On Friday night the $100 Film Festival welcomed Alexandre Larose as part of their festival featured retrospective. Larose has been making experimental films since his graduation from engineering school in 2001. He has since attended Concordia University to expand on his filmic techniques. Larose was welcomed to give a presentation on the process of his filmmaking.

Larose in contrast to narrative filmmakers, almost at times relies on a happy accident and because of the nature of his films this works for him. Larose often times, as part of his creative process is left to create ways in which the camera can capture the new and strange. For his film Ville Marie (2006- …) Larose and a long time collaborator had to create an apparatus in which could with stand having a camera thrown off a multi-story building. For Ville Marie the process of creating this apparatus is what has shaped the filmic narrative. Ville Marie was conceptualized as a sense of falling, and losing ones self within that space, a dream Larose recalls with slight confusion.

For Artifices #1 (2008), also shown Friday night, along with the rest of Larose’s film collection, the idea of time-delayed images is what propels the film. Larose was left to create an apparatus in which, had to physically move through space and be portable and still able to capture images on a time delay. The result for Artifices #1 is streaks of light across a black screen. By capturing cars driving within a tunnel and a apparatus which could physically change the image, by rotating the camera Larose creates an almost tunnel like effect. Accompanied by the almost eerie sound of driving through a tunnel the film maintains a strange quality, which the image becomes more intense, while the sound stays the same and the audience is left to escape somewhere in the tunnel itself within a stream of light.

Brouillard (2010) the most recent film by Larose, is an almost other worldly experiment with filmmaking. Larose attached a camera to himself and simply walked along a path, starting on a highway, walking through his parent’s house, outside of Quebec and finally arriving at a lake. Larose completed this journey almost 15 times, and once finished he layered the images on top of each other, where they were able to maintain a ghost like quality about them. The images do not show clearly Larose’s journey through space, but at time are able to allude to the journey, the audience is never sure which part they are seeing, the film simply moves through space. Supplemented by a simple sound track of the journey itself the over all affect is supernatural.

“The $100 is a rad, unique, bizarre and totally sweet peep into what experimental cinema actually looks like. Totally worth attending – all three days!

I’ve never been so fascinating by a giant, stereoscopic vagina! The $100 Film Fest gets better every year.

Really though, I love the $100 film fest… it’s probably my favorite film fest in the city.”

Caitlind Brown

By David McGregor

Alex Rogalski’s B. Bison is one of the stand out films at this years $100 film festival.  Right from the opening frames, Rogalski’s name in large block letters, it recalls the work of Bruce Conner and his famous A Movie (1958).  Rogalski, like Conner, uses footage that is historically informed (archival or found footage) to construct an entirely new and articulate film.

B. Bison begins with a series of shots focusing on words in a dictionary followed by footage of bison. The bison footage that is used originates from the work of Eadweard Muybridge, a 19^th century scientist who experimented with early motion picture technology.  B. Bison proceeds as a whimsical experiment with the kinetic nature of the Muybridge frames, toying with their direction, speed and tone reversal.

The result is a film that explores the subjects texture and aesthetic qualities while managing to build a steadily progressing sequence of images.  Not to mention, there is something very funny about Rogalski’s progressive build to a stampede.

“In Calgary I walked a lot, through the downtown grid of streets, passing policemen in black cowboy hats, looking at the big sky that everyone in the east had told me about.  It was early March, and the ice was breaking up along the Glenbow River.

I roamed around with my camera – an old 35mm point and shoot – photographing what struck me as beautiful or unusual, curious if the light was different in the west.  Suddenly there was that terrible feeling of isolation that comes from this habit of wandering alone – unfamiliar streets, no true destination.  I picked up a map and decided to seek out the artist-run centres and galleries that were familiar territory to me.  I stopped in at Ed Video and introduced myself as coming from Ottawa and from SAW Video.  I immediately felt a temporary sense of place, like an anchor.

The festival was a welcoming place, too.  I was impressed by the large number of people it drew; there were around two hundred people attending each night, and this for largely experimental films.  The artists and film buffs I met were open-minded and curious, and there was a high level of enthusiasm about the films at the festival.  Plenty of buzz followed the screenings in the lobby of the Plaza Theatre and at the bar where people gathered — a healthy dialogue about film as art that had a sense of place and purpose to it.  Here, I thought, everyone is encouraged to throw their opinions into the mix.  This openness is very refreshing.

The effect of watching films projected solely from film projectors is hard to describe- the colours seem richer, the projector sounds are hypnotic, and there’s an awareness of the fragility of the medium.

The projected image from film is a beautiful thing to look at.

The 100 Dollar Film Festival knows this secret, and may it continue to thrive.

Pixie Cram

artengine.ca/pixiecram”

“The 100 Dollar film Festival is the only one film festival i could send my super 8 original copy  film without crying all the nights thinking if they are going to take good care of it.

I love project on super 8, they love project on super 8. I love you 100 dollar film festival.

The atlantic ocean separe us, but I could feel the way you love super 8 films.

Last year I was very pleased to participate with my film Película Sudorosa in your festival. In the distance you were you were very very hot with the movie. It was a pleasure to see the film back, open the envelope and see the poster of the festival and the publication that was very cool.

I hope you continue with your success and to send you future festival films.

Yours
Stanley Sunday a.k.a. Davidson a.k.a. David Domingo
www.stanleysunday.com”

By David McGregor

Much has been written so far about the presence of Montreal based filmmaker Alexandre Larose at this years $100 film festival.  Upon viewing his film Ville Marie it becomes immediately apparent that Larose is an artist of extraordinary vision and maturity.

The film centers around footage taken from a super 8 camera that has been dropped from a 60 story building, specially rigged to maintain a backwards looking perspective.  The concept was born from a dream that Larose had in which he was falling from a high-rise facing up throughout the descent.  What follows is a beautifully crafted contemplation of Larose’s image within the suspended experience of descent.

Set to a pallet of starkly contrasting colors and textures we are placed into a dreamlike limbo somewhere between falling and landing for the entire 12 and a half minutes of the film.  Images blend into one another with ease and fluidity to heighten the feeling of suspension.  As a viewer you are floating, sometimes falling sometimes rising and sometimes both at once.  Continually we are brought back to the image of Larose himself dropping the camera from the edge of the building.  His outstretched arms, just after the point of letting go of the camera, are held momentarily as if he is a conductor in mid movement.  We see more and more of his face in close-up, juxtaposed with frames from the descent.  He wears an expression that is not easily decipherable, somewhere between concentration and contemplation, adding to the mystique and reverence of the moment being captured.  These images impress upon the viewer the feeling of intention from the filmmaker, his direct relationship to the event and action being captured.

The accompanying score is matched brilliantly with the film and it’s shifting colors.  There is a continual ambient drone that, though occasionally interrupted, keeps the quickly changing images from becoming frantic or too overwhelming.  In this way, the sound is an integral part of the experience of watching.  It functions as a supportive guide to the imagery presented, giving the viewer an additional avenue of understanding for the subject matter, on an entirely sensory level.

Ville Marie is a reverent exploration of the process of creation and the artist simultaneously interacting with each other.  Larose has attempted to harness in the feeling of suspension the place of the artist within his or her own idea and how their identity is central in their work.

The screening of Larose’s work is a rare opportunity to partake in intelligent and articulate experimental cinema in accessible and exciting festival atmosphere.

Check out the trailer!