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The Pacific Cinémathèque Monograph Series was initiated to explore the spectrum of contributions and innovations of Western Canadian filmmakers, videomakers, and fringe media artists. Monograph Number One focuses, fittingly, on David Rimmer, one of Canada's foremost experimental filmmakers.
Praise for Loop, Print, Fade + Flicker:
"There is no better way to start off Pacific Cinémathèque's Monograph Series, celebrating West Coast filmmakers, than with the work of David Rimmer. Mike Hoolboom's essay tantalizes us with a romantic myth that contextualizes David, while Alex MacKenzie's interview lets the artist speak for himself. Both offer a unique insight into the art practice of one of the most influential Canadian filmmakers of the 20th century." (Ann Marie Fleming, independent filmmaker and visual artist)
"For David Rimmer, film is a way of seeing, a way of experiencing life. And there are no two better filmmakers to take us on this journey of coming to understand Rimmer and his practice than Mike Hoolboom and Alex MacKenzie. Before there was even the awareness of a filmmaking culture in Canada, one 'more concerned with dramatics,' Rimmer was breaking the rules as they were being made. Working with film as a canvas, Rimmer's works are technical experimentations incorporating found footage, optical and contact printing and hybrid film and video forms. Like that other Economics major turned self-taught filmmaker, Guy Maddin, Rimmer is a seminal Canadian filmmaker and a must-study for any student of Canadian cinema." (Cecilia Araneda, Executive Director, Winnipeg Film Group)
"... experiencing David Rimmer is more like listening to free form jazz than it is to going to the movies.This is the artist's greatest strength, as well as his most stringent commercial constraint.
"To a large extent, Loop, Print, Fade + Flicker can most profitably be read that way as well. It is more a collection of minutely observed details and fleeting memories than it is a traditional movie monograph." (Canadian Literature)
Praise for Rimmer's work:
"The most exciting non-narrative film I've ever seen ... images become polarized into grainy outlines, like drawings in white or colored chalk which gradually disintegrate and disappear. The film [Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper] resembles a painting floating through time, its subject disappearing and re-emerging in various degrees of abstraction." (Kristina Nordstrom, The Village Voice)
Mike Hoolboom (Essay) is a Canadian film/video artist. He is the author of three books: 'Plague Years' (1998), 'Fringe Film in Canada' (2000), and 'Practical Dreamers' (2008). He's a founding member of the Pleasure Dome screening collective (Toronto) and the experimental film coordinator at Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (Toronto). He's won over 30 international prizes, two lifetime achievement awards, and has enjoyed nine international retrospectives of his work.
Alex MacKenzie (Interview) is a Vancouver media artist working with light projection and expanded cinema. He was the founder and curator of the Edison Electric Gallery of Moving Images, the Blinding Light!! Cinema, and The Vancouver Underground Film Festival. His live media works are presented at festivals and underground screening spaces throughout Europe and North America. He is the co-editor of 'DAMP: Contemporary Vancouver Media Art' (Anvil Press, 2008).
Brian Ganter (Editor) is a writer, educator and filmmaker. He is the former Media Literacy Coordinator of the Pacific Cinematheque's Education Department (Vancouver). In addition to a variety of short film and video works, Brian also wrote and directed the 2008 feature documentary 'Metropole' which has screened internationally in festivals and forums in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Brian is finishing his Ph.D. in cultural studies in the English Department at the University of Washington and teaches media and literacy studies at Capilano University in North Vancouver.