Cinema Canada (Aug 1979)

gainst Ross McLaren, but she’s sick and tired of back-stabbing and second-hand complaints. If anyone has anything to say against her, she wants it said to her face. She denied pirating the festival and claimed that Ross McLaren walked away from it in a fit of temper. Her husband, Richard, directed it in its second year because he thought it too good an idea to let die. Richard confirmed this. Of the reasons for Ross McLaren’s fit of temper, he would only say, “I can’t imagine.” Sheila Hill added that Ross McLaren was on last year’s committee and this year was invited to organizational meetings and to give a seminar. She said he never showed at the meetings and refused to teach without payment. Nobody was paid for teaching at the festival. Sheila Hill said that the budget would allow for no more than travel expenses and that she, herself, had been working for months for “less than a secretary makes.” She described a few of the things she accomplished from her impossibly tiny, cluttered office. They included dickering with a hostile Philippine government for a passport for S8 feature-maker Domingo Arong and bringing the festival in on budget. But she’d had enough. Too much work for too little money. If she can’t get a decent raise next year, she said, the director’s job is open to anyone who wants it. She explained that the prescreening that upset the Funnel resulted from 250 entries, 100 more than last year and far more than could be screened during the festival. She added that the prizes were there to attract more and better entries and to give reward to merit. She pointed out that the top prize, $500 from Carling-O’Keefe Breweries, went to Funnel member Patrick Jenkins for his art/experimental film, Fluster. She didn’t see him returning his prize, though he was welcome to, if he wanted. a -1 TYPE CL NZ ra Me 6 -SUPE ROM Fe. 6 We WWWEOTA PRs wien WH, oan. wa en “lhl \ r Q a O Ze) “>, SLAIDE sTREE po oe TORONTO, 2 SD ~ S 4 S OUND cartRIOo 24/Cinema Canada She has a point. However, there is something in the manner of Fluster’s winning... Yana Sterbak, formerly of the Gallery Optica in Montreal and a judge at this year’s festival, explained that the entries were divided into categories: Art/Experimental, Fiction/Narrative and Fact/Documentary. The six judges were paired into three categories. They did the prescreening and presented their award candidates to the other judges for argument and vote. Prizes were distributed according to the judges’ best guess at who needed what. Ms. Sterbak’s favorite film was Fluster. Nobody else thought it worth a prize. She won them over with a “brilliant half-hour speech” in its defence, but now she’s left with thoughts of what would have happened with an inarticulate judge and with a confirmation of her belief that people aren’t open enough to experimental films. Like Sheila Hill, she thought that the shortage of art/experimental entries from all over the world could be explained partially by the fact that such works are among the first things to die when depressions set in. Fluster is a six-minute, black-and-white film that uses a single light attached to a rushing, swirling camera to explore the upper storey of a deserted house. These sequences are intercut with shots of something in a corner that is made of cloth. It falls and falls and never lands. On first viewing the effect is upsetting and, somehow, reminiscent of grim, local family homicides. Jim Piper’s Terminal and Rattlesnake Roundup, by Charles Glen Daniels, each received $500 from the festival. Terminal is a drama about the’ struggles of a totally downtrodden and naive housewife to. enroll in and succeed at a university art course. Its popularity with the audience seems to rest largely on its subject matter. Rattlesnake Roundup depicts a puttingrattlesnakes-in-a-bag contest held in Texas. It features great sequences of calmness in the face of snakebite and confrontation between those who think the roundup is ecologically harmful and those who don’t. It is an excellent example of unobtrusive filming in confined spaces. Other prizes went to: Equivocation, which received an Elmo two-track projector; Graffitus, a Bell & Howell sound camera; Halfway to Heaven, a Magnetone striping machine. Halfway to Heaven is a skydiving film by Alex Hussel of Toronto with members of his skydiving club. It is not a polished film, but the sequences of dusk jumping are beautiful and sinister. Some sharp-eyed distributor should have a look at this one. A $100 gift certificate from Halmar Enterprises went to Lensound by Robert Attanasio. Five $100 gift certificates from Magnetone Industries went to One Room Battle Ground, Brain’s General History , One Hour, Twenty Minutes, Bar Rock and Delay. The Jury Chairman’s Award of a Kodak sound projector went to Azrael by Andrew Doucette. These and the other films screened provided the full range of S8 work, from personal diary films through exercises in preparation for 16mm and 35mm to fully realized professional work. The range of subjects, imagination and polish prove once again that S8 is somewhat better than “alive and well.” Will Sheila Hill resign as director? Will the Funnel group work for their kind of festival? Tune in next year. In a way, it doesn’t matter; the festival will almost surely survive. But Sheila Hill does a good job. She deserves her raise. And the festival group could keep the festival balanced. A balanced festival is the microcosm that reflects the macrocosm is becoming more important every year. oO