Derek May

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen

Don Owen, Donald Brittain

Leonard Cohen, Donald Brittain

A 1964 documentary portrait of Cohen in his pre-musician days as a poet and stand-up comedian.

Notes for a Film About Donna & Gail

Don Owen

Michèle Chicoine, Jackie Burroughs

The story of two young women who go to the city to work in a dress factory, and who share a room to ease their expenses and their loneliness. The film shows the currents that brought them together and the facets of their natures that first made them seem compatible but eventually drove them apart. Their story reflects, to a degree, the situation of anyone who has ever shared the life of another.

Pandora

Derek May

Experimental filmmaker and color cameraman here collaborate in a surrealistic retelling of the old myth. But this is a dream fantasy with no real parallel to Pandora, replete with striking symbols where everything is larger than life--the silhouetted image of a mother and an infant, the profiled view of two sculptured heads spouting smoke and fire.

Angel

Derek May

Leonard Cohen

In this short film, a young man, a girl and a dog attempt to fly with wings more symbolic than practical.

The Ernie Game

Don Owen

Alexis Kanner, Judith Gault

This fictional feature follows a twenty-something man who is struggling to define his position in the world in early adulthood. He has left their parents' home but still has not made an home of his own. Our protagonist’s alienation is palpable; for him life is a game, not because he chooses to make it so, but because he is unable to make anything more of it. But for those who befriend him and eventually turn him loose again, his game is not enough.

Pictures from the 1930's

Derek May

A film based on the exhibition organized by the National Gallery that toured Canada in 1975. The paintings are juxtaposed with black-and-white newsreel footage of the more obvious social realities during the years of the Depression. The film shows that the artists of the day, in spite of economic setbacks, produced an inspired body of work.

Krzysztof Wodiczko: Projections

Derek May

This full-length documentary examines the work of Krzysztof Wodiczko, an artist who has taken his art out of museums to project it onto the sides of buildings. The film explores Wodiczko’s philosophy of art as social contract and shows examples of his provocative work, which has lit up walls from London's Trafalgar Square to Zion Square in Jerusalem.