KINO FOTOGRAFIC: EXPERIMENTAL FILMS BY PHILLIP BARKER

Tuesday 29 April at 7 pm
admission voluntary

We cordially invite you to a special screening of experimental films by award-winning Canadian director Phillip Barker. The retrospective screening of his short films will take place on Tuesday, April 29 at 7 pm at the Fotografic Gallery. The evening will also include a discussion, as the artist will be present in person.

Phillip Barker’s short films return to the origins of cinema, where a blend of stage magic and strange machines collude to produce new marvels of seeing and being seen. His meticulously crafted shorts are dramatic in form, essayistic by inclination, short on words and long on technically virtuosic visual showpieces. Gravity is regularly upended, different gender universes collide and collapse, characters float over landscapes, or else participate in esoteric rituals of sex and power.

Phillip Barker is a filmmaker, production designer, mandolin player and beekeeper. His own films have won many awards including the Centre Pompidou Award at the Venice ISFF, Most Creative Film Award of the 42nd Festival Du Nouveau Cinéma, Montreal, and Best Short Film awards at the Atlantic Film Festival, the 14th IFF, Bratislava, The Melbourne International Film Festival, Australia and VIFF, Vancouver.
Recently a retrospective of his work was presented in France at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, the Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema, Toronto’s TIFF Lightbox, the Danish Film Institute and the Canadian Film Institute. The retrospective was accompanied by a 200 page book Strange Machines, The Films of Phillip Barker by writer and film maker Mike Hoolboom.
Phillip’s new film EarthWorm was chosen as Canada’s Top Ten by The Toronto International Film Festival. www.phillipbarker.com