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Ocean Falls (Ryan Ermacora/Jessica Johnson, 2015)

Ryan Ermacora & Jessica Johnson

Congratulations to SCA film alumni Ryan Ermacora and Jessica Johnson, who had a retrospective screening at the Art Gallery of Ontario's Jackman Hall of some of their short filmworks as part of the Vertical Features screening series, which is a project by Jesse Cumming, Olivia Wong, and Dan Browne. Here's the opening from the screening's 'program notes,' titled Shy Appreciation, by writer, film critic, and and curator Steffanie Ling:

Ryan Ermacora and Jessica Johnson often take a boat, or a long drive, to make their films. They flatter the places they go, weaving together patiently framed shots of traversed waters, where the sky touches yellow and brown curves in the earth, and structures are forfeited to nature. They go to these places with names like Ocean Falls and Empire Valley, names that try to counter their overt rural dullness. The duo set out to test the sturdiness of natural beauty through the introduction of keepers, storytellers, or quiet inhabitants. Gradually, local contexts begin to leak in. The filmmakers’ theses are revealed, that in a contest for dominant narrative over the cultural memory of these places, mythology and imagery are steadily challenged by historical materialism.

Read the rest of the text HERE.  

 

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