced for the 2011 WNDX One Take Super 8 Event.
Kanashibara
Jaimz Asmundson | Manitoba
11:11 mins, digital file, 2007
Following the death of his girlfriend in a car accident, a man attempts to maintain his grip on sanity. Plagued with interruptions from terrifying bouts of sleep paralysis, his sense of the real and the illusory world begins to blur when he is visited nightly by hallucinations in the form of a Succubus.
Plastic Heart
Jaimz Asmundson | Manitoba
4:50 mins, digital file, 2017
A peek into the underground after hours goths-only gym, Sweat+Despair, that is occupied by netherworld fitness instructors and haunted by ghosts and ghouls. A music video for Plastic Heart, by Ghost Twin.
ephemeros
Jaimz Asmundson | Manitoba
2:35 mins, digital file, 2009
The positive phototaxis of ephemeral forces in nature.
Drawing Genesis
Jaimz Asmundson | Manitoba
3:01 mins, digital file, 2006
Drawing Genesis is a saturated visual compendium that traces C. Graham Asmundson’s performative gestures and visual residue. With the use of time lapse, still frames, lens obstruction, occult symbolism, subliminal imagery and blatant queer references, the film presents a ritual of artistic inspiration that invokes man’s primal forces. Created for the 2006 WNDX One Take Super 8 Event.
The Magus
Jaimz Asmundson | Manitoba
12:00 mins, digital file, 2011
The Magus explores the root of artistic creation. The film documents the work of C. Graham Asmundson, the filmmaker’s father, ritualistically birthing, destroying and resurrecting the work, manifesting the Asmundsons’ shared personal exploration of occult ceremonies and experiences. The father/son team explore mind-altered states and invoke unnatural resurrections; where unforeseen demons and other spiritual forces are often released.
Echoes
Jaimz Asmundson | Manitoba
6:00 mins, digital file, 2015
Structured around the recollection of a premonitory dream, fragmented memories from the period leading up to the death of the filmmaker’s mother, Carol Barton, were projected on to natural textures and surfaces, then re-photographed, composited and processed until the memories became abstracted representations of the evolution, degradation and disintegration of memory and the physical self.