Splice This Super-8 Film Festival...FESTIVAL UPDATE

[Alex]

Splice This

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Here is an article from the 2001 festival.

http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_0...plicethis.html

SPLICE THIS!

Super-8 Film Festival 2001 runs June 22-24, 8pm, at Barcode, 549 College W. $8.
BY GEMMA FILES

Ah, Super-8 -- still the smallest, cheapest, most accessible and easily processed of all currently available film stocks. It allows prospective auteurs to leap even the most prohibitive movie-industry hurdles in a single bound. And, thanks to Toronto's own fourth annual Splice This! Super-8 Film Festival, there's at least one street-level, strictly non-mainstream venue for Splice girls and Splice boys from around the world to screen their efforts.

"We never wanted Splice This! to be like all those other 'Sssh, quiet, the movie's starting' kinds of festivals," explains Laura Cowell, Splice This! co-founder and head programmer. "I mean, it's been four years already, and I can see how other people in the same position might be trying to make things bigger, or more official. But I just want to keep us the dirty, cheeky little sister of all the other festivals, and preserve our original attitude of no-******** entertainment."

"I always look forward to my Splice This! experience," agrees filmmaker Robert Kennedy, whose collected Super-8 work is the centrepiece of Splice This! 2001's opening-night celebration. "Sure, I've had retrospectives of my stuff put on in other places, but I find I almost end up gearing my films for this audience in particular -- it's always such an amazing cross-section of people, some of whom have never even thought about watching an 8mm film before. And granted, it might have something to do with the fact that most people are bombed out of their minds, but when that room explodes with laughter, the magic and the exhilaration are like nothing else I can think of."

As ever, all screenings will be held at Barcode (549 College), and Cowell predicts her current policy of showing only two programs per night will keep the festival's usual chaos to a relative minimum.

"I worked hard to get the festival pared down so it'd be manageable," she says. "But I also wanted people to be able to take the films at their own pace -- step in, maybe listen to a little music from the live bands that'll be playing during some programs, watch the film that's already playing, go in the back and request a film loop, get a drink, go out for a smoke, wander around. Splice This! isn't precious, never has been. But this year, it's gonna be even less precious."

Though its relative ease and cheapness makes Super-8 film the tool of choice for many experimental directors, Cowell dismisses the idea that most movies shot on 8mm are little more than non-narrative visual "doodles."

"Totally untrue," she says. "Yeah, we get people saying, '8mm? That's just somebody wanking off on film,' but those people don't know how wrong they are. We've actually had at least one guy send us Super-8 footage of him 'entertaining himself' in front of a mirror, so believe me, we do know the difference. In fact, stuff like that is why I've always wanted to end up where we are now -- established enough that we can afford to be selective and show films not just because they were shot on 8mm, but because they're actually good films."

A quick tour through Robert Kennedy's work certainly confirms this assessment. The films, which range from three to 11 minutes in length, are inventive, sharp-tongued riffs on various stodgy media conventions.

News From West Virginia, for example, sticks every possible conspiracy theory together in one paranoid, polysexual cartoon rant, while Traffic My Way is an equally bent soap opera about municipal politics and mind control set in "the Twenty-Third Arrondisement of **** ." And Kennedy's latest (finished) project, Dinky Menace, must truly be seen to be believed: populated almost entirely by tiny plastic toy actors, it chomps down satirically hard on the hand that feeds it -- the Canadian independent film scene -- and hangs on for dear life.

Much, in fact, like the Splice This! festival itself.

Says Kennedy, "Splice This! is vibrant, it's immediate and it'll always be one of my favourite festivals -- even though I'm as guilty of complaining bitterly about it as anybody else when things go wrong, which they always do. But it'd be a shame to ever let it mutate into something successful and staid. Not that I really think that's ever likely to happen."

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<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 22, 2003 08:00 AM: Message edited by: Forum-405 ]</font>

[Alex]

This years deadline is coming up.

March 31st is the deadline.

[Alex]

Hi Alessandro:

This is the best part of my job. I would like to screen 'The Alphabet Song' at the 6th Annual Splice This! festival. Your work will be part of an outdoor screening on Saturday, June 21 at 10pm. The festival runs from Friday, June 20 to Sunday, June 22 at The Tranzac Club, 292 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto.

The full program will be posted at splicethis.com very soon! Please respond asap to this email to confirm receipt and if you have any film stills from your work (2 stills max.) please forward them to me.

And thanks for making your film!
Laura Cowell
Festival Director/Programmer

[img]graemlins/smarty.gif[/img]

[Alex]

OUTDOOR SCREENING!

Cool!

[Alex]

Gosh, I wish someone would videotape the actual screening of my film when they show it outside on the big wall, er screen, er wall.

[Alex]

Wow, I can't believe I let a couple festivals go by without entering.

Too make up for it, I entered more than one this year. I reserve the option to reveal how many I entered in the event I strike out,

[Alex]

Splice This is this Weekend!

http://www.splicethis.com/home.php