Cinema Canada (Jun-Jul 1980)

In a small, unassuming house on a Fredericton side street lives Arthur Makosinski, a filmmaker and electronics wizard who has a personal and distinctive approach to cinema. He began his filmmaking experience in the mid-sixties with a series of short 16mm musical films, which he produced, more or less as a hobby, with his own money. In 1972 he won several awards and this prompted him to move toward more ambitious productions. He has now completed some twenty-five films including Ski Peru and Skateboard Peru, both filmed in Peru in 1978. The first is a twentyeight minute 16mm film concerning an attempt to ski down Mount Huascaran, the highest peak in the Peruvian Andes. Rights to the film have been sold in Canada, Japan, Scotland and England. The latter film is a more experimental one, of the director's skateboard ride down from one of the highest passes in the Andes. Makosinksi’s other recent films include Pierre Jean Louis, a film shot in Lamequé, New Brunswick, about an Acadian man; and, Those Wild, Wild Mushrooms, a dramatic film about collecting wild mushrooms. In this humorous film, the half-Polish, half-Armenian Makosinski, draws upon some of his own cultural traditions. As a latter-day backroom inventor, his creativity has spilled over into his cinematic ventures. He is in the process of building a computer-type electronic synthesizer which he will use to produce the sound tracks for some of his films. During the filming of Skateboard Peru he needed an extremely small, lightweight, 16mm film camera which could be used, for example, on a skateboard. Unable to find one on the market he started work, and the “Dupka” was born. It weighs a mere two pounds and has only three moving parts. Having built a couple of prototypes he hopes to produce a limited number in the future. Makosinski has already found a portion of the funding that he will require. for his next cinematic venture. He plans to make a film about the people of Armenia and Georgia in the Soviet Union (some of whom live to be 130 and 140 years old) and the reasons for their renowned longevity. Ramuna McDonald is a sparkling, energetic Lithuanian who has drawn together a group of imaginative people to form Doomsday, a year-old animation studio in Halifax. Although the name might strike a bleak and foreboding chord in some, Doomsday represents one of the brightest and most active places in the city. Ramuna thinks of herself, principally, as an experimental filmmaker, but her productions include Regan’s Cove (1976), ashort dramatic film setina small Nova Scotia fishing village; and Spirits of an Amber Past (1977), a delightful and captivating documentary of Lithuanian folk art in Canada. She had been interested in animated film for some time. The discovery of an unused animation stand and camera at Dalhousie University was just the spark she needed. The result was Doomsday, which now has five projects in various stages of completion and several more on the go. A heavily-animated film about local artist Sarah Jackson was made with NFB assistance and is ready for release, as is a short vignette about Halifax called Barometer Falling. Perspectives, a short film by Floyd Gillis is a delightful and analytical view of streetscapes and their components. In the can, but as yet unedited, is Ramuna’s experimental dance film called Substance, and on the drawing board is God’s Island which will treat the history and landscape of Prince Edward Island as seen through the art of island painter A.L. Morrison. Eloquent, dialectical, political, intense, serious, and critical are all adjectives which apply to Tom Burger and Bill McKiggen. They have a wellhoned and specific approach to film which is highly political, issue-oriented and eens atlantic film sampler ... A film combining a Russian, Chekhov-style psychodrama with a searing look at an alcohol/coffee dazed group of freaks complete with transvestite ? Could anyone produce such an insane juxtaposition ? Only the Newfoundland Independent Film Makers’ Co-operative (NIFCO) could, and has; and the hilarious result directed by Mike Jones, called Dolly Cake, is only one of a group of films that you can see on an upcoming crossCanada tour. The Atlantic Filmmakers’ Co-operative (AFMCO) has included it in an Atlantic Provinces Film Sampler that it has put together. There will be two, ninety-minute collections of some of the most recent work from east coast filmmakers. Another film by Mike Jones, called Morning, explores the sights and sounds of an awakening St. John’s. Fellow Newfoundlander Mike Riggio has made a short optically-printed experimental film showing two people who pass but never meet. Derek Norman takes a two-minute mystical look at the winter landings of Dovkies in his film Bullbird. One of the highlights of the tour will be Bill McGillivrays hour-long drama called Aerial View. Beautifully acted and beautifully filmed, it is an important film about personal integrity and human relationships set in a Maritime context. Film critic Peter Harcourt has _ written, “Though its range is modest and its tone quiet, Aerial View is a mini-masterpiece —a supreme justification of regional filmmaking and a distinguished example Cinema Canada/27