Erotics of Attention: Films of Ellie Epp
Saturday, February 12, 19:30h
CinemaSpace @ Segal Centre for the Performing Arts
5170 Côte-Ste-Catherine, Montréal, Québec

CinemaSpace is very excited to present four 16mm films by filmmaker/writer/philosopher Ellie Epp in our new series Parallax views. Alongside her films, she will introduce Pictures On Pink Paper, a film by British artist Lis Rhodes. There will be a Q&A after the screening with Ellie Epp.

Ellie Epp was born is La Grace, Alberta, in 1945. After graduating with a B.A. from Queen’s University in Kingston, she went on to study film at the Slade School of Art in London, U.K., where she frequented the London Filmmakers’ Co-op and met avant-garde filmmakers such as Sally Potter, Annabel Nicolson and Lis Rhodes in the early 1970s. While in London she began working on her seminal film Trapline, which she completed in 1976 after returning to Canada. In Vancouver, Epp was instrumental in the founding of the Women’s Interart Co-op in 1975. Epp holds an MA in Philosophy and an interdisciplinary Ph.D from Simon Fraser University specializing in embodied epistemology. Ellie Epp currently lives in San Diego, California, and teaches in the individualized MA program at Goddard College in Vermont.

"I have always shot on reversal. It comes from shooting color slides, which I have liked for the discipline. Framing of a slide is absolute. You can't fix it later. You only have once chance. People have said they can see in my work that I'm coming from still photography. I can see that too, but I think the fixed frame is appropriate to the kind of film I make, that sense of someone standing and staring. The fixed frame says that I've given the stage to the thing I'm looking at, I'm letting it take me. It is a kind of erotic. I think my films are erotic. Or maybe my sense of erotic, which is that kind of complete attention, entranced attention, to nuances of contact and motion. My films when I am able to see them are total pleasure. They're light-fucks. David Rimmer talks about the erotic quality of the film image and the way people often can't stand it to be that, basically can't stand to be fucked in so tender a way. They keep themselves busy having theoretical thoughts about the work. There is theory to be found about this work, but not that kind of theory. I'd like to know more about the body's relation to a film. That's like wanting to know more about the feel I have for a framing, or why color has to be just right or else. A film is so vulnerable to print quality, for instance. Seeing a bad print is appalling. We all know about that but we don't know why." (Ellie Epp, from As If an Interview)

Programme

Followed by Q&A with Ellie Epp
Total running time: 74 minutes
Screening format: 16mm

- Trapline (Ellie Epp, 16mm, colour, sound, 18:00 min., 1976, UK/Canada)
"Filmed in a London swimming pool, ‘Trapline’ is a painterly film conveying a state of limbo - the still pool with the light reflection on the water, the grid of the high glass roof, three figures sitting under the shower, with the torn curtain, voices echoing from the pool walls always slightly out of range, giving one the feeling of being trapped between the unconscious and consciousness.” - Tina Keane for “Readings,” 1977

- Current (Ellie Epp, 16mm, colour, silent, 24fps, 3:00 min., 1986, Canada)
"The conceptual and minimalist aesthetic seen in this film refers to the more complex metaphysical and alchemical transformations which occur when silver is exposed to tungsten light. These currents of light, like Daniel Burren's striped conceptual art, refer to the basic nature of representation while attempting to resist and transform traditional viewing habits or consumption. ‘Current’ is a beautiful meditation on these realities." - Maria Insell

- Notes in Origin (Ellie Epp, 16mm, colour, silent, 24fps, 15:00 min., 1988, Canada)
"Shot in northern Alberta, where the artist grew up, the film consists of ten long-take shots of various lengths divided by black leader bearing a number for each successive shot... ‘notes in origin’ realizes the subtle lyricism that appears in the last image of its predecessor. Here Epp intimates a mysteriously shared and personal complicity of artist and viewer without, however, abandoning that purity and extraordinary elegance that mark Epp as one of the most accomplished of film artist." - Bart Testa, Art Gallery of Ontario catalogue

“What I like in film is precision, slightness, economy of means, delight, inference and a kind of motion that can be followed but not tagged and makes seeing intelligent.” (EE)

- Bright and Dark (Ellie Epp, 16mm, colour, sound, 3:00 min., 1996, Canada/USA)
“It is an abstract exploration of the chemistry dancing inside us like light in sealed dark places.” (EE)

- Pictures On Pink Paper (Lis Rhodes, 16mm, colour, sound, 35:00 min., 1982, UK)
some days
never really existed
days when the sea mist crept up the valley
and hung low over the rising tide
like damp butter muslin
the telling of the tale
is the day after the night
when the pictures show the story
so stories are heard
but seldom seen

"Pictures On Pink Paper is an extraordinary and intriguing film, both in terms of the images and the sound and of its effect which is one of overflowing abundance...[with music by Lindsay Cooper and singing by Dagmar Krause]. [It] is a perfected film and succeeds in making real and tactile the presence of woman/women. The voices interweave to provide a supporting texture. With its intricate and sophisticated aesthetics it is an advance because it manages to bring form and technology together." - Susan Stein, Undercut

About Lis Rhodes:
Lis Rhodes has been at the forefront of British experimental filmmaking since the early 1970s. She studied at the North East London Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art. A strong formal aesthetic has been developed in her films, reflecting her involvement with the debates and practice which emerged from the London Filmmakers' Co-operative, where she was Cinema Curator 1975-6. Early 'expanded' works such as Light Music (1975) fused performance and multi-screen projection with an exploration of the visual qualities of sound. Her analysis of broader political and social questions can be traced to her later films, which combine formal rigour with a passionate critique of issues from nuclear power to domestic violence. As an active campaigner for women's rights, Rhodes was a founder member of Circles, the first women's artist film and video (1979) and was an Arts Advisor to the Greater London Council between 1982 and 1985. She lives and works in London and teaches at Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London.

Tickets are: Adults: $10.00 | Students (full-time w/ ID) / Seniors (65+): $8.00
To purchase tickets in advance, please call the Box Office: 514.739.7944