Stephen Broomer (b. 1984) is a filmmaker and film preservationist. He holds a BFA in Film and Video Production, an MA in Film Studies, and a PhD in Communication & Culture, his dissertation a study of the origins of the Canadian avant-garde film. He has given public presentations of his film restoration work at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Canadian Film Institute, and his own films have screened at Views from the Avant-Garde, TIFF Wavelengths, and the Berlin Directors Lounge.
Directors Lounge Screening presents a collaborative project of twenty independent, experimental filmmakers: The Space Between Cities. Presented by Berlin Filmmaker Insa Langhorst.
Last year, Salise Hughes founder of EXcinema, Seattle, commissioned an exceptional project to bring together filmmakers, resulting in twenty films by international experimental filmmakers spread across four continents which were then combined as one feature length road film. The Spaces Between Cities is a collaboration made in the form of an exquisite corpse. Each film connects randomly to the next by way of a series of prompts creating a continuous road trip, or journey that will connect these different parts of the world.
Dates:
Thursday, February 25, 2016 - 21:00 to Friday, February 26, 2016 - 22:55
In an experimental approach to film, the mirror as a reflective device is used more in its concrete dimension that in the metaphorical: the mirror surface denounces the cinematographic transparency, the famous "window to the world" dear to André Bazin and manifests its power of illusion, infinitely poetic.
This programme will give rise to various speculations about the self-portrait, memory, landscape, but also on the presence of mirrors in Hollywood movies that reveals a double or the narcissistic staging full of doubts and anguish.
Dates:
Wednesday, February 24, 2016 - 18:00 to Thursday, February 25, 2016 - 17:55
The Loop Collective is pleased to celebrate our 20th anniversary this year with a series of events designed to highlight our collective's history and development. Since our inception in 1996 with four members, Loop has contributed a significant role to Toronto's experimental filmmaking community through many programming endeavours and touring events from our 30+ cumulative members over the course of the past two decades. We invite you to join us on Thursday February 4, 2016, at Innis Town Hall, for the launch of a newly self-published monograph, featuring essays by Kelly Egan, Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof, R. Bruce Elder, Kathryn Elder, and a chart by John Porter, alongside posters, photographs and artist pages. This limited edition publication will be available with our recent DVD, Selected Works by the Loop Collective, distributed via CFMDC and Re:Voir.
Compilation of experimental cinema and artist-made videos selected from the participants of the call made by the publisher. The DVD includes a printed booklet with analytical texts on the works selected and also critical essays, written by specialists and programmers.
Contents:
- Stephen Broomer Spirits in Season (16 mm, 12 min., 2012, Canada)
A world premiere presentation. EXcinema commissioned twenty films by international experimental filmmakers spread across four continents to create one feature length road film. The Spaces Between Cities is a collaboration made in the form of an exquisite corpse. Each film connects randomly to the next by way of a series of prompts creating a continuous road trip, or journey that will connect these different parts of the world. Shooting locations include: Seattle, the cascade mountain range, WA; Portland, OR; Porta Costa, San Jose, Colma, New Almaden, Huntington Drive in L.A.
Dates:
Tuesday, December 8, 2015 - 19:00 to Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - 18:55
Iris Collective's latest instalment of the Collective Unconcious series brings Toronto's Loop Collective to Vancouver! This is a FREE event!
Iris Film Collective and Cineworks are excited to present films by the Loop Collective in celebration of the Toronto-based experimental film collective’s 20th anniversary. This selection of works generates a series of interrelated conversations between purity and hybridity, nature and technology, matter and memory, rhythm and stillness and spans a diversity of forms, including 35mm, 16mm, Super-8, video, still photography and photograms.
In the past half-decade, Toronto-based Stephen Broomer has established himself as one of the most prolific and poetic experimental filmmakers of the day. His works seamlessly traverse the mediums of photochemical film and digital video, exploiting the particularities of each and bringing them together to create densely-layered, highly textural moving canvases. Not content to fall into formulaic practice, he continues to expand upon his cinematic vocabulary with each work, informed by greats such as Brakhage yet distinct in approach and methodology. Balagan and MassArt Film Society are pleased to co-present a near complete retrospective of Stephen Broomer's films to date.
Dates:
Wednesday, October 21, 2015 - 20:00 to Thursday, October 22, 2015 - 19:55
Mono No Aware would like to invite you to join us for a special screening presentation with friend and film historian Stephen Broomer. Come and see a selection of inspiring 16mm films created over the last 5 years. These moving images will follow a surface treatment workshop led by the artist where he'll share some of his surface techniques with participants. This is a unique opportunity to share the workspace with this artist from Toronto and also experience his films in person. Broomer's work has screened at Views from the Avant-Garde, TIFF Wavelengths, the Berlin Directors Lounge and is the subject of a new release by Ottawa: Canadian Film Institute * Institut canadien du film, a collection of essays edited by Scott Birdwise and Tom McSorley, entitled "The Transformable Moment: The Films of Stephen Broomer." 2014.
Dates:
Sunday, October 18, 2015 - 19:00 to Monday, October 19, 2015 - 18:55
- Snowbirds (Lorenzo Gattorna, 2015, 16mm to HD, color, sound, 8:30 min) The onset of northern winter transitions towards the solace of southern latitudes. A very dense nostalgia nestles into the former as a strange beauty surfaces upon the latter. However, what remains constant across these atmospheres is a forecast for the near future, wherein a certain unease surrounds the establishment of permanence and eventual passersby.
The aim of the program is to create a bridge between the “Western” and the “Eastern” contemporary avant-garde film discourse. “We picked a few of the most memorable North American avant-garde films made in the last few years and looked for Eastern European ones which somehow refer or connect to them by following a similar trend or technique.”
As the overall picture of the contemporary avant-garde film scene is extremely complex, each selection is inevitably subjective and reflects the taste and preferences of the curators.
Dates:
Thursday, May 28, 2015 - 18:00 to Friday, May 29, 2015 - 17:55
