Installation Art Archives | Otaku No Culture

The NFB at Vancouver Film Festival 2023. Premiering Four Special Works

Now that this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival is in full swing, we offer a list of what The NFB is presenting.

The NFB has four special works now playing at the 2023 Vancouver International Film Festival.

First up is the feature-length documentary WaaPaKe: Tomorrow, directed by Vancouver-based filmmaker Dr. Jules Arita Koostachin. This work is important because of what was discovered years ago, bodies of children in unmarked graves by a normal school. The public outcry was huge, and to find answers, viewers will have to watch this.

From the Press Release:

For generations, the suffering of residential school Survivors has radiated outward, affecting Indigenous families and communities. Children, parents, and grandparents have contended with the unspoken trauma, manifested in the lingering effects of colonialism: addiction, emotional abuse, and broken relationships.

In her efforts to help the children of Survivors, including herself and her family, Koostachin makes the hard decision to step in front of the camera and take part in the circle of truth. She is joined in this courageous act of solidarity by members of her immediate household, as well as an array of voices from Indigenous communities across Turtle Island. Moving beyond burying intergenerational trauma, WaaPaKe is an invitation to unravel the tangled threads of silence and unite in collective freedom and power.

Special to this year is an installation art piece of Meneath. It’ll be part of the VIFF Signals program and is based on Métis creator Terril Calder’s Meneath: The Mirrors of Ethics, a winner of the New Voices Award at New York’s Tribeca Festival. For our review of this work, please visit this link.

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On Stacey Tenenbaum’s Scrap, Tricks for Reuse and Where to Watch It.

Stacey Tenenbaum believes losing a lot of our history and cultural memory when things in our lives are simply scrapped rather than being preserved in her documentary.

Rio Theatre
Vancouver, BC
Saturday Oct. 22 3:15pm

Stacey Tenenbaum has been touring Canada during Waste Reduction Week, and attending special screenings of her documentary, Scrap, to answer those questions about what it means to not only recycle, but also explain humanity’s relationship with the objects made long ago. It’s not about reusing what’s found in a scrapyard for a movie, like Mad Max: Fury Road, or finding new uses of smaller industrial objects, like steampunk cosplay. I’m sure people scour the junkyards for those antiques needed when a film or tv show requires something from a bygone age when it can’t be found in an antique store.

But there’s more to this movie than meets the eye in terms of how old junk is reused. They have longetivity to them, and that’s one key thing to remember. Also, some of these items do more than bring out feelings of nostalgia. Also, there’s an intrinsic beauty not everyone can recognise. Whether it’s to be used in installation art or for residing in, I adored every careful possibility that’s been put into this work.

I feel what this filmmaker offers is very meditative, and I had an opportunity to correspond with her about this work:

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Canadian Indie “Stress Position” Aims to be a Genre Bender, An Interview

The independently produced Canadian film Stress Position spent most of last year touring the film festivals gaining accolades and it’s now available for a wider audience to examine as a video release.

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

The independently produced Canadian film Stress Position spent most of last year touring the film festivals gaining accolades and it’s now available for a wider audience to examine as a video release. In North America, it can be either purchased as a DVD (complete with deleted scenes and commentaries) or streamed online through VOD.

This movie owes its debt to a strong group of collaborators to make it an art house success In special screenings across Canada, film-makers A.J. Bond and Amy Belling were on hand to answer questions and to connect with viewers in order to discuss the more intricate details afterwards.

“Very early on in the process of making this film, the plot veered into territory we did not expect. Although we kept a lot of the pivotal torture scenes the same, the overall kind of themes went in a much more personal meta direction,” reveals Bond.

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